Canada's Environment Minister Sued Over Unreported Mine Waste

The public interest law firm Ecojustice filed the lawsuit in federal court on behalf of MiningWatch Canada and Great Lakes United, an international citizens coalition that works to preserve and restore the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River ecosystem on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.

The complaint alleges that Minister John Baird broke the law when he directed mining companies to ignore their legal responsibility to report millions of kilos of pollution from their operations under the National Pollutant Release Inventory.

Tailings management facility at the Cameco uranium mine on Key Lake, Saskatchewan (Photo courtesy Cameco)

"The law is clear - mining companies in Canada are legally required to report the amount of chemicals they are releasing into the environment," said Justin Duncan, staff lawyer with Ecojustice.

"Instead, at the direction of the Minister of Environment, these companies continue to flout the law by not reporting massive amounts of toxic tailings they dump into our environment each year," Duncan said.

By contrast, the U.S. government has required mining companies to report the amounts of pollutants generated by their operations under the U.S. Toxics Release Inventory, TRI, since 1998, he said.

Despite the fact that the U.S. mining industry comprises only 72 of the 23,566 industrial facilities filing TRI reports to the U.S. government, Duncan cites government figures showing that in 2005 the mines released more than 530 million kilos of pollutants - accounting for 27 percent of all pollutants reported across the United States.

Duncan says mine tailings and waste rock accounted for more than 97 percent of the total pollutants reported by the U.S. mining industry.

It is the data on these pollutants that are being withheld from the Canadian public, the groups claim.

"Given the enormous amounts of carcinogens and heavy metals like lead and mercury in U.S. mine tailings, it is absurd that Canadian mines are being let off the hook," said Joan Kuyek from MiningWatch Canada.

The 80 metal mining facilities that reported to Canada's National Pollutant Release Inventory in 2006 were from: Ontario(33), Quebec(19), BC(9), Manitoba(6), Saskatchewan(6), Newfoundland(3), New Brunswick(2), Nunavut(2), the groups say.

The Hemlo gold mine on the north shore of Lake Superior (Photo courtesy Turnstone)

"From Smithers to Voisey's Bay, Canadians have a right to know what - and how much - pollution the mining industry is releasing into our air, water, and soil," said Kuyek.

"Two weeks ago the Minister of the Environment stood on the shore of Lake Superior with the Prime Minster as they announced the creation of the world's largest freshwater marine park," said John Jackson of Great Lakes United. "At the same time he protects the mining industry by hiding the toxic pollution that could spoil this ecosystem for generations."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the creation of Canada’s newest National Marine Conservation Area on October 25. More than 10,000 square kilometers of Lake Superior, including the lakebed, islands and shorelands, will become the largest freshwater marine protected area in the world.

On the Ontario side of the lake, there are five gold mines and one palladium mine in production. Hundreds of abandoned mines are scattered throughout the area, according to a 2001 report by the nonprofit group Northwatch.

The active mines on Canada's Superior coast are among the country’s largest, including the open pit and underground gold mines of the Hemlo camp and the expanded palladium mine at Lac des Iles, north of Thunder Bay, Ontario.

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