Plans differ for fixing pollution from Canada
Washington Gov. Gary Locke and two prominent U.S. industry groups are taking very different positions on what the federal government should do about a Canadian smelter’s historic pollution of Lake Roosevelt.
Locke is urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to use its legal clout under Superfund to clean up Lake Roosevelt, where millions of tons of contaminated sediments from Vancouver, B.C.-based Teck Cominco Ltd.’s smelter at Trail have been deposited for decades.
That’s the surest way that “responsible parties, not American taxpayers, fund the cleanup,” Locke said in a March 30 letter to EPA Director Michael Leavitt.
Locke also expressed his “extreme disappointment” that Washington state hasn’t been included in diplomatic discussions with Canada over Lake Roosevelt.
In December, EPA’s Seattle office issued a unilateral order to Teck Cominco to begin studying ecological risks in Lake Roosevelt.
Teck Cominco balked, saying it isn’t subject to U.S. laws. The impasse is being discussed in confidential diplomatic talks between the U.S. State Department and the Canadian government.
The National Mining Association weighed in on the dispute in an April 22 letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Attorney General John Ashcroft and EPA Administrator Leavitt.
Jack Gerard, the group’s president, said EPA’s unilateral cleanup order to Teck Cominco is “unwise” because it could lead to retaliatory action by other nations.
“The impact on our domestic operations could be potentially devastating if we now had to defend against allegations that our facilities’ actions … have violated Canadian or Mexican laws,” Gerard said.
He urged the Bush administration officials to sidestep Superfund and pursue Teck Cominco’s offer of as much as $13 million in voluntary studies.
The Edison Electric Institute, representing the nation’s private utilities, sent a similar letter on June 2. Some of the big utilities the group represents send airborne pollutants into Canada.
EPA’s enforcement action “should be one of last resort, not first resort,” said the institute’s Thomas Kuhn.
“The unilateral EPA action raises the possibility of Canadian retaliation against our member companies and other U.S. industries whose emissions may cross the international border,” Kuhn wrote.