Tumbler Ridge coal mine operator must pay $800k fine, board rules

TUMBLER RIDGE, B.C. — An operator of mines near Tumbler Ridge will have to pay a more than $800,000 fine for exceeding permitted selenium levels at two of its sites. 

An adjudicator with the Environmental Appeal Board (EAB) upheld the $809,700 fine against Peace River Coal (PRC) on August 27th.

PRC began commercial operations at the metallurgical Trend Mine, 30 kilometres south of Tumbler Ridge, in 2008.

Three years later, it became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Anglo American. In February 2025, Anglo American completed the sale of PRC to Tumbler Ridge-based Conuma Resources.

PRC’s Roman Mine project received Environmental Assessment certification in 2012 and a Mines Act permit in 2013. But operations at the Roman Mine portion of the Trend Mine were halted in late 2014 due to low coal prices. For the past decade, it has been in care and maintenance mode. 

EAB panel chair Maureen Baird wrote ministry inspectors attended the mine in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, and found it exceeded selenium discharge limits at three compliance sites. The fine relates to two of them. 

At one of the sites, inspectors found selenium discharge limits were exceeded every week in 2018 and 2019. 

Baird’s decision says, where natural materials containing selenium are exposed due to coal mining, there is a potential for selenium levels to increase due to surface water contact.

Increased concentrations can become toxic to fish, birds and mammals, including humans.

PRC received the fine in September 2021 and appealed two weeks later. PRC was also penalized for failing to provide the required quarterly and annual reports. 

The appeal was heard via written submissions in December 2023. Saulteau First Nations were granted participant status, in support of the EAB.

Baird said PRC was aware it was out of compliance but continued over a three-year period, suggesting “there was no urgency.”

“I appreciate that it had undertaken investigations and initiatives preceding its 2021 application to amend the permit, and that these may have resulted in a downward trend in the magnitude of the exceedances, but the exceedances continued,” Baird wrote.