A coalition of indigenous tribes from Alaska have taken legal action against British Columbia over a gold mine near the border in the northwestern area of the province.The Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission, which represents 15 tribes in the state, has claimed that waste from Seabridge Gold's Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell mine project could impact bodies of water within their territory.BC-based environmental law charity Ecojustice recently filed a judicial review on behalf of the SEITC and Skeenawild Conservation Trust challenging the BC Environmental Assessment Office's decision to grant KSM "substantially started" status. Under the province's Environmental Assessment Act, once a project receives its environmental certificate, it must begin taking shape within a certain amount of time. If it fails to do so, it loses the certificate and must be re-evaluated. The plaintiffs argued that because KSM's certificate was granted prior to the United Nations' Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Article 26 of which says indigenous people have rights to land and resources which they traditionally inhabited, the oversight body did not have all the information needed to make a proper decision. Just days earlier, the Tsetsaut Skii km Lax Ha Nation filed a similar challenge."The environmental assessment for the KSM mine is over 10 years old," Ecojustice lawyer Rachel Gutman argued. "The lawsuit says that during this time, the company failed to substantially start the project, as required by the Environmental Assessment Act. There are good reasons why the law has expiration dates for environmental assessments, including ensuring that projects do not proceed based on outdated information. This is particularly important in this case due to the rapidly changing climate in Northern BC."In a press release, Seabridge Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk argued that his company had done nothing wrong, noting that its application for substantially started designation was "widely supported by the communities of northwest British Columbia, including Indigenous communities."Among them are the Nisga'a Lisims Government, the Tahltan Central Government, the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs Office, the Village of Hazelton, the District of New Hazelton, the Town of Smithers, the District of Stewart, the City of Terrace, and the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine.Fronk made it clear that, "Seabridge plans to participate in defending the validity of the 'substantially started' determination, and will be conferring with its legal counsel on the ways in which it may do so."Even if the court challenge is successful, the BC EAO could still confer the same status as before.The plaintiffs argued that the project, located near Stewart, BC, would dirty the Unuk River in Alaska. Upon hearing their claims, Seabridge told the CBC that the site was in the Canadian Nass River watershed and would not drain into any American waterway.In a statement to the Western Standard, however, SEITC pushed back on Seabridge's assertion, arguing that the mine site is, in fact, located within the Unuk River watershed."In the EA documents, Seabridge Gold states that the water treatment plant, also located on the Unuk River watershed, would have the potential to release metals into the Unuk River," Communications Director Sonia Luokkala said, citing Chapter 15, Page 141 of the report. "The water treatment plant would need to treat up to 119,000 gallons of water per minute — a treatment throughput rate that has never been attempted at any other mine anywhere in the world."
A coalition of indigenous tribes from Alaska have taken legal action against British Columbia over a gold mine near the border in the northwestern area of the province.The Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission, which represents 15 tribes in the state, has claimed that waste from Seabridge Gold's Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell mine project could impact bodies of water within their territory.BC-based environmental law charity Ecojustice recently filed a judicial review on behalf of the SEITC and Skeenawild Conservation Trust challenging the BC Environmental Assessment Office's decision to grant KSM "substantially started" status. Under the province's Environmental Assessment Act, once a project receives its environmental certificate, it must begin taking shape within a certain amount of time. If it fails to do so, it loses the certificate and must be re-evaluated. The plaintiffs argued that because KSM's certificate was granted prior to the United Nations' Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Article 26 of which says indigenous people have rights to land and resources which they traditionally inhabited, the oversight body did not have all the information needed to make a proper decision. Just days earlier, the Tsetsaut Skii km Lax Ha Nation filed a similar challenge."The environmental assessment for the KSM mine is over 10 years old," Ecojustice lawyer Rachel Gutman argued. "The lawsuit says that during this time, the company failed to substantially start the project, as required by the Environmental Assessment Act. There are good reasons why the law has expiration dates for environmental assessments, including ensuring that projects do not proceed based on outdated information. This is particularly important in this case due to the rapidly changing climate in Northern BC."In a press release, Seabridge Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk argued that his company had done nothing wrong, noting that its application for substantially started designation was "widely supported by the communities of northwest British Columbia, including Indigenous communities."Among them are the Nisga'a Lisims Government, the Tahltan Central Government, the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs Office, the Village of Hazelton, the District of New Hazelton, the Town of Smithers, the District of Stewart, the City of Terrace, and the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine.Fronk made it clear that, "Seabridge plans to participate in defending the validity of the 'substantially started' determination, and will be conferring with its legal counsel on the ways in which it may do so."Even if the court challenge is successful, the BC EAO could still confer the same status as before.The plaintiffs argued that the project, located near Stewart, BC, would dirty the Unuk River in Alaska. Upon hearing their claims, Seabridge told the CBC that the site was in the Canadian Nass River watershed and would not drain into any American waterway.In a statement to the Western Standard, however, SEITC pushed back on Seabridge's assertion, arguing that the mine site is, in fact, located within the Unuk River watershed."In the EA documents, Seabridge Gold states that the water treatment plant, also located on the Unuk River watershed, would have the potential to release metals into the Unuk River," Communications Director Sonia Luokkala said, citing Chapter 15, Page 141 of the report. "The water treatment plant would need to treat up to 119,000 gallons of water per minute — a treatment throughput rate that has never been attempted at any other mine anywhere in the world."
