For the past year, the province of British Columbia has been working on a plan to clean up the infamous, dormant Tulsequah Chief mine and end pollution that has been flowing from it for 60 years into the Taku watershed. That plan cannot come soon enough. It's estimated that over 400 million litres of acid mine drainage leach from the abandoned Tulsequah Chief every year.
The Taku is one of the Pacific coast's most beautiful and biologically rich watersheds. It deserves a plan that is comprehensive, permanent and worthy of the watershed's extraordinary ecological and cultural values.
For 14 years, I raft guided on the Taku. It was an escape to wilderness that I shared with 20 adventurous travellers at a time, and hundreds over the years. Embracing nearly two million hectares, the Taku is one of several transboundary watersheds that bridge northwest B.C. and southeast Alaska. Significantly, however, it is the largest intact river system on the Pacific coast.
Opinion piece by Patricia Thomson, published Feb. 24, 2020 in the Vancouver Sun. Continue reading here.
Comments