Save What You Love with Mark Titus

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:28:10
Mark Titus
Welcome to Say What You Love. I'm Mark Titus. On today's show, we talk to Chris Zimmer, the Alaska campaign director for Rivers Without Borders. Chris is doing important work on the transboundary mining issue between B.C and Southeast Alaska borders. Basically, what's going on is there are mines that are being built up in watersheds that start in British Columbia, Canada, and descend their way through into Alaska.

00:00:28:15 - 00:01:02:11
Mark Titus
All of these river systems are salmon bearing rivers and streams. And so ultimately, what goes up must come down. And Chris is one of those folks that has dedicated his life work to trying to preserve these salmon rivers and dealing with a really tricky gantlet of lots of different people and organizations, including two different countries. So this is an amazing conversation about a very difficult subject and a very passionate human being who's doing great work on it.

00:01:02:13 - 00:01:28:18
Mark Titus
If you like what you're hearing on this show, we would love for you to think about giving it a rating on Apple Podcasts. Write a review in your own words if you can. It really helps us get this show out into the world and increase our application. And lastly, if you're looking for a way to fill your barbecue all summer long with the world's best regenerative protein, we put together a salmon summer experience kit over at Ava's.

00:01:28:18 - 00:01:58:23
Mark Titus
Welcome inside. You'll get to flash frozen filets of wild Bristol Bay sockeye salmon delivered to your door every month for three months during the summer as a subscription. You'll also get downloadable copies of The Breach and the Wild. My two documentaries about Wild salmon. You'll get a jar of Tom Douglas salmon rub to put on your salmon, and you'll get a pair of recyclable VR goggles to do a short trip up into Bristol Bay.

00:01:58:23 - 00:02:18:08
Mark Titus
If you can't go there yourself. Head on over to Ava's welcome. That's save spelled backwards Wired.com and get yourself set up for the summer. All right, so that's it. I hope you enjoy the show and we'll see you next week. How do you say what you.

00:02:18:10 - 00:02:49:19
Music
How do you save what you love?
When the world is burning down?
How do you save what you love?
When pushes come to shove.
How do you say what you love?
When things are upside down.
How do you say what you love?
When times are getting tough.

00:02:49:21 - 00:02:52:23
Mark Titus
Chris Zimmer, welcome.

00:02:53:01 - 00:02:55:20
Chris Zimmer
Thanks for having me this morning. I'm glad we got everything up and rolling.

00:02:55:22 - 00:03:02:23
Mark Titus
Yeah, it's good to see you, man. So I understand you're coming to us from Juneau today. Has spring finally sprung?

00:03:03:01 - 00:03:14:12
Chris Zimmer
Yeah. It looks like the snow's all gone. The rain starting to hit in. My truck is covered with pollen, and the fish are starting to show up. So that's always good.

00:03:14:14 - 00:03:36:23
Mark Titus
Well, Chris Zimmer with the Rivers Without Borders, the Alaska campaign director. Welcome today. So glad you're here. And so, yeah, as you're saying, I know it's steelhead season and rapidly approaching King season. So thank you for making the time to connect. What are you going to go and do first? Are you going to. Are you going to swing a fly or what's your proclivity for fishing?

00:03:37:01 - 00:03:52:16
Chris Zimmer
all flies. Especially for steelhead. That that noble of a fish demands. You know, hand tied flies and swung flies and we come off a little elitist there. But so be it.

00:03:52:17 - 00:04:16:09
Mark Titus
So be it, man. You know, I think I talk to lots of fishermen. Surprise, surprise. And I just think you get to a point where, you know, it's the challenge. Like when you're kids, you go out and you've got your your eggs and bobber hook up and you're, you know, out to you get a string of fish as quickly as you can and you get a little more discerning when you get to a certain age.

00:04:16:09 - 00:04:38:11
Mark Titus
I guess that means we're getting to a certain age, but so be it. It's beautiful. I agree. It's all part of the art. Let's let's dive into this man. So what is River Rivers without Borders? And what is it about this org that's kept you working diligently with them since 2001? Man, you must love this work that you're doing.

00:04:38:11 - 00:04:39:10
Mark Titus
What's it all about?

00:04:39:12 - 00:04:59:06
Chris Zimmer
Well, I also want to win one in this work. We don't win very many, so I'm going to stick this out till we get a victory here. But I think when you look at Rivers without Borders, it almost kind of tells the trans boundary story. I used to work on Columbia Dam issues down there in Seattle, and I've always been wanting to get up to Alaska or saw the job and applied and got it.

00:04:59:08 - 00:05:22:11
Chris Zimmer
But once I jumped into it, I found out it was it was vastly different stuff. What what Rivers Now borders. Our goal was to try to bring people from both sides of the British Columbia, Alaska border together to deal with issues that were common because kind of before 2001, there were these mining and salmon issues in the region.

00:05:22:13 - 00:05:48:08
Chris Zimmer
But even the activists treated the border like a border. There wasn't much cross-border interaction. There wasn't a lot of exchange sharing of information. The tribes didn't talk very much across the border, despite the fact that they have relatives on both sides of the border. You know, that border, you know, the tribal nations and their history, the salmon, water, water pollution doesn't really respect the border.

00:05:48:10 - 00:06:13:18
Chris Zimmer
So this border is an artificial line on a map. It's not as much a real thing in reality on the ground. But what we came to, we were we came together over something called the Tulsa Achieve Mine, which was a mine proposed in the Taku River watershed, which is a big watershed. The mouth of the river is probably only about, let's see, 20, 30 miles from my house here.

00:06:13:18 - 00:06:35:11
Chris Zimmer
You can almost walk to it. It's usually the most productive Salmon River in the region, although it's having severe problems right now with this Chinook and that mine. We thought one was bad itself because it's it's an acid mine producing mine. And it was literally only feet away from the river, but it was also the can opener into the watershed.

