Tippets: Mining Tailings in B.C. Streams, The Shrinking Colorado River, Maryland Wastewater Debate

July 26, 2017 By: Erin Block

  • Seabridge Gold Inc. has been given federal government approval to use upper tributaries of the North Treaty and South Teigen Creeks for tailings from their planned mine. The two fish-bearing creeks “will be used for 2.3 billion tons of toxic tailings from the proposed Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM) mine in northwest B.C., wiping out habitat for several populations of small Dolly Varden fish.” Via Desmog Canada.
  • The two largest reservoirs in the United States, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have not recovered from years of drought conditions, compounded by climate change. “Approximately one-third of the flow loss is due to high temperatures now common in the basin, a result of human-caused climate change. Previous comparable droughts were caused by a lack of precipitation, not high temperatures.” Read more via The Conversation.
  • “Anglers, environmental groups, and at least one streamside landowner are voicing concern about the Maryland’s Department of the Environment’s tentative decision to permit a sewage plant to discharge into two Maryland streams.” Timothy B. Wheeler reports on the heated debate, via Bay Journal.