The 192-metre tailings dam of the Copper Mountain Mine in sm?lqmíx homelands, photographed on Sept. 19, in roughly equivalent in height to a 58-storey building. A proposed expansion would increase the dam by an additional 87 metres.

Image Credit: Aaron Hemens, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The co-owners of the Copper Mountain Mine struggled to earn the trust and approval of many sm?qmíx people during a pitch for the proposed New Ingerbelle Pit project, with one community member calling the mining company’s consultation process “a slap in the face.” 

During the private meeting earlier this year, members of the Lower Similkameen (LSIB) and Upper Similkameen Indian Bands (USIB) also called on Hudbay Minerals to honour their wishes for an environmental assessment into the major expansion plans, after the provincial government denied their request.

Although LSIB, USIB and numerous conservation groups have all called on “B.C.” to order an environmental assessment for the mine expansion — citing concerns about its size, towering tailings dam, and proximity to the Similkameen River — the province decided last year that no review is required.

IndigiNews obtained an audio recording of the community meeting in July between sm?qmíx members and Hudbay Minerals — a “Toronto”-based firm that owns three-quarters of the mine, with the remainder owned by Japanese giant Mitsubishi Materials. 

“There isn’t a lot of trust — do you want to build trust?” one community member asked Hudbay staff. “One way to do that is to ignore what the government is saying and do the environmental assessment. At least give us some sort of peace of mind.”

IndigiNews is not naming the community members who spoke at the private meeting unless given explicit permission. However, IndigiNews has decided to name the Hudbay staff and sm?qmíx leadership who spoke at the meeting, for accountability purposes.

The resident said it’s “wrong” that future generations in the community “are going to have to deal with this process and deal with the repercussions for more than 1,000 years … I don’t like the thought of that.”

Despite all of the mining company’s talk of the nearby waterways being safe, the community member said that hasn’t been their experience on the ground, and again called on Hudbay to conduct an environmental assessment.

“You shouldn’t be required to by the government — we are telling you,” she said. “Enough is enough. L-U-T [“no” in the nsyilxc?n language] spells N-O.”

The open-pit mine, about 20 kilometres south of “Princeton, B.C.,” currently employs more than 500 staff and produces more than 45,000 tonnes of copper a year. But its owners want to restart an old part of the mine, the Ingerbelle Pit, which would revive a long-shuttered part of the century-old copper, gold and silver mine.

Doing so would expand the mine’s footprint by 375 hectares, and raise the existing tailings dam by the height of a 26-storey building, according to the province’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO).

This year, the provincial Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy issued six fines to Copper Mountain Mine totalling $105,348, with all of the offences related to the pollution of nearby waters. In 2021, the mine at one point exceeded the legal limit of copper waste discharged from its tailings pond into Wolfe Creek by more than 4,500 per cent.

Yet, Megan Bonn of Hudbay told the sm?qmíx community during the meeting that she would still drink the creek’s water.

‘Disturbance from the expansion did not meet the threshold’

sm?qmíx leadership has not yet made a decision on the New Ingerbelle Expansion project.

“LSIB will not be making any decisions until we are fully informed, we have contributions from our Elders, from subject matter experts, and from our community members,” LSIB said in an email to IndigiNews.

USIB declined to speak on the matter, and HudBay did not respond to IndigiNews’ requests for comment.

The Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals said that the mining company plans to re-submit a revised permit application next year for its New Ingerbelle Pit project, after feedback from the application-screening review found that “more information was needed.”

“Once the application is received, the Major Mines Office (MMO) will coordinate the regulatory review of the application with provincial agencies and First Nations,” the ministry said. “The permitting process for a project of this size typically takes eight to 12 months to complete and refer for decision.”

Last year, the province’s EAO declined LSIB’s and the Wilderness Committee’s request — on behalf of a consortium of 22 organizations — for an environmental assessment review of the mine’s proposed New Ingerbelle Expansion project.

“After review, including receiving input from First Nations and stakeholders, the EAO determined that the degree of disturbance from the expansion did not meet the threshold required for a new environmental assessment,” said the Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals.

In her decision, EAO chief executive assessment officer Elenore Arend said such an assessment was not needed because she believes the province’s MMO — alongside the environment ministry — can “fairly, effectively, and appropriately address the concerns” raised by LSIB and the consortium of Indigenous and environmental groups.

Signage around the mine site states that the mining company is conducting “progressive reclamation” and restoration of the land by using a biosolids soil product from wastewater treatment plants.

The Ministry of Environment and Parks told IndigiNews the province “supports beneficial reuse of treated biosolids as a means for restoring carbon to soils and avoiding methane formation and loss of landfill space.”

A community member at the July joint meeting asked Hudbay how this process would restore the land to pre-mining conditions, but did not receive a response.

According to Hudbay, they use “Class A biosolids” from Metro Vancouver and wood waste to “supplement the overburden” of the mine’s activities. Those materials produce a type of reclamation soil “which supports an effective and organic reclamation process,” the mining company outlined on their website.

“You’re destroying the land and then you’re bringing in — excuse me, but — shit dirt,” the community member said during the meeting. “So you continue destroying this stuff, and then you bring in this artificial fertilizer? Like please, come on.”

Part of the proposed New Ingerbelle project would see the construction of a bridge over the Similkameen River, to link the Ingerbelle Pit to the Copper Mountain Mine’s main site for the purposes of moving minerals. 

During the community meeting, John Ritter, Hudbay’s vice president of operations for “B.C.,” went into detail about the bridge, and said that its design would span the full river to minimize any impact.

“We have a design right now that we’re advancing and engineering on,” Ritter said.

The news of the bridge’s design startled USIB Chief Bonnie Jacobsen, who told Ritter at the meeting that sm?qmíx leadership had not been properly consulted on this matter.

“It really worries me to hear from you that you’re moving into a design for the bridge, a design for this, a design for that — and we haven’t heard anything,” Jacobsen said.

“It’s a bit of a slap in the face,” another community member can be heard saying shortly after, according to the recording.

In his response, the Ritter clarified that the mining company had been conducting work to inform a future bridge design that “we could work collaboratively together.”

“There’s no intention to slap in the face,” he said.

While a decision on the application for the New Ingerbelle project has yet to be made, photographs of the Ingerbelle Pit show how close it sits to the Similkameen River and the main site of the Copper Mountain Mine.

A trail from the main mine area has already been carved down towards the river, where Hudbay’s proposed bridge would connect to the Ingerbelle Pit, the entrance of which is only a few hundred metres away from the riverbanks.

According to Hudbay, it has consulted extensively with affected First Nations and will continue doing so. The company said restarting operations in its expanded New Ingerbelle Pit offers “many long-term economic and social benefits to local First Nations,” says its website.

“Participation agreements with the Upper Similkameen Indian Band and the Lower Similkameen Indian Band reflect our commitment to meaningful collaboration with Indigenous communities,” Hudbay’s website states, noting that “participation agreements” began in 2019. 

It’s unclear how much revenue the two bands themselves generate from the mining operations.

But the company’s communications with LSIB and USIB have hardly reassured some members. In particular, some community residents expressed that their concerns about increasing the tailings dam’s height at Copper Mountain are being ignored.

In the July meeting recording, one community member brought up the 2014 Mount Polley mine disaster — which saw the earthen tailings dam collapse at Imperial Metals mine, dumping 25 billion litres of toxic tailings into local waterways. (A decade later, that mine’s owner was charged with 15 federal Fisheries Act violations, according B.C. authorities).

The community member asked Hudbay staff if there was a plan in place to prevent a similar disaster to Mount Polley from occurring in the Similkameen Valley, if Copper Mountain Mine’s tailings dam — one of the largest in the world — were to breach, for instance from an earthquake. 

However, the company staffperson said there was no engineer present who could speak on the matter.

“Why isn’t he here?” the community member replied.

“Without the technical details, these dams are designed for seismic activity,” said the Hudbay representative, adding that a written response from the company later would be the best way to address the question.

Downriver, across the border in the “U.S.,” the Colville Confederated Tribes completed their own independent assessment in 2022 of what might happen if the Copper Mountain Mine’s tailings dam were to breach.

Its analysis found “if a breach were to occur, [it] could release a debris flow that would likely … be several times greater than the largest flood ever recorded in the town of Princeton, B.C.”

‘I hate what I do. But there’s no jobs around here’

According Reciprocity Research — a consulting company working with LSIB and USIB — if the New Ingerbelle expansion project’s proposal is denied, the mine could close in three years. Support for the project would see financial benefits for the community, they said.

If approved, the New Ingerbelle project would massively heighten the mine’s tailings dam. As reported by the Narwhal earlier this year, Copper Mountain Mine’s tailings dam is currently 192 metres high — four times higher than Mount Polley mine’s collapsed tailings pond dam.

The New Ingerbelle project would increase the height of that tailings dam by an additional 87 metres, according to EAO filings.

Hudbay said that the project would create “many long-term economic and social benefits to local First Nations, communities and other stakeholders.” The company lists that there are currently 547 people employed at the mine, but a community member who works at the mine said during the joint-meeting that only 14 per cent of employees are from LSIB and USIB.

“There’s 14 per cent of us that are kind of at jeopardy … there’s some Indian people that are going to get hurt,” he said. “And that might segregate us. That’s what colonization wants, to keep us fighting amongst ourselves.”

The member said that he left home at age 18 to find work outside his community, because there “hasn’t been nothing here for our people to make money.” He eventually returned home after landing a job at the mine.

“I hate what I do, but there’s no jobs around here,” he said. “So if I don’t go do it, they’re just gonna put a white guy in that dozer. So I might as well go get mine … Hats off to those who can leave the reserve and make it in a white man’s world; it’s hard out there.”

Regardless, if the New Ingerbelle expansion project is approved against the community’s wishes, the member speaking in the July meeting recording said he would stand with anyone who protests the mine.

But he said he fears that if the mine shuts down, it’ll be the LSIB and USIB communities left to clean up the mine site and pay for restoration.

“We want to protect the river, we want to protect the land,” he said. “Well then, we’re going to have to pay for that … We have to have something in plan for our future; we have to start creating jobs.”

‘Not a matter of if, it’s when’

Madison Terbasket, a member of LSIB who works for Penticton Indian Band’s natural resources department, spoke at the July community meeting. She told IndigiNews that it brings her a lot of sadness when she thinks about the Copper Mountain mine and its proposed expansion. 

“It’s almost like hopelessness, because it seems like you’re trading off, or risking,” she said. “It’s not a matter of if, it’s when — tailings ponds always fail.”

A fellow LSIB member, cewel’na Leon Louis — a knowledge-keeper — said in an interview that the proposed Ingerbelle expansion is “totally dangerous” as it requires increasing the height of the tailings dam.

“The more they fill it up, the weaker it’s gonna get,” he said. “Eventually, it’s going to break — just like Mount Polley.”

He echoed what other community members said were their fears of First Nations being left with the cleanup once the mine closes.

“Once they’re finished, they’ll sell it to someone else,” Louis alleged, “so they don’t have the responsibility of cleaning it up.”

He said the mine has divided his sm?lqmíx community for years, as many members are employed at the mine. 

Louis said the mine’s economic opportunities have placed his community between “a rock and a hard place,” with many families reliant on income from Copper Mountain and afraid that opposing it could cost their livelihoods.

But while LSIB and USIB continue to press for an environmental assessment of the Ingerbelle Pit expansion, he described Hudbay’s consultation process as pointless, because no one appears to be listening to LSIB and USIB’s concerns. 

“We can talk all we want but … they’re going to ignore and keep doing it,” he said. “They don’t care about us. These are investors from Asia — they’re making millions — millions; they don’t give a shit about us.”

— With files from Meral Jamal

— This article was originally published by IndigiNews

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