00:06:35:13 - 00:06:55:02
Chris Zimmer
They were going to put a road in there, a mine. And once you get a road in an area like that, everything else comes in, whether it's moose poachers, other miners, other development out. The first nation would lose control of the access in the land. So this mine was the wrong place or the wrong mine in the wrong place for a thousand reasons.

00:06:55:04 - 00:07:20:10
Chris Zimmer
And what started as that battle against the Tahlequah chief you kind of look at as the canary in the coal mine or the precedent. Now we're seeing that dynamic play out everywhere, from Haines to the north of us, to Ketchikan to the south, with upstream mines essentially threatening downstream interest and livelihoods and jobs. So we started working on the task to achieve with this cross-border dynamic.

00:07:20:11 - 00:07:46:03
Chris Zimmer
And now all across the border, this is happening even all the way to Montana, where B.C coal mines have really polluted the Elk River. You get fish deformities. I mean, there's the real lesson that's what we don't want to see in Alaska, where the water is toxic, the fish are suffering from that. Most of the habitat in the water along the southeast Alaska border is in good shape.

00:07:46:05 - 00:08:07:12
Chris Zimmer
As long as we protect that habitat, the fish or keep coming back. But if we start degrading the water quality, if we start impacting salmon spawning beds upriver, we're going to see declines. But the good thing is this isn't a restoration battle of fixing something that's broken. This is trying to protect something some of the most productive salmon waters on the planet.

00:08:07:14 - 00:08:13:10
Chris Zimmer
Whereas over with in the Montana situation, you're trying to clean up a big mess.

00:08:13:12 - 00:08:30:20
Mark Titus
Got it. Okay, so we're going to break this down even further, but I want to go ahead and go back to the future. And I'd love to hear a little bit more about your your story, your upbringing, What what got you fired up about this kind of work. I know you've been doing it most of your adult life.

00:08:30:22 - 00:08:38:11
Mark Titus
What is the thing that drives you to get up in the morning and and save those things that you love? And how did it all begin?

00:08:38:12 - 00:08:54:23
Chris Zimmer
I think it's kind of water and fish. I was I was out with a buddy of mine fishing and we were taking a friend of his to the beach. And the guy looked at us and said, Hey, I'm kind of scared. I can't swim. And we dropped him off. After that, my friend looked at me and he said, Can you imagine being scared of the water?

00:08:55:00 - 00:09:15:17
Chris Zimmer
Can you imagine not being able to swim and not being able to, you know, basically go play around in, you know, three quarters of the world's habitat? So this started when I was little of I mean, this all sounds kind of weird. I used to build dams in our little creek and make little habitat for the frogs and the tadpoles.

00:09:15:19 - 00:09:37:22
Chris Zimmer
My parents forced us to go to swimming practice every summer at five in the morning. They took us to the beach. I mean, one of the best things my parents did was probably make us comfortable in the water. We're not scared of it, you know, we don't have to sit on the beach. And it opened up just this whole, you know, for lack of a better word, habitat to go play it.

00:09:38:00 - 00:09:55:05
Chris Zimmer
So I was always outside in the water. I watched the frogs and the fish. And once we figured out fishing, my dad, who couldn't stand fishing, took us till we were big enough to go by ourselves. And then he just let us go. So I think it's really that that water, it's just such an amazing environment. It's so dynamic.

00:09:55:06 - 00:10:12:06
Chris Zimmer
It changes. You know, a river is you could step in a river and fish for an hour, come back in 2 hours. It's a different river. And once I discovered salmon and steelhead, that was it. I was done, came over.

00:10:12:08 - 00:10:33:18
Mark Titus
I can absolutely empathize with you. Same story for me. And also it was, you know, the mystery of it all. You know, like as a guide for years in Southeast, the thing that kept me going every single day was like, you just never know what's going to happen. You never know what's underneath the water. Well, what kind of realm you're going to discover.

00:10:33:18 - 00:11:09:00
Mark Titus
And yeah, that's a that's a powerful motivator. Well, thanks for that. And so let's go into Tulsa. And I sense there's a little irony between the Tlingit First Nations, meaning of the word and the industrial mind you've been fighting against. Can you enlighten us a bit about this big issue? You know, what is it? What's its history? And maybe a little bit on the entomology from from the the name itself and what it is now.

00:11:09:01 - 00:11:24:06
Chris Zimmer
Well, the the Taku I've I've actually heard a variety of different definitions of the word Taku. And at this point, I'm kind of hesitant to offer one up because I'm not clear which one's which. Is that what you were getting at? The entomology of the word there?

00:11:24:08 - 00:11:28:16
Mark Titus
I was thinking about the name of the doggone mine itself.

00:11:28:18 - 00:11:30:08
Chris Zimmer
Oscar Chief.

00:11:30:10 - 00:11:34:17
Mark Titus
Co-Chief Yeah, the Tulsa as a as a trinket word itself.

00:11:34:19 - 00:11:59:16
Chris Zimmer
yeah. Tulsa is the name of. It's on the Tulsa River, which is the biggest tributary to the Taku. And this mine had operated the 1950s for about six or seven years, and it then closed down due to low metals prices. And the company just walked away. They didn't do any cleanup. I mean, they left, you know, papers on the desk.

00:11:59:18 - 00:12:27:10
Chris Zimmer
They left all the machinery around. I mean, literally, they got in a boat and left. And the biggest problem was the mine was pouring acid mine drainage out of the mine openings. And acid mine drainage is what happens when you you dig into these mines. You it's caused by the sulfur bearing ore body. You expose that to air, you bring in water, and the reaction creates an acidic reaction.

00:12:27:10 - 00:13:01:19
Chris Zimmer
So you get acid mine drainage. That level of acidic water is very bad for fish, but it also carries with it a lot of heavy metals. It's leached out of the rock. Copper, arsenic, zinc, lead copper is especially brutal on eggs and juveniles. Only a few parts per million can be toxic to the fish, where in that sensitive stage it might not kill an adult, but it could kill or impact the young fish to where they just can't do what they need to do.

