Washington, Alaska Tribes Seek Consultation on BC Transboundary Mining Issues

Indian tribes from Washington state and Southeast Alaska that have ancestral homelands along salmon rich transboundary rivers are asking the British Columbia government to consult with them regarding mining operations with potential adverse impacts on rivers and fisheries.

Officials with the Lummi Nation and southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission (SEITC) said June 13 that they were notified by the BC Environmental Assessment office that they would have a limited voice over port expansion of the BC Roberts Bank Terminal.

Roberts Bank is home to a twin-terminal port facility on the mainland coastline of the Strait of Georgia in Delta, B.C.  It is also known as the Outer Harbour of Canada’s busiest port.

The tribes contend that the project would have an adverse impact on Chinook salmon, which are harvested commercially, and an impact on Southern Resident orca whales and the Lummi people.

According to tribal officials, the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2021 decision in R.V. Desautel, indigenous peoples in the United States whose ancestral lands were taken and divided by the U.S.-Canadian border may assert rights as aboriginal peoples of Canada and engage in meaningful government-to government consultation on projects affecting them.

The tribes said BC’s Environmental Assessment office had notified the Lummi Nation and 15 member tribes of SEITC that their rights would be “distinct” and “differentiated” from the rights of First Nations in BC. A judicial review of BC’s decision to grant permits for expansion of Roberts Bank is slated to begin June 26.

Lummi Nation Chairman Anthony Hillaire said that approving projects like the Roberts Bank Terminal without such consultation neglects a crucial opportunity to enact transboundary protect of natural resources and communities as the pace of global warming accelerates.

“Although this is an issue of Indigenous rights in which Lummi, Alaskan and many First Nations find common cause, it also affects every person who lives here and who depends on the clean waters, the rivers, and the fish of this region,” Hillaire said.

The remaining lands unexploited by resource extraction in that region consist primarily of indigenous territory” SEITC President Esther Reese said. “We are the stewards of some of the world’s last wild salmon rivers, which have defined our lifeways for thousands of years.”