The Sudbury, Ontario, based Cline Mining Corporation wants to dig a 2.2- mile-long open pit coal mine near the headwaters of the North Fork Flathead River in British Columbia, 25 miles northwest of Glacier National Park. Cline would remove a mountaintop to produce two million tonnes of coal per year, for 20 years, for export to the Orient. The washed coal would be hauled west to a railhead in B.C.’s Elk River valley — but the waste dumps, settling ponds, and mine pit all would be in the Flathead watershed, astride a ridge draining into Foisey and McLatchie Creeks, headwaters tributaries of the North Fork.

Just 30 trout swimming miles south of the proposed mine, the North Fork enters Montana, joining the Middle Fork and South Fork above Columbia Falls to form the mainstem Flathead River, which then flows into Flathead Lake. Scientists calculate that during an average spring runoff peak, or a major fall flood, polluted water from the mine site could reach Flathead Lake in less than two days.

The B.C. environmental assessment process for the proposed mine is underway. The B.C. Environmental Assessment Office has invited Montanans (official notice, PDF) to comment on the proposal, either by speaking at public meetings in southeast B.C. or by submitting written comments to the Project Assessment Director in Victoria. Comments must be received by midnight, January 31 (mail now, or send electronically).

It is vital that B.C. officials hear from Montanans — en-mass, fortissimo, and pronto. Please take a moment to send comments (see addresses below). Please encourage B.C. to require a thorough, watershed-scale environmental assessment and impacts analysis of coal mining in the transboundary Flathead watershed, as recommended by both U.S. and B.C. scientists

Not all lands were created equal. Part of the Flathead River basin above Flathead Lake, among the cleanest of the world’s large lakes, the North Fork watershed features:

• Numerous national and international special designations — including International Biosphere Reserve, World Heritage Site, U.S. National Park status, U.S. Wild & Scenic River designation — have been bestowed in the watershed because of its exceptional natural qualities.

• Exceptionally high water quality.

• Extraordinary wildlife values, including critically important habitat for threatened species, including the bull trout and grizzly bear, that travel across the international boundary, and are found both at the proposed mine site and throughout the B.C. North Fork.

• Water downstream from coal mines in the adjacent Elk Valley in B.C. reportedly is markedly less clean than in the headwater streams where the Cline mine is proposed. The Flathead Lake Biological Station reports that in Michelle Creek, downstream from a coal mine, phosphorus and nitrogen levels are much higher, and selenium levels are about 10 times higher, while the diversity of aquatic insects is much lower, than in Foisey Creek.

• Waste dump failures have occurred at coal mines in the adjacent Elk Valley. A waste dump failure, perhaps caused by a fall gullywasher rain, such as hit the North Fork and flooded Glacier Park in November, 2006, could trigger a landslide of contaminated waste rock, sludge and mine residue into Foisey Creek and the North Fork Flathead River, sending a massive slug of toxic compounds, including arsenic and selenium, and fine sediments downstream and across the border into Montana.

• This proposal, if approved, likely would lead to additional coal development proposals in the B.C. Flathead. Another mining company has a permit to explore the Lilyburt coal deposit in the North Fork’s floodplain. B.C. wants to take control of federal coal lands (the Dominion Coal Block) in the watershed. Cline still hopes to mine the Sage Creek site just seven miles northwest of Glacier. There have been previous proposals to lease provincial lands for coalbed methane development. And persistent traces of gold in the area keep the hard rock hounds ever on the prowl for the mother lode. Once started, mining in the B.C. Flathead might not stop until the valley resembled dug-up wastelands in West Virginia.

• Cline’s proposed terms for assessing mine impacts do not include potential impacts in Montana or cumulative impacts. Yet downstream impacts are inevitable; that is the nature of coal mining. This unreasonably narrow focus is not consistent with Article IV of the Boundary Waters Treaty, which states that waters flowing across the boundary shall not be polluted on either side to the injury of health or property on the other. The Cline Mine Terms of Reference must address all the considerations raised by the Environmental Assessment Office’s working group, including those raised by Montana representatives invited to participate in the working group.

• Montana and British Columbia have agreed to work with each other in good faith. In 2003, then Governor Judy Martz and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell signed an Environmental Cooperation Arrangement to improve cooperation between the governments on natural resources issues that cross political boundaries. The agreement states that it is a “Cooperative initiative to identify, coordinate and promote mutual efforts to ensure the protection, conservation and enhancement of our shared environment for the benefit of current and future generations.”

Send comments to:

Three hearings will be held in southeastern British Columbia. Two hearings sponsored by the Flathead Basin Commission will be held in western Montana. It is vital that a large turnout of folks expressing concerns about the Cline Mine proposal show up at these hearings.

• Flathead Basin Commission. Terms of reference, the State of Montana’s comments, maps, striking photos of the proposed mine site and of active mines in the Elk Valley.
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• North Fork Preservation Association. North Fork specific information, including links to many newspaper stories.
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• Topographic map of B.C. North Fork, showing proposed layouts for Cline's Lodgepole mine and the old Cabin Creek/Sage Creek proposal. PDF, 2.8 MB.
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• Cline's map of the proposed locations of the waste dumps, coal pit, and facilities. Detailed, PDF, 500 KB.