(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Toothless treaties won't solve cross-border pollution – Daily Montanan [1] ['More From Author', 'February', 'George Ochenski'] Date: 2024-02-09 When ARCO bought the Anaconda Company, it’s likely its interest was in the company’s vast assets in land and minerals — not Butte’s Berkeley Pit. Assuming the environmental sins of the past would go unaddressed, as was the standard operating procedure back then, ARCO decided to simply throw the switch to shut off the massive pumps that kept the Berkeley Pit from flooding, and cease the mining operations. But soon toxic brown water began to fill the bottom of the pit, a 1,000 feet below the surface of the surrounding land, and it hasn’t stopped since. Undeterred by what it didn’t see as a problem, ARCO likewise shut down the Anaconda smelter because you don’t need a smelter if you’re not mining copper to feed it. The “gold” for ARCO was in Anaconda’s copper mines in Chile, not Montana. Until that is, Chile nationalized those copper mines ARCO’s next surprise came on Dec. 11, 1980, when President Jimmy Carter signed the newly-passed Superfund Act into law. Suddenly, ARCO’s acquisition didn’t look so great since the law mandated that those who buy industrial sites are deemed the “responsible party” for cleaning up those environmental disasters. Many decades and hundreds of millions of dollars later, ARCO continues to struggle with its responsibilities and Montana continues to wait for the fulfillment of its constitutional mandate that “all lands disturbed by the taking of natural resources shall be reclaimed.” Comes now Glencore to the enormous environmental disaster created by Teck Resources — including its significant cross-border pollution into the Kootenai River. So far, the feeble efforts by our federal government to deal with the on-going pollution have failed miserably. The mining goes on, the drainage continues, and the pollution follows the water downhill across the border into Montana. Anyone who has been to this once-lovely area of “Beautiful British Columbia” can attest to vast environmental destruction and the deadly consequences of the significant selenium pollution. Even though a stream may sparkle, don’t waste a lot of time looking for the rising trout. As reported , selenium “accumulates in fish and bird ovaries, which leads to fewer eggs hatching, animals hatching with birth defects, and young that die before they can reproduce.” Despite the fact the U.S. and Canada have had a Boundary Water Treaty since 1909, there is no credible enforcement mechanism that seems to be working — and without enforcement treaties and laws are just words on paper. Unfortunately, Canada doesn’t have a Superfund law to hold polluters responsible for the environmental disasters they leave in the wake of their industrial profiteering — and Canadian mining companies, sad to say, are notorious for creating environmental disasters. What it means for the future of that cross-border pollution is dismal indeed. It’s unlikely the Swiss corporation is willing to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars it’s going to take to clean up the Elk Valley mines. But perhaps Canada can learn from the mistakes we made in allowing extractive industries to walk away from their environmental destruction — and hold those industrial polluters financially responsible for costly but necessary remediation. In light of a toothless Border Treaty, what’s really needed, both for us, them, and the Kootenai River, is a Canadian version of Superfund. George Ochenski is a longtime Helena resident, an environmental activist and Montana’s longest-running columnist. [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2024/02/09/toothless-treaties-wont-solve-cross-border-pollution/ Published and (C) by Daily Montanan Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/