Photo of Fording River Coal Mine by Alec Underwood.
By Katy Spence
The International Joint Commission (IJC) has progressed in its pursuit to mitigate and reclaim the selenium pollution emanating from massive metallurgical coal mines in British Columbia’s Elk River, which flows across the Canada/U.S. border into Lake Koocanusa and into the Kootenai/y River. The IJC is the entity responsible for implementing the Boundary Waters Treaty, as well as a long and involved investigation and mitigation process that includes stakeholders from federal, provincial, state, and Tribal governments. Most recently, the IJC’s International Elk-Kootenai/y Watershed Study Board solicited comments on its Plan of Study, which outlined how it plans to explore the impacts of water pollution in the Kootenai/y watershed with a mandate to protect the river system. The entire IJC process should take a couple of years, with some push to lengthen the process to ensure it is done thoroughly and leads to durable results.
As of this writing, this process has not yet been impacted by executive orders coming out of the White House, but Pres. Donald Trump has made other moves to undermine transboundary water treaties and projects, so it’s quite possible that this process could also be impacted. Stay tuned.
This article was published in the March 2025 issue of Down To Earth.
