02:59 PM EDT, 03/19/2024 (MT Newswires) -- It will cost at least $6.4-billion to tackle selenium contamination from Teck Resources Ltd.'s Elk Valley coal mines, according to a new report -- far exceeding a $1.9-billion security bond required by the B.C. government to cover cleanup costs, The Globe and Mail newspaper has written Tuesday.

It wrote that the report, commissioned by environmental group Wildsight, bases its price tag on calculations of what it would cost to implement Vancouver-based Teck's current plan of building water treatment plants through to 2027 and then running them for 60 years.

It noted the resulting estimates raise concerns that B.C. taxpayers could be stuck with a hefty cleanup bill, said Simon Wiebe, mining policy and impacts researcher at Wildsight, which released the report on Tuesday. "We've been concerned for quite a while that the amount of money that Teck has put aside for selenium remediation with the B.C. government would not be enough to cover the actual cost," he said.

According to The Globe and Mail, the Wildsight report adds to heightened scrutiny on the issue of selenium leaching from Teck's Elk Valley coal mines in southeastern B.C. to river systems in Canada and the United States. Earlier this month, the governments of Canada and the United States, along with the Ktunaxa Nation, agreed to put the issue before the International Joint Commission (IJC), a body that tackles transboundary water issues between the two countries, it noted.

Asked to comment on the Wildsight report, Teck said the report's estimates are inaccurate and that the company is in full compliance with provincial bonding requirements. The Wildsight report uses simplified assumptions for ongoing water treatment costs that "result in significant overestimations," said Dale Steeves, a Teck spokesperson, in an e-mail.

This past November, The Globe and Mail noted, Teck announced a US$8.9-billion deal to sell its steelmaking coal operations, with a minority stake going to Japan's Nippon Steel Corp. and South Korean steelmaker POSCO, and a majority stake to Swiss mining giant Glencore. The sale of the minority interest closed in January and the sale of the majority stake is expected to close this year, pending regulatory approvals, it also noted.

Wildsight is "concerned that the new owners may be even less receptive to actually fixing the pollution issue than Teck has been," Wiebe reportedly said of the sale.

(Market Chatter news is derived from conversations with market professionals globally, and/or from other media sources. This information is believed to be from reliable sources but may include rumor and speculation. Accuracy is not guaranteed.)

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