00:13:01:21 - 00:13:22:19
Chris Zimmer
They can't find their way. They can't find mates. They can't find food. So the acid nature of the water and then the heavy metals are essentially poisonous to fish and everything else that lives in the water. So that mine until I mean it's and it's still doing that, that acid mine drainage is still spewing out of that mine.

00:13:22:21 - 00:13:45:18
Chris Zimmer
60 years after it was closed in the 1990s, a company called Redfern came in, bought it, tried to redevelop it. They went bankrupt and they made no effort to really clean it up. Another company then bought it, Chieftain Metals. They went bankrupt and then went through a bankruptcy process and a receivership process. They really didn't make much effort to clean it up.

00:13:45:23 - 00:14:19:07
Chris Zimmer
They built a water treatment plant, ran it for three months, closed it down. And right now, the money essentially is pouring this garbage out of it like it was in the fifties. And so this is this is the canary in the coal mine for how we see BC mining activities and how they can impact the water. It also on a bit of a more positive note could be a precedent for cleanup if this mine is cleaned up in a way that solves the drainage, reduces the amount of metals and acid, the water, and essentially makes the Tulsa River healthier for fish.

00:14:19:09 - 00:14:39:12
Chris Zimmer
Great. But if we go through some half assed cleanup where we're more worried about money or politics, then we're not going to see something that works. And then I think we're going to have to worry about what happens at the next mine. You know, Tasco chief has a relatively small mine. There are mines proposed that are several orders of magnitude bigger.

00:14:39:14 - 00:14:59:17
Chris Zimmer
And if they're going to be managed the same way that Tulsa chief is, we have a problem. So the Tulsa chief was the warning for us. It showed us, wow, here's what BC's doing, here's what British Columbia wants to do, here's how they regulate their mines. Here's how they don't regulate their mines. And here's what Boyce Alaska has.

00:14:59:19 - 00:15:25:06
Chris Zimmer
You know, these mines are in another country. So, you know, it's a bit difficult sometimes for us to get some attention here working across the border. It's not, you know, land we control. So this is a very complex issue with local jurisdictions, state and provincial, federal, tribal and first nation. You have an international border. The Tulsa chief really showed the complexity of this transboundary issue.

00:15:25:08 - 00:15:44:13
Chris Zimmer
And we thought, one, you got to stop that mine and clean it up because it's bad for this river and to stop it and clean it up because if we can't do it right here, we're not going to do it right anywhere else. And we've turned a corner here over the last couple of years where the British Columbia government finally realized this isn't a viable mine.

00:15:44:15 - 00:16:05:23
Chris Zimmer
The talk of River calling it the Canadian first nation, whose territory this mine is in are opposed to it. They definitely want to see a road into their territory. The Alaskan government, the Alaska fishermen, we want to see it cleaned up. This just isn't a viable mine. It also isn't very economic. It's a small deposit. It's very expensive to access.

00:16:05:23 - 00:16:32:14
Chris Zimmer
Be expensive to clean up. So the British Columbia government finally, I think, realized they need to take charge of this. They issued a cleanup plan. They spent a few million bucks on studies. They started to characterize the site so they know physically what's happening there. They've run into delays from COVID. They've also run into some delays from a bankruptcy process that's still ongoing.

00:16:32:16 - 00:16:51:16
Chris Zimmer
And that was another big lesson there. But we think they are on the path to do the right thing here. But it is going to take a lot of vigilance. I remember when Reagan was dealing with the Soviets, he used an old Soviet saying trust but verify. You know, we need to stay on top of the Canadians here.

00:16:51:18 - 00:17:14:00
Chris Zimmer
And the bankruptcy exposed a real problem that if a company goes bankrupt or exposed the problem with, I'd say the bonding and the bankruptcy in in Alaska, when a mine is proposed, it puts a full cash bond in the bank to where if they go bankrupt or if there's a problem, that money solves the problem. In British Columbia, the bonds are often very small.

00:17:14:02 - 00:17:43:04
Chris Zimmer
They aren't complete. They're staggered to where they're built up over sometimes decades. And if a company early on in its career, like with the two companies here, goes bankrupt and their bond is $1,000,000 and the price of clean up is $50 million, the cleanup is either not going to happen or you're going to stick the taxpayers. So this bonding and bankruptcy issue is one of the regulatory things that needs a change in B.C., because when these companies go bankrupt, they just walk away and they're allowed to.

00:17:43:07 - 00:18:03:19
Chris Zimmer
And that's simply for a deal. How many dozen reasons? Unacceptable. So again, here is again another kind of canary in the coal mine warning from the Tulsa chief about the entire mining system and about problems we may see from age to the north to Montana, way down to the southeast.

00:18:03:21 - 00:18:34:06
Mark Titus
Wow. This is a a not for sure to try to untie. So let's we'll try our best here to to elucidate this for our listeners. So come and clear out. You know, 30,000 feet here there's these mines that are situated next to salmon bearing river systems, and they are in British Columbia, but they're right on the border of Alaska.

00:18:34:06 - 00:18:51:03
Mark Titus
So the United States is why why are these sites selected there? I mean, other clearly there's there's minerals. But like, you know, why is it just a coincidence that they're right on these salmon bearing rivers or what is the story there?

00:18:51:05 - 00:19:17:18
Chris Zimmer
The there is this tremendous mineral belt. It's often called the Golden Triangle. It's kind of centered around, say, this Tarkine River, which is to the south of us here. But there's this big belt that really goes up and down the the border here of a number of minerals, gold, silver, copper are some of the big ones here. And you have probably three or four major salmon rivers.

00:19:17:18 - 00:19:41:08
Chris Zimmer
You have the if you start from the south, you have the unique, then you have this Tarkine. Then we have the Taku and then we have the Chilkat up by Haines. These rivers are the lifeblood of the area. They have been for thousands of years. In some places the rivers can provide access corridors via barges and we've seen that on this Tarkine and the Taku.

