Leaching acid for more than 60 years
- Details
- Published on Thursday, 12 September 2019 07:02
- Written by editor
View this e-mail in your browser.
Whoa. Seriously. You folks are the best! Just 48 hours ago we asked you to make a reporting project on B.C.'s most infamous abandoned mine possible — and already we're more than half-way to raising the $7,000 needed to get there.
The Tulsequah Chief mine has been leaching acid mine drainage into a tributary to the Taku River, home to a massive salmon run, for more than 60 years. That’s right: six decades have gone by without a single company or government successfully cleaning up the site. Now taxpayers are on the hook for cleanup costs.
When I received a pitch from award-winning filmmaker Colin Arisman proposing to raft and hike the 145-kilometre trip to this remote mine, I just had to say yes — even though I wasn't quite sure how we'd pay for it. Will you help us bring Colin’s story to reality by giving $50 or $100 today?
Apart from a few short 4x4 trails, the entire Taku watershed remains without access roads and is considered to be the largest intact wilderness river system on the Pacific Coast of North America. That's why getting a journalist there is so dang expensive.
But sites like these need to be documented and the resulting photo essay is sure to be one of our biggest stories of the year. Will you contribute $50 or $100 to bring this original story to thousands of Canadians?
Time and time again, our readers have made ambitious reporting projects like this happen. Already 39 readers like you have contributed $4,340. Please give what you can today to bring this important project to life.
We can't wait to share the photos with you. Read on for this week's highlights!
Emma Gilchrist
Editor-in-Chief
P.S. In 2017, more than 100 readers funded our mining boom photo essay and it ended up winning a national award. Let’s do it again.
Thousands of B.C.'s endangered whitebark pine logged on private land
By Ben Parfitt
When a company cut down 38 endangered whitebark pine trees in Banff National Park, it was hit with a $2.1 million fine.
But — because of lax rules concerning privately owned forests in B.C. — CanWel, a company responsible for cutting down 19,000 cubic metres of these trees on private lands, has not received a single fine. Read more.
The Narwhal launches Indigenous journalism fellowship
By Emma Gilchrist
Indigenous journalists are substantially underrepresented in Canada's media landscape — even here, at The Narwhal. We want to help change that. Read more.
Desperately seeking sanctuary
By Sofia Osborne
Between a self-appointed ‘sanctuary cop,’ oblivious kayakers, frustrated tourism operators and watchful biologists, Canada’s first-ever experiment with a temporary whale sanctuary on the B.C. coast is an important tale of what it takes to — hopefully — bring a species back from the brink. Read more.
Canadians in every riding support climate action: new research
By Matto Mildenberger and Erick Lachapelle
The coming federal election is an opportunity for Canadians to have a say in the future of climate policy in Canada — and politicians should take note. Read more.
The Amazon wildfires are cause for global concern. Canada’s should be, too
By Arno Kopecky
The impact of fire and industrial logging on Canada's forests — including the boreal, the second-largest intact forest on Earth — can no longer be overlooked. Read more.
What we're reading
A note from a Narwhal
Thank you, Leslie! We're so pleased with how Sarah Cox and Taylor Roades brought this story on Indigenous land guardians to life. Don't forget to read part 1 about B.C.'s ‘Serengeti of the north’!
Friends don't let friends get stuck in the spin. Share our newsletter signup with the cats you love!