Red Dog closely monitoring toxic releases

Red Dog mine remains at the top of the Environmental Protection Agency's national Toxic Release Inventory for the third straight year, but owner Teck Cominco wants the public to know that the movement of waste rock is not the same as pollution. The lead-zinc mine near Kotzebue in Alaska's Arctic released 458.2 million pounds of toxic chemicals in 2004, according to the latest EPA report. This is slightly less than last year's figure, but still four times as much as the second entity on the list, Kennecott Utah copper mine.

"In the case of mining, 99 percent of what is reported occurs through the process of mining and storing rock," Jim Kulas, Red Dog's environmental superintendent, said in a release April 12. "As required by regulation this process is considered to be a 'release to the land' even though the rocks never leave the site and are managed in contained storage systems."

Red Dog has established an Environmental Management System that has been certified to meet the international ISO 14001 standard. "These are not true releases to the environment," Kulas said. "The minerals are within rock that we have simply moved from one place to another. The rock is placed in piles that are permitted, monitored and all their runoff is collected."

Greens Creek mine near Juneau is sixth on the TRI list with 47.4 million pounds of releases in 2004 (an increase on the previous year). The TRI information does not indicate whether, or to what degree, the public has been exposed to toxic chemicals, the EPA notes.