Mining firm to appeal ruling

A Canadian mining company will appeal a federal judge’s refusal to dismiss a U.S. lawsuit over millions of tons of pollution from its Trail, B.C., smelter that has been dumped into the Columbia River for a century.

In arguments before U.S. District Court Judge Alan McDonald last Thursday in Yakima, lawyers for Teck Cominco Ltd. said they shouldn’t have to comply with a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleanup order for Lake Roosevelt because they operate north of the border at Trail.

Teck Cominco’s huge lead-zinc smelter at Trail has dumped more than 20 million tons of slag and hundreds of tons of toxic mercury into the Columbia, documents show.

On Monday, McDonald refused to dismiss the Superfund citizens lawsuit brought by the Colville Confederated Tribes, whose reservation borders Lake Roosevelt.

The Teck Cominco smelter is “rightly subject” to liability under Superfund, Congress’ foremost environmental cleanup law, “because Canada’s own laws and regulations will not compel the Canadian facility to clean up the mess in the United States which it has created,” McDonald’s order says.

McDonald immediately referred the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for resolution.

On Tuesday, Teck Cominco said it will appeal.

“We are disappointed with the decision, but we are confident that (Superfund) wasn’t intended to apply here,” said Teck Cominco spokesman David Parker.

The company has offered $13 million to study the pollution in Lake Roosevelt and has pushed a resolution through bilateral diplomatic talks after rejecting the EPA’s December 2003 unilateral cleanup order.

No firm estimate has been established yet for the Columbia River cleanup. A lawyer for the Colvilles said in McDonald’s courtroom last week that it could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and a British Columbia regulator has previously written that Teck Cominco’s cleanup price tag could be “astronomical.”