Reflections on “The Wasting Resource”

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This post introduces Arn Keeling and Nolan Foster’s recently published BC Studies article, “The ‘Wasting’ Resource: The History of Mine Tailings Disposal in British Columbia, 1892-1982.”

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When the call for papers circulated for a special issue of BC Studies to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Mount Polley tailings disaster, it naturally piqued our interest. Along with colleagues, collaborators and students, Arn has been working on the historical geography and environmental impacts of mining for almost 20 years. Although most of this work has focused on sites across the Canadian north, his earlier dissertation research focused on the environmental history of pollution control in British Columbia, which included a chapter on mining. Nolan’s undergraduate research explored the history of the Cassiar asbestos mine, and he was now working on his master’s research on the history and legacies of asbestos mining on Newfoundland’s Baie Verte peninsula. Add in that both of us hail from BC’s Central Interior region (Prince George and Quesnel, respectively), it was a call we couldn’t resist.

All that said, we were uncertain what exactly to contribute. After all, neither of us were working on BC at the time, nor had either of us focused on the more contemporary politics of mining and environment in the province. But for Arn, it did offer a chance to revisit some of his previous, unpublished research on mining and pollution. It also presented us with an opportunity to recontextualize this history in the light of the burgeoning environmental history and other critical literature on pollution and environment. By revisiting these historical episodes together, we hoped to present an updated interpretation that spoke to the special issue’s focus on critical, decolonial examination of this mining disaster.

Illustrations that show Mount Polley mine storage facility failure Tailings dam failure at the Mount Polley mine in Canada. The Mount Polley mine, a large, open-pit and underground copper-gold mine in British Columbia, began operation in 1997 and currently processes about 22 000 tonnes of ore per day. The mine’s tailings dam failed in August 2014, releasing approximately 25 million cubic metres of tailings and wastewater into a nearby creek
Tailings dam failure at the Mount Polley mine in Canada. The Mount Polley mine, a large, open-pit and underground copper-gold mine in British Columbia, began operation in 1997 and currently processes about 22 000 tonnes of ore per day. The mine’s tailings dam failed in August 2014, releasing approximately 25 million cubic metres of tailings and wastewater into a nearby creek (OAGBC 2016). “Mount Polley mine storage facility failure” by GRIDArendal is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

The paper traces the long history of water pollution from mining activities in the province. Tailings are the byproducts of mineral extraction: since target minerals typically make up a small fraction of rock removed during mining, the management and disposal of this massive residual material is a central challenge for mine operators. These fine-grained, semi-liquid wastes usually end up in one of two places: dumped on the land or deposited in local waters, bringing with them potential problems, including contamination and acidification of fish habitats. Containing these wastes in impoundments (like that at Mount Polley) is the typical strategy for avoiding these impacts, but tailings ponds are also subject to leakage and catastrophic failures like that at Mount Polley in B.C. or Samarco in Brazil.

Settler industry and governments treated local lands and waters as a natural, even necessary, repository for mine tailings.

Rather than focusing simply on local environmental impacts or their attendant political controversies, our article mobilized perspectives from waste and discard studies and critical Indigenous studies to interrogate how the mining industry and successive provincial governments promoted an indulgent approach to tailings pollution. In fact, we argue, settler industry and governments treated local lands and waters as a natural, even necessary, repository for mine tailings. “Historical debates in British Columbia around whether and how to manage mine waste,” we write, “were rooted in a fundamentally settler colonial conception of land (and water) as a ‘resource’ for metaphorical and literal accumulation.” Drawing on our Memorial University colleague Max Liboiron’s work, amongst others, we conclude that this ideology of waste and resources further contributed to the appropriation of Indigenous lands and waters and the (re)production of the settler colonial state.

So, how did this play out in the history of mining in B.C.? The paper explores changing legal and regulatory approaches through a series of short case studies of tailings management controversies in B.C., ranging from local concerns about hard-rock mines in the Kootenays to the public furor over mining and pollution in Strathcona Park on Vancouver Island, to the controversy over ocean dumping of tailings from the short-lived AMAX molybdenum mine at Kitsault, near Prince Rupert. We trace the evolving regulatory regime as it shifted from more or less tolerance of tailings pollution to incipient attempts to scientifically control and exploit the “assimilative capacity” of the environment to (safely) dispose tailings. By the 1980s, tailings management had become a significant feature of highly technical environmental assessments and risk assessment—yet never was the basic right of the industry to generate ever-increasing volumes of mine waste questioned. Meanwhile, pollution, mine abandonment, and other regulatory shortcomings persisted, culminating in the myriad failures that led to the Mount Polley tailings collapse.

We trace the evolving regulatory regime as it shifted from more or less tolerance of tailings pollution to incipient attempts to scientifically control and exploit the “assimilative capacity” of the environment to (safely) dispose tailings.

Bringing together some older (and updated) case studies with new theoretical perspectives, this article offered (we hope) the chance to contextualize more recent debates around the causes and consequences of the Mount Polley disaster. We’re delighted to see it alongside Indigenous, activist, and scholarly contributions to this exciting special issue, and we thank guest editors Max Chewinski and Neil Nunn for the opportunity to contribute.

Feature Image: “White Sand Beach on Beautiful Highland Copper Tailings Pond, Ahem” by MIKOFOX ⌘ Reject Fear, Go Outdoors, Live Healthy is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
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Arn Keeling

Arn Keeling is a professor in the Department of Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Learn more about the "Toxic Legacies" project at http://www.toxiclegacies.com

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