A two-year process that was stalling cleanup efforts at a mine upstream of Southeast Alaska has come to a close.
It extracted zinc, copper and lead in the 1950s. And ever since, rusty, acidic runoff from the mine’s tunnels and leftover waste rock has been flowing into a tributary of the Taku River, a major salmon-producing waterway.
“For 65 years it’s been leaking acid mine drainage pretty much unabated into the watershed,” said Guy Archibald, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission. The British Columbia government has said it’s committed to cleanup efforts. But in recent years, the process has been held up in court. In 2016, a company that had hoped to get the mine going again, Chieftain Metals, filed for bankruptcy and was put into receivership.
Acidic runoff from the Tulsequah Chief Mine mine’s tunnels and leftover waste rock has been flowing into a tributary of the Taku River for years. This image was taken in 2017. “This is a long time coming and I’m glad to see it,” he said.Though British Columbia’s mining ministry released a
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