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Newsworthy
Mining operations along the Elk River near Sparwood, B.C. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
CSKT Urges Intervention as B.C. Coal Mining Pollutants Increase Tribes request bi-national involvement on Elk, Kootenai rivers in advance of Obama-Trudeau meeting
BY TRISTAN SCOTT OF THE BEACON
On March 10, President Obama will host a state dinner at the White House for newly elected Canadian Prime Minis- ter Justin Trudeau, the rst time such an event has occurred for a Canadian leader in nearly two decades.
The historic gathering between the two liberal leaders could signal a water- shed moment for the conservation world, which is on high alert as stakeholders attempt to ensure that a suite of trans- boundary natural resource measures gure prominently on the menu, includ- ing a call by Montana’s largest tribal gov- ernment to address concerns over mining contaminants in the state’s waterways.
On both sides of the border, the grow- ing wish list of environmental measures is unspooling rapidly.
For Trudeau and the British Columbia
conservation contingent, the accord could be a chance to follow through on former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s 2002 intention to add the “missing piece” to the transboundary Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, created in 1932.
“Americans and Canadians should be proud to have initiated the world’s rst international peace park,” said Harvey Locke, co-founder and strategic advisor of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conserva- tion Initiative. “Protecting the ‘missing piece’ in the Flathead is one of the most obvious major conservation gains avail- able in the world today.”
For Obama and the Montana-enviro set, the dinner a ords an opportunity to build on protections furnished on the U.S. side of the North Fork Flathead River last year.
“We were thrilled when Congress
passed the North Fork Watershed Pro- tection Act last year, which protected the U.S. side of the Flathead from mining,” said Dave Hadden, of Headwaters Mon- tana. “We hope that this dinner could lead to a signi cant announcement to further transboundary conservation in the Crown of the Continent.”
And on the Flathead Indian Reser- vation, leaders of the Confederated Sal- ish and Kootenai Tribes are pushing the government to refer an impaired trans- boundary watershed surrounding Lake Koocanusa to the International Joint Commission.
In a Feb. 11 letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, CSKT Chairman Vernon Finley requested that the IJC establish an International Watershed Board to exam- ine and report on the existing water qual- ity in the Elk and Kootenai River water- sheds, with equal representation across
the international boundary from tribes, rst nations, agencies, and stakeholders. The Tribes made the request for bi-na- tional oversight pursuant to the Bound- ary Waters Treaty of 1909, which estab- lished the IJC to help prevent and resolve disputes about the use and quality of
transboundary water resources.
The CSKT’s concerns are shared by numerous stakeholders, and center on increasing amounts of coal waste byprod- ucts leaching into the heavily mined Elk River and its many tributaries, which drain into two bodies of water shared by B.C. and Montana – Lake Koocanusa and the Kootenai River – both of which are showing increased levels of mining contaminants like selenium in the mus-
cle tissue of sh species.
There are currently ve coal mines in
the Elk River Valley causing toxic pollu- tion, all of which have launched expansion
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FEBRUARY 24, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM