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Teck fined $200K for unauthorised tailings discharge at Elkview

The province slapped the company with two fines for the incidents which occured in 2020 near Sparwood
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Teck’s Elkview operations seen from Sparwood. (Scott Tibballs / The Free Press)

Teck Coal was hit with almost $200K in administrative penalties in May this year.

According to an environmental compliance report from the province released , Teck was fined twice under the Environmental Management Act, with two administrative penalties adding up to $198,000 for unauthorised discharges of slurry and tailings at Elkview operations, east of Sparwood.

According to the province, the discharges happened between July 2020, and December 2020, totalling 51,825 litres of slurry and tailings.

“One unauthorized discharged reached Otto Creek on October 29, 2020 and another reached Goddard Creek on December 27, 2020,” reads the report.

According to a Teck spokesperson, the discharges were “unintended releases from processing plant infrastructure.”

“We notified regulatory authorities and undertook investigations to identify root causes for each incident and completed repairs, upgrades and training to prevent recurrences,” they said.

“Monitoring conducted in response to these incidents showed that water quality parameters were within normal ranges for those locations. Also, additional projects are being completed in 2022 to further enhance environmental protection measures at the operation.”

In the same round of compliance reports, Teck was also revealed to have received two additional penalties totalling $62,000 on April 7 2022 for three separate discharge incidents involving the sewage treatment facility at Fording River, in 2017, 2019 and 2020.

READ MORE: Teck releases water treatment update for Elk River catchments



scott.tibballs@thefreepress.ca
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