Polluter’s appeal bid opposed

Washington state and the Colville Confederated Tribes are asking a federal appeals court to deny a request by Teck Cominco Ltd. to reconsider a July 3 ruling that the Canadian company is subject to U.S. laws for polluting the Columbia River.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Teck Cominco is subject to U.S. Superfund law for a major cleanup of Lake Roosevelt, a 150-mile stretch of the Upper Columbia River behind Grand Coulee Dam.

On July 17, the company filed a motion for reconsideration that asks the court to have a larger group of sitting judges reconsider the ruling. It argued that Superfund does not apply to a Canadian company discharging hazardous waste if it had not “arranged” for the waste to end up in the United States.

Teck Cominco’s large lead and zinc smelter is 10 miles north of the border in Trail, British Columbia. The smelter has contaminated the Columbia for a century with heavy metals and black smelter slag, which covers some river beaches near Northport. Teck Cominco stopped discharging slag to the river in 1994 after a series of Canadian studies showed the slag was toxic to fish and aquatic life and British Columbia regulators ordered a halt to the dumping.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers Teck Cominco a major polluter of the upper Columbia.

On June 2, the EPA reached a voluntary settlement with Teck Cominco to study the extent and seriousness of the contamination. The company will pay about $20 million for the river study.

But if the Ninth Circuit ruling stands, Teck Cominco also would be responsible for much of the actual cleanup – a price tag estimated in the billions.