Bc Bans Mining/drilling In Flathead Valley

[alan2]

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2010/2010-02-10-01.html

 

Gordon Campbell has just announced that there won't be any oil/gas/mining exploration or development in the Flathead River valley. There was a coal mine proposed near the headwaters, but not any more. Should be good for the fish in the long run, and the Americans in Montana are very happy too. This means when you fish there, you won't be jostling with ore trucks etc along the road either.

[trailhead]

But you'll still be fighting logging trucks.

[alan2]

But you'll still be fighting logging trucks.

 

 

Yep, but it's pretty hard to get away from those trucks anywhere in BC. Or at least anywhere you might like to fish.

[CF8]

Good for Waterton park as well...

[BBBrownie]

That is fantastic! The flathead is a special valley, I love reading Andy Russells stories about the old days in the Flathead...In celebration of the mining ban, I think I will fish the flathead this summer.

[alan2]

I suspect that if the American politicians had not been so opposed to mining along the Flathead, Campbell wouldn't have preserved it. Pressure from south of the border can influence Canadian decisions in untold ways--- even positive ways, sometimes, like this. You can bet it wouldn't be preserved just because some Canadian fishermen or hikers wanted it that way.

[TerryH]

The Flathead decision is good news. However, the Line Creek Mine in the Elk Valley will be expanding -- Line Creek mine plans expansion. It's a good thing as far as employment in the area is concerned, but probably not so good for the environment.

[jack]

" But you'll still be fighting logging trucks."

 

Beats packing my camp in. Done properly, logging is our most valuable renewable resource and it has provided access to some spectacular water.

As a follow up to the Line Creek Coal operation being expanded, it is a little known(or ignored) fact that the Fording River and Line Creek, with it's coal operations presumably leaching oxidized minerals into the water courses, actually provides high levels of nutrients to the Elk. The Elk River above the Fording and Line Creek is remarkably nutrient and aquatic insect poor. Almost all of the well-fed fish are below the confluence of the Fording and Line.

j

[alan2]

That is also why the fishing in Michel creek is so good. Elk valley's Coal mountain mine is upstream of it.

[Harps]

Anybody willing to pony up some facts on how the mines improve the fishery... preferably some reports and baseline info?

Maybe the Elk fishes good despite the mine... highrainfall, lots of organic matter, and temperate climate...

 

Or it could be the mine?!?

[BBBrownie]

I would also like to see some sort of literature linking the mines to an improved fishery. I have never heard of this phenomenon, perhaps there is a process occuring that differs from the headwater mines in Alberta? In Alberta we have a series of coal mines near Robb which are on the Cardinal, Greg and tributaries of the Pembina. I have read that elevated heavy metals (including selenium and flouride) greatly reduce reproductive success and early stage growth. I may have also read something about increased deformities in young, reducing fry survival. I would assume that these processes would also occur in the Elk drainage, but perhaps there is some sort of a fertilation affect happening perhaps increasing productive capacity, that is working in the Elk drainage?

[alan2]

I wish I could remeber which publication I read it in, but it stated that selenium from the coal mining increased the plant growth and therefore the insect life in Michel creek. It may have been in Beautiful BC magazine a few yrs back, but not sure. One of those things where you read an article and find it quite interesting but not earth shattering enough for you to cut it out and start a scrapbook. Then you wish you did.

 

In any event, it certainly seems the coal operations upstream of Michel creek have not hurt the fishery. For its size, that creek produces darn good sized fish, and abundant, too.

[jack]

Keep in mind that there may be different heavy metals being oxidized in different mining locations. I am referring to one very specific valley and one specific coal mining operation. Fording/Line and Elk in no way establishes a "general rule".

 

The Cominco Smelter in Montana used to dump nitrates(and other toxic stuff) into the Kootenay River, many years ago. The heavy metal would settle out and the nitrates would remain dissolved. It ended up in Kootenay Lake, fertilizing the water, creating an abundance of dissolved solids for micro organisms to feed happily on. This increased the abundance up the food chain, providing kokanee with an abundance of food, thus providing the Gerrard Rainbows with abundant supplies of kokanee. Gerrards grew fast, grew many and grew large. Progress came along, environmental controls established, Cominco cleaned up their act. Kokanee stocks in Kootenay Lake dropped like a rock, Gerrards became almost endangered. The Province of BC began fertilizing Kootenay Lake in order to re-establish the nutrient content for the fish.

The downstream disaster of heavy metals in Lake Roosevelt is also a by-product of Cominco that cannot be ignored, of course.

j