Wisconsin Resources Protection Council

To: Committee on Michigan’s Mining Future

From: Al Gedicks, Wisconsin Resources Protection Council

Re: Climate Change and Mine Waste Disposal

Climate Change Poses a Risk to Mining Infrastructure

The committee recognizes that “climate change increases the risk of hazardous events” that can damage mining infrastructure. Apart from the mine itself, the largest mining infrastructure on the surface are the contact water basin and the tailings impoundment. Tailings storage facilities are some of the largest human made structures on earth ( Mine Tailings Storage Is No Accident. United Nations Environmental Programme, 2017).

On Aug. 4, more than a billion gallons of mining waste spilled into rivers and creeks from a tailings pond at Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley gold and copper mine at the headwaters of the Fraser River watershed in the interior of British Columbia. Indigenous First Nations peoples mostly populate this area. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Co., the volume of the spill would fill 2,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. It is the largest mining disaster in Canadian history.