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Teck Fined $2.2 Million for Polluting Columbia River, Company says Improvements Made Since 2019 Incident by Gordon Hoekstra Vancouver Sun, January 11, 2023

On Wednesday, the company said it has stepped up preventive maintenance
and repaired primary and backup diversion valves to prevent a reoccurrence.

B.C. mining giant Teck Resources Ltd. says it has strengthened control measures and training following an acidic wastewater spill in 2019 into the Columbia River which resulted in an order this week to pay $2.2 million in penalties.

"We take this incident very seriously and are committed to continuous improvement and enhancing our environmental performance," Thompson Hickey, general manager, Teck Trail operations, said in a written statement Wednesday.

This week, Teck Metals Ltd. was ordered to pay a federal fine of $2 million and a provincial penalty of $200,000 after earlier pleading guilty in B.C. provincial court to two charges under the federal Fisheries Act and one charge under the provincial Environmental Management Act.

The penalties stem from a spill of 2.5 million litres of acidic solution into the Columbia River from a fertilizer plant at Teck's manufacturing operation in Trail in southeastern B.C.

In a written statement, Environment and Climate Change Canada said its enforcement officers' investigation determined the discharge into the Columbia River resulted from numerous operational errors.

"The company's failure to exert due diligence contributed to the duration and extent of the spill, said Environment Canada. "Much of the discharged effluent was below pH 4, which is deleterious, or harmful to fish."

Teck is a major industrial player in British Columbia with a workforce of 7,100. The company operates four coal mines in southeastern B.C., a copper mine near Kamloops and a processing facility in Trail that smelts and refines zinc and lead. The Trail facility also produces precious metals, chemicals and fertilizer products.

On Wednesday, the company said it has stepped up preventive maintenance and repaired primary and backup diversion valves to prevent a reoccurrence.

Teck said it has spent more than $10 million since 2019 on the Trail operations to protect the aquatic environment.

The most recent penalty brings federal pollution penalties paid since 2011 to nearly $67 million for Teck, almost all of those in British Columbia.

The penalties include a $60 million fine issued in 2021 for contaminating waterways in the Elk Valley in southeastern B.C. from its coal mines' waste rock.

Teck has also paid more than $1 million in B.C. environmental penalties since late 2017, according to a provincial registry.

Andrew Gage, a staff lawyer for West Coast Environmental Law, a B.C.-based group that supports environmental lawsuits, said the $2 million federal fine was welcome.

However, Gage noted that Teck and many other industrials facilities in the province are in chronic non-compliance of environmental rules.

"B.C. has generally not been able to get them in compliance. The federal government's involvement is welcome from that point of view," he said.

For this recent penalty, Environment Canada noted that areas where Teck Metals Ltd. failed to exert due diligence included inadequate training, lack of protocols and procedures, lack of awareness and knowledge, and non-functioning equipment.

The federal agency said the Columbia River contains mountain whitefish, rainbow trout, walleye, brook trout, bull trout, cutthroat trout, white sturgeon and other species of fish.

Teck said a third-party independent environmental impact assessment determined the 2019 incident did not have any long-term impact on fish or the environment given the duration of the incident and the nature of the discharge.

Environment Canada said the company's name will be added to the Environmental Offenders Registry.

Among Teck penalties listed on the federal registry is also a $1.425 million fine for discharging effluent toxic to fish into a creek from a water treatment facility at the company's Line Creek coal mine in southeastern B.C.

Also on the registry is a $3 million penalty ordered in 2016 after Teck pleaded guilty in provincial court to releasing waste water "deleterious" to fish into the Columbia River. Environment Canada said it investigated multiple releases of effluent into the Columbia River of about 125 million litres between 2013 and 2015.

At the time, Teck also agreed to make improvement to prevent future incidents expected to cost about $50 million.

Related Pages:
Teck Smelter Spills Chemical Solution into Columbia River by Brady Strachan, CBC News, 2/1/14