00:19:41:10 - 00:20:03:06
Chris Zimmer
Some of it just may be the way God or the creator created the planet there. For some reason we've got this combination of salmon and minerals in one area. You also have the whole area has been staked. If you look at a staking map, almost the entire area in these watersheds is staked and that doesn't mean you're getting a mine in there, but that means that exploration is going on.

00:20:03:08 - 00:20:07:13
Chris Zimmer
So really, it's because you have this huge belt here.

00:20:07:15 - 00:20:28:17
Chris Zimmer
And it's just the way I guess the planet, you know, it was created and then evolved. And the history here is mines and salmon are really are a tough combination to make work. I've talked to a number of engineers and say we can have an economical safe mine or we can or we can have an environmentally safe mine or we can have an economical mine.

00:20:28:22 - 00:20:57:13
Chris Zimmer
You can't do both. That's a rock and a hard place problem in there. But really, it's the combination of metals here. It's the history of staking. The B.C. government has heavily promoted mining in these big transboundary watersheds. And again, the history is mines and salmon are a bad combination and everything goes downstream. Everything that goes in the water ends up going downstream.

00:20:57:15 - 00:21:26:05
Chris Zimmer
The the fish, usually entire rivers, for instance, in the Taku, most of the spawning areas up on the B.C. side. But the juvenile salmon, the bulk of them come over and rear and grow up on the Alaska side. So the entire river is is valuable to fish here. And they use it all. And once we see these mines come in, then we see hydropower, then we see power lines, we see more roads, we see more access.

00:21:26:07 - 00:21:51:11
Chris Zimmer
We're really worried about the foot in the door into some of these remote, highly productive areas. And their remoteness is is a value here. And that's why they're so healthy. But it's also a problem of if there are spills, if there are accidents, very expensive and difficult to clean up, it's a very challenging terrain out here. But this is some of the last best salmon habitat on the planet.

00:21:51:13 - 00:22:16:05
Chris Zimmer
You could look across the sea here to east coast of Russia, Kamchatka, again, some of the last best salmon. But look at the lower 48. You know, the Columbia River has been dammed to death. The Oregon coast has been clearcut. California's had problems with their salmon seasons for decades. You know, the lower 48 is not the salmon paradise it probably once was.

00:22:16:07 - 00:22:42:07
Chris Zimmer
And some of the last bastions for salmon are this salmon coast here and Alaska and B.C. And then across the ocean here on the on the Russian side. But so much else we've lost Atlantic salmon you know on the East Coast and over in Europe. Even the Chinook runs up here in Alaska are having severe trouble where we are closing down seasons.

00:22:42:07 - 00:23:06:08
Chris Zimmer
And we have for the last couple of years, our charter and sport and commercial fishing businesses are getting hit hard. People who count on that salmon for food are getting hit hard. And this is probably a problem in the ocean not related to mining. It's it's a problem with with the ocean. But if the fish are in this much trouble, they can't take any more hits from industrial development.

00:23:06:10 - 00:23:27:19
Chris Zimmer
The salmon habitat, as I said, is still in good shape. If we see the freshwater habitat take hits that might be too much for the salmon to stand. If the oceans unhealthy, the freshwater habitat gets unhealthy. You know, we could be looking at extinctions down the line here. So this is a real serious moment in time here, I think, for salmon and this region of what's the path forward?

00:23:27:20 - 00:23:51:13
Chris Zimmer
Is development going to respect salmon and these livelihoods are the people here who whose life is dependent on salmon and fish and these rivers, are they going to be able to continue that lifestyle? That's not only recreation, but their livelihoods, their jobs, food on the table? I mean, I call it I don't know if you can see this, but this is I mean, it's the Salmon nation.

00:23:51:16 - 00:24:21:06
Chris Zimmer
And I think this is a uniting factor from, you know, wherever you are on this border, it's about salmon. I mean, we look at issues in this border through the paradigm of salmon and what it means for salmon and the people who depend on them. And B.C. has vast plans for exploration and development. The the new the the fight against global warming is going to need more minerals.

00:24:21:08 - 00:24:48:11
Chris Zimmer
Electric cars take a ton of copper for their batteries. That's going to be a real challenge because already we see the mining industry saying we can mine our way out of the climate crisis. And that's just that's just trying to capitalize on an issue here and being a bit crass. But we are going to need more minerals. Yeah, you need a hell of a lot more recycling because there's tons of minerals sit in piles, there's millions of cell phones, literally stacked up overseas.

00:24:48:13 - 00:25:10:01
Chris Zimmer
So when you look at the attack against climate issues, that's going to come right down to the ground here where we're going to see more mines proposed, more companies trying to use this justification. And we need to fight back on that. You can't trade one problem, global warming for another problem, destruction of salmon habitat.

00:25:10:03 - 00:25:32:00
Mark Titus
Right. And, you know, in the case of the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, which will we'll get to a little bit more detail later, the late Senator Ted Stevens said wrong mind, wrong place. Absolutely. And, you know, in other words, yeah, certainly we need copper. And certainly there's there's copper all over the world. There's copper in hard to reach places.

00:25:32:00 - 00:26:10:08
Mark Titus
There's tons, as you said, of copper to recycle. That hasn't really been dipped into yet fully because it's not is it's not going to make the people that want to mine in as much money clearly so. All right. So we're breaking this down. Can you then kind of give me a list of the characters involved here who who stands to gain from these large scale mines and who are the other characters up and down this watershed that that are stakeholders in this this conflict?

00:26:10:13 - 00:26:38:08
Chris Zimmer
Wow. Okay. Well, I think it's in British Columbia and Vancouver. I believe, has the largest concentration of junior mining companies on the planet. And by junior mining company, we're not talking about like a Barrick Gold or a Teck Cominco. I mean, these are very small companies with small staff. They might have a few properties, they might be buying old mines, trying to develop them.

