WASHINGTON — In a city of pinstripes and partisan power brokers, Mike Allison sticks out like a sore thumb. He’s in the wrong place — and he knows it.
“I shouldn’t be here,” the denim-clad Indigenous elder suddenly says, fighting tears beneath the brim of his trademark cowboy hat.Sign up to receive daily headline news from Ottawa Citizen, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc.
Indigenous communities in B.C., as well as Washington state, Idaho and Montana, have been contending for more than a decade with selenium and other toxins leaching into their watershed from coal mining operations in the Elk Valley. But selenium levels are still too high, said Rich Janssen, head of the natural resources department with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana.
“With all the testing that we do downstream on the U.S. side, we see the increases in selenium. They’re already impacting our waters.” Among them was Rep. Suzan DelBene , who was part of a congressional coalition from the Pacific Northwest that complained in 2019 about a controversial mining proposal in the headwaters of the Upper Skagit River in B.C.
In June, following meetings with several U.S. tribes, the State Department made its position clear by reaffirming its support for a joint reference to investigate the transboundary impact of Canadian mining in the region. That approach “will include the establishment of national baseline effluent quality standards for deleterious substances of concern, including selenium,” Bayard said in a statement.While the bulk of the mining activity in the region is relatively old-school — coal, gold, silver and copper — conservationists also fear a looming new North American extraction frenzy, this one in search of the precious, climate-friendly critical minerals that now fuel life in the 21st century.
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