00:26:38:10 - 00:27:02:07
Chris Zimmer
And the two companies that tried to develop the mine in the Taku were these junior mining companies that went bankrupt because they just didn't have the resources to do the job right. So you have this massive mining industry in B.C. and B.C. gives them tax breaks. You know, certainly promotions, subsidies. They were able, I think, to defer electricity bills for a while.

00:27:02:09 - 00:27:12:06
Chris Zimmer
And when I call my electric company and ask them that they they say no and, you know, start cranking up the penalties. So you have a very large mining industry, really.

00:27:12:06 - 00:27:15:04
Mark Titus
We must have the same electric company.

00:27:15:06 - 00:27:38:22
Chris Zimmer
Yeah. For the mining companies get a better deal. But you have everybody from these massive multibillion dollar multinational mining companies that are involved down to the juniors. And as I said, there's a there's a huge belt of minerals in there and that that industry is going to continue to try to find ways in there. There's massive exploration. Some of it will lead to mines.

00:27:39:00 - 00:28:07:01
Chris Zimmer
Some of it won't. So we have the B.C. government and its industry. You have the Canadian federal government. And a problem here is that the Canadian federal government defers mostly to B.C. on mining and on enforcement of a lot of issues. They really have not stepped in strongly. So the province has been able to get away with a fair amount of stuff that here in the U.S. you would have more interaction between the feds and the states and you would have a set of, you know, different laws taking effect here.

00:28:07:01 - 00:28:27:15
Chris Zimmer
But the province really can kind of be off on its own here. You have a number of First Nations, which is what the the native tries to be called on the B.C. side. Some are very large and powerful, some are smaller. And one thing I can tell you that they in the Alaska tribes cannot stand is being called a stakeholder.

00:28:27:17 - 00:28:50:03
Chris Zimmer
You know, I remember one tribal official here in Juneau that stood up in a meeting and said, you know, I'm not a stakeholder. And he gave this impassioned speech about, you know, I live here. This is my land. My family's lived there for thousands of years. We're not just a stakeholder. And I can't remember the rest of the speech, but it really had an effect on folks.

00:28:50:05 - 00:29:15:21
Chris Zimmer
So we have a number of first nations over on the sea side who it's still kind of like the U.S. in some places. They own land and some places they don't. There are some treaties. There are some places where there aren't. It's still a bit of a mixed bag. But the the first nations over there have been very aggressive in fighting for their rights and they've said we'll accept mining, but it's on our terms.

00:29:15:23 - 00:29:35:03
Chris Zimmer
You have to come to us first. You can't just go mess around the territory and then decide you want to build a mine. We need free and prior informed consent. We need to have these binding issues fixed so there are problems. There's a resource that can be fixed or that can be brought to bear to pay for any kind of cleanup.

00:29:35:05 - 00:30:02:09
Chris Zimmer
You have a number of native tribes on the Alaska side and they're starting to interact quite aggressively as well with the B.C. tribes, because historically they traveled up and down the river. They traded. There's family on both sides. You know, that that border there is not really a border for the tribes in the first nations. And to them, certainly water quality and fish is important game and essentially the overall integrity of the landscape.

00:30:02:11 - 00:30:30:03
Chris Zimmer
You have a number of fishermen. There are there's more commercial fishing on the Alaska side than the B.C. side. There's a lot of sport fishing by individuals, but also by lodges and charters. Let's see. You have a lot of outfitting and guiding for everything from bear viewing to hunting to bird watching. You have this tourism industry that brings both a massive and very small cruise ships to the region.

00:30:30:05 - 00:30:58:16
Chris Zimmer
We have processors up and down the coast here who process salmon and sell it across the planet. I mean, there's an incredibly diverse set of of of groups and individuals and interests involved here. And then you have several lower levels of government, local, state, federal and provincial. It's a hugely condo complex landscape. And then you have the fish and the critters and everything else that lives in the watershed.

00:30:58:18 - 00:31:24:00
Mark Titus
Right. Who seem to be the last to be consulted always on these types of things because they don't really have a voice, which is why we're talking right now. Absolutely. So that's a fantastic outline of who's involved here. And duly noted. Thank you. That's a really wonderful way of expressing what the First Nations folks mentioned about not being just a stakeholder.

00:31:24:02 - 00:31:53:02
Mark Titus
That's incredibly correct. You know, thousands of years. Okay. So given all of these interests in this region, how how are you squaring this up with Tosca, Chief, right now? Where where do we stand? What what is happening on the ground right now, this moment? And then what needs to happen next?

00:31:53:04 - 00:32:14:21
Chris Zimmer
I'm specific to task to achieve what's happening on the ground is the B.C. government has hired some contractors to go in and characterize the site, how much water is moving? Where? Where do you need to plug it up? How stable are the underground workings of the mine? Can we send people in there? What do we need to do to stabilize that?

00:32:14:22 - 00:32:36:01
Chris Zimmer
They had to look at where the river was eating away at the bank and at the side of the airstrip. They're going to do a light study, which is kind of an overflight. Again, to get an idea of the geography of the terrain. The big thing here is this is this entire transboundary giant is massively wet snow and rain.

00:32:36:01 - 00:32:54:21
Chris Zimmer
It's got just water moving everywhere. And that's one of the biggest challenge. If we were if we were talking about a mine here in the Arizona desert or somewhere near Las Vegas in Nevada, this would be a totally different issue. But, you know, we're in a very wet issue with salmon and a ton of people who depend on the on the fish here.

00:32:54:23 - 00:33:15:12
Chris Zimmer
So they it's taken them a while, really to figure out where is this water come from, where's it's going, How can we keep it out of the mine? How do we need to treat it before it's dumped back into the river? So they're really at the study stage, we might not see actual cleanup, you know, a reduction in the acid mine drainage until 2023.

00:33:15:14 - 00:33:36:08
Chris Zimmer
And that's if we stay on track now and we don't have any more complications from COVID. We don't have any more complications from this ridiculous bankruptcy process. But it's dependent on Alaska and Alaskans and our and even our federal leaders here to keep the pressure on B.C. and we've tried to tell them this is the biggest issue in the trans boundary.

00:33:36:09 - 00:34:01:00
Chris Zimmer
It's been going on probably the longest, but also it's one of the relatively easiest to deal with. It is a relatively small mine. The acid mine drainage problem is not like something you would get from Pebble. Orders of magnitude bigger. And if we can't fix this, how are we going to fix anything else? So this is the precedent setter here with Tulsa Gua, and it's going to tell us whether we have a partner we can trust on a B.C. side or not.

00:34:01:02 - 00:34:20:12
Chris Zimmer
So we'll see a couple more years of study. We'll hopefully see the commitment to clean up by 2023. The other big thing they were going to have to do is create the bankroll. B.C. is going to have to get this money either from the taxpayer or from the responsible companies who tried to develop the mine and went bankrupt and left.

00:34:20:14 - 00:34:40:02
Chris Zimmer
So that's a choice as well. Are we going to stick the public with this or are we going to stick the people who actually made the mess and make them pay for what they left festering out there? And again, that'll be a test case for B.C. of All right. B.C. continues to say that we have a polluter pay principle.

00:34:40:04 - 00:35:01:17
Chris Zimmer
Well, not here. And if the polluter doesn't have any money, how are you going to make them pay? So this is a real test case of the polluter pays issue. And it's it's been a mixed bag so far. So the task for us, the task for the task for Senator Sullivan and Murkowski is to keep the pressure on B.C. and Canada and say Alaska is watching.

00:35:01:19 - 00:35:33:00
Chris Zimmer
We're expecting you to follow through on your commitments and we're going to follow through here. And if we see that the job isn't done right on top, secure Republican to see more aggressive moves against some of the other mining proposals. And you'll probably see more skepticism from some of the mining proponents on the Alaska side. There were certainly a lot of people on the Alaska side who support more mining in B.C. because they're either in the industry or they think they can somehow capitalize on that with transportation materials, things like that.

00:35:33:02 - 00:35:54:12
Chris Zimmer
But if the job can't be done right, if it's putting Alaskans out of work, if it's taking food off our table, you're not going to see a lot of support from Alaska for that. So right now, it's you know, I guess if you go back five or six years ago, it was kind of hard to get up in the morning and think that, man, banging our head against the wall again with the Canadians, much help.

00:35:54:14 - 00:36:11:20
Chris Zimmer
Now, though, I mean, there is there is hope that also cheap is on the path to to clean up the B.C. government. I mean one of their staffers told us that every time they hear the word toxic with chief, it's like a scab being torn off an open wound. And that didn't make them happy. But it sure made me happy.

00:36:11:22 - 00:36:38:02
Chris Zimmer
I mean, we want them to know that we're watching here. So there is this you know, this took 20 years with toxicology, but I think we are on the right path now to get this thing cleaned up and actually prevent mining in the Tulsa Gua Taku watershed or I mean, in that where the area where the Taku and the Tulsa come together, the Confluence area, very sensitive area, massive wetlands.

00:36:38:04 - 00:36:55:12
Chris Zimmer
If you prevent a road in a mine in that area, you're essentially protect that once the road goes in, I think we'd be done. But right now, I think we're on the long term path to protect that that entire region. And that's also bleeding over in other areas of the Taku where they. Wait a minute. We don't want this here or we don't want this here.

00:36:55:14 - 00:37:15:02
Chris Zimmer
So there is once we saw B.C. finally realize that this wasn't the way to go you know, we wake up in the morning with a bit of different hop in your step. And even Senator Dan Sullivan here, you know, very, very conservative senator, very pro mining has gone to the Canadian federal government several times and said you have to clean this up.

00:37:15:02 - 00:37:39:07
Chris Zimmer
This is shocking. This is appalling. You know, most Alaskans who depend on these rivers see that you can't have this kind of mining in salmon. So there is this hope and there's also the value and persistence. You know, this wasn't going to be something we were going to fix in a couple years. POSCO chief took 20 years. But we now have the transboundary area.

00:37:39:07 - 00:38:09:04
Chris Zimmer
The word transboundary is now in common usage. Alaskans now know what's happening in Montana. Montanans have told us in Alaska, here's what we went through. You don't want to go do this or here's what the B.C. government will do. And so expect this. And so now we're learning the lessons across the entire border from the lower 48 to here of how how you can come together across the border to protect it, how you deal with the industry and how the industry and government behaves.

00:38:09:06 - 00:38:31:22
Chris Zimmer
So you have a much more educated public and activist base. And it also shows that these problems are not. In one sense, they are local, but they also are across the entire border, which makes them a national issue. You know, we have national resources at risk here. Our salmon, that's a national resource. It's not just for Alaska. Every once in a while, my parents in Pittsburgh get fresh Alaska salmon.

00:38:32:00 - 00:38:52:21
Chris Zimmer
It costs an arm and a leg. It's hard to get. And every once in a while, I send them some myself. So there is this your persistence? There is some hope here. And also just you see people coming together across the border for really what's a couple thousand miles of border. And I think that's put the entire issue on the map.

00:38:52:23 - 00:39:05:00
Chris Zimmer
Instead of it being a few dozen little local fights here and there, this is now a concerted battle across the border with the U.S. and Canada. And it's elevated all the issues. And I think that's been very valuable.

00:39:05:02 - 00:39:48:09
Mark Titus
So you've done a great job of breaking this down. And I think it's you're painting a very clear picture here of what's going on in the moment and the fact that this this is a precedent setting moment and that this is a moment to take action. Now, according to your T-shirt and according to, you know, the network I'm involved in, of of people with the same name as Salmon Nation, we don't really think about things in terms of the the geography and the border between countries because, as you pointed out, salmon don't really think of things that way.

00:39:48:11 - 00:40:24:03
Mark Titus
But those things do exist in our modern architecture of society. And so for our listeners, can you kind of explain to all of us like what what can be done here? Where's Carrot? Where's the stick? Based on our elected officials and based on our our own individual actions are a lot of times we talk about these things and we feel very helpless and powerless to to be an instrument of change and to support the things that need to be supported.

00:40:24:05 - 00:40:33:07
Mark Titus
What? Where's the carrot? Where's the stick? What can we do to really use our voices and through our elected officials as well?

00:40:33:09 - 00:41:01:22
Chris Zimmer
Okay. Yeah. There's a couple of mechanisms that can be utilized here. And then as of right away, folks can get involved. One of the international mechanisms that exist is something called the IGC, the International Joint Commission, and that's an international Canadian U.S. body set up by the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. And that's a long, convoluted treaty. But essentially it says you can't pollute the waters flowing between the two countries.

00:41:02:00 - 00:41:37:18
Chris Zimmer
Those then imply that you can do whatever the hell you want your own country. But for instance, in the Taku, you can't pollute the river to where it impacts Alaskans, either from water quality or loss of salmon or things like that. And the IJC is the body that's created to kind of broker and discuss this. The fundamental problem is both countries have to agree to bring the IJC in, and the Canadians don't want to do that because the IJC in the sixties opposed some coal mines in B.C. and those coal mines were never, never built.

00:41:37:20 - 00:41:59:12
Chris Zimmer
It put the industry on its heels and they don't want to see that happen to the trans boundary from an industry perspective. So the IJC is this threat that's kind of stick out there, but it's tough to implement. We continue to push for that. We want the IGC involved because then they bring both parties together with resources and you can essentially create some kind of manage plan for the region.

00:41:59:13 - 00:42:21:05
Chris Zimmer
Instead of having these constant fights over what should be done here, what should be done here. We've got to create some kind of more certainty. There's a big effort in B.C. to reform the mines that's led by a number of B.C. groups and some of the First Nations to reform the mining regulations, to fix the bonding issue, to try to address this bankruptcy issue.

00:42:21:11 - 00:42:45:12
Chris Zimmer
So that would make the industry behave better. There were some of the first nations who were saying, again, we we can take mining on certain but on our terms and not here, here and here. You know, for instance, this issue is too vital and too sensitive. And I think those kind of, if you call it a protected areas or wilderness, whatever, that again, is a bit of a stick of, we're going to continue to push for these.

00:42:45:13 - 00:43:07:23
Chris Zimmer
If you can't do the job right. We're going to continue to push to make these areas just off limits. And there are certainly some places where you just shouldn't have mining. It's just not it's just not compatible with the the critters, the fish, the sensitivity of the ecosystem and all the existing uses. So we have the IGC, we have a fight on regulatory reform supporting the First Nations and their fights.

00:43:08:01 - 00:43:34:07
Chris Zimmer
The other thing is to come together across the border. Alaskans and people in B.C., Montanans and people in B.C. all saying we need to protect this region, we need to protect these livelihoods, we need to have a better balance between industry and fish. There are literally dozens of environmental groups involved in this. There are fishing organizations, sport fishing groups like Trout Unlimited.

00:43:34:09 - 00:43:51:17
Chris Zimmer
So I think for the average person, the thing to do is probably to get in touch with one of the groups I'd say, give me a call or an email. We need all kind of help, everything from letters written to the paper, letters written to our senators. We need people who will put flags on their boats, you know, promoting wild salmon.

00:43:51:19 - 00:44:25:22
Chris Zimmer
And we also, you know, one way to save wild salmon is ironically eat them. It promotes the value of that fish, the healthy food. It's in general better in a number of areas than farmed fish. But really, I think the thing is to try to get involved in if there's a local battle, you know, down in Seattle, you have the company that built a mine up in this Tarkine here wanting to put a mine in the in the donut hole on the B.C. side in the Upper Skagit watershed in Montana, you have the right upriver coal mines all along the coast.

00:44:25:22 - 00:44:46:01
Chris Zimmer
Here we have different mines. But the reason my group came together was really to empower people and bring them to this area, show them that the border is not a blocked fixing things and bring them into an international issue, which really, you know, at first glance looks just way too complex and not something your average person would want to get into.

00:44:46:02 - 00:45:10:03
Chris Zimmer
But really, this is raising the voice of why we need salmon, why these areas are important to fish, and why we need reforms out of the out of the mining industry. So it's really people power here. And whether you're a lawyer and can help with the AJC, whether you're a writer and can get an article, all that is valuable if you know the prime minister of B.C. and go to the same cocktail parties.

00:45:10:08 - 00:45:36:05
Chris Zimmer
Great. We'd love for you to go talk to him. So there is a host of things that people could do to help. Even if you're not right here in Juneau. You know, this is really this is a national Canadian U.S. issue. And I think there's room and need for all folks to get involved. My parents continue to write letters about Pebble and Telescope Chief, and they're in their eighties back in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

00:45:36:07 - 00:45:37:07
Mark Titus
Good for them.

00:45:37:09 - 00:46:00:02
Chris Zimmer
Try to get in touch with us either, you know, our website, WWE, Doc Rivers Borders dot org. The email is. Zimmer at Rivers without Borders dot org. So please reach out. We can use any help you've got got expertise, time, political power, money. It takes everything.

00:46:00:04 - 00:46:28:10
Mark Titus
Very thorough, my friend. You are really on it. Yeah. Look, we, you know, started Ava's wild, the kind of umbrella of the show as an impact brand for that very reason. To raise awareness and to raise awareness about the idea of eating wild salmon to. To save them. You know, if you demand them on your plate, then you can't have deleterious projects that would keep them from coming back to your plate.

00:46:28:12 - 00:46:59:12
Mark Titus
So I want to step out. We out here again into outer space, and then we'll kind of zoom in to wrap this thing up. But when we're weighing compete ing interests and competing industries, who should get the final say about what goes in where and why? It seems rather unclear that, you know, obviously if you pay attention, it's follow the money.

00:46:59:13 - 00:47:14:22
Mark Titus
And that seems to always have the most influence. Doesn't mean that's right, but it seems to be the way of the world. What, though, in your mind, we should weigh the heaviest when we're deciding about these complex situations?

00:47:15:00 - 00:47:37:08
Chris Zimmer
Yeah, it's hard to say that any one interest group. I mean, I'd love for me to be the arbiter here and have the final say, but I don't think that's practical. There's probably not one group or constituency really that should have the final say, given the extremely wide uses of this watershed. I mean, you always need something like the AJC to come in and and create the balance between all the all the different users.

00:47:37:10 - 00:48:02:03
Chris Zimmer
But if you look at not who has the final say, but what say the final criteria here, I think you've got to look at one the the the the fact that tribes in first nations have been on this landscape for thousands of years. They have a tremendous play here in B.C. They still it's still not required that mining companies or the government consult with them formally over development.

00:48:02:05 - 00:48:35:00
Chris Zimmer
We need a process of formal consultation, and that just doesn't mean send a letter. That means you sit down, you talk, you hash stuff out. And some times in some places, there may be places where the first nations and tribes should have a veto of, you know, this is just the wrong thing in the wrong place. But I think the the kind of the way I would view this of what are the criteria is really what protects the existing users, especially the tribes and first nations in their long history.

00:48:35:02 - 00:49:01:02
Chris Zimmer
But what maintains the overall integrity of the landscape? It doesn't need to basically be a complete wilderness top to bottom, but it's got a function. Roads tend to break up and fragment watersheds. Bears don't like that. Use of explosives terrifies goats, especially during their lambing seasons. You know, there are very specific things like that that need to be addressed.

00:49:01:04 - 00:49:27:19
Chris Zimmer
But I think you've got to take this more wholesale view of we need to protect the integrity and the productivity of these watersheds. And that's clean water. That's salmon, that's deer, goats and sheep for for hunting. It's keeping it intact to where it's not fragmented by dozens and dozens of roads where you have logging trucks and Winnebagos and stuff like that through there.

00:49:27:20 - 00:49:52:03
Chris Zimmer
And there are certainly ways that industrial development can function with that. We're not saying this is an industrial free zone from Haines to Montana, but the industry's got to change the way it works. It's got to become more responsive. Again, you need prior and informed consent with the tribes. Meaning a mining story has to come to the tribe or first nation upfront and essentially get permission, not go explore around in the watershed for a couple of years and then go talk.

00:49:52:05 - 00:50:21:04
Chris Zimmer
We need better bonding. So really, again, we need to look at development through the lens of what maintains the productivity, the integrity and the existing uses here. There is a ton of money made out of out of fishing and tourism here and the other activities on the land that aren't mining. That needs to be maintained. So it's going to it's a balancing act and it's going to be a difficult one.

00:50:21:05 - 00:50:38:05
Chris Zimmer
But I think at the end of the day, fish and clean water trump everything else. And that's how we got to look at this. You know, the fish the fish will come back for in perpetuity as long as they've got the habitat, the minerals, once they're out of the ground, that's done. Also, the minerals will be in the ground forever.

00:50:38:07 - 00:51:01:21
Chris Zimmer
If we mine everything else in a thousand years and need to come back to the Tulsa Good chief. Well, we'll have that discussion then. But we sure as hell don't need the minor amount of gold and copper that would come out of the Tulsa chief here. So some of this is a change in mentality for folks. Some of it is about expanding the worldview from, you know, maybe little Juneau here to the entire border.

00:51:01:23 - 00:51:19:09
Chris Zimmer
But again, I think it's I think it's fair if you got to nail it down to one thing, it's fish. And that's how we need to look at almost every activity of the trans boundary here. And again, the the the vast number of different constituencies here does make that difficult. But there are ways to get those folks to the table.

00:51:19:11 - 00:51:44:01
Chris Zimmer
And there are different ways to do things that we are seeing some of that in the way B.C. is dealing with the First Nations. You know, we're certainly seeing more attention to clean water and we're seeing people more educated about the effects of development in the in regions like this. So maybe I'll just leave it at that. And again, just say it's all it's all about this.

00:51:44:03 - 00:52:14:13
Mark Titus
Well, I'm not going to argue with you, obviously, You know, if you follow any of the stuff that I'm up to, you know, that I'm salmon obsessed and we find complete agreement there. I also love this necessary consultation with First Nations. And I. I feel that that is on the way to happening more holistically on multiple levels. As far as First Nations input and frankly, management of areas.

00:52:14:13 - 00:52:37:04
Mark Titus
The people that know it best that have been here, that have traditional wisdom that goes back millennia. I mean, it's beyond being just it's common sense. I mean, that they know it better than anybody else. And and, you know, the rest of us are trying to be the best stewards we can. But these are folks that have it in their in their DNA.

00:52:37:05 - 00:53:08:00
Mark Titus
So that's that is, I think, a prerequisite as well. Coming back to the idea of a carrot and a sticks out to in this moment we find ourselves and it'll be very interesting to watch how this unfolds as to who is left with the bill for the inevitable cleanup when this happens. You know, if you're a kid and you're out at a party growing up, you go out and light fires in his backyard and, you know, if that kid's getting a lollipop every time he lights a fire, he's not going to stop doing this.

00:53:08:00 - 00:53:41:07
Mark Titus
And eventually he's going to burn the house down. You know, the people that take the risk have a meaning. The mining companies have massive incentive to do this because ultimately they typically make a ton of money. And so, you know, the people, though, that are passively taking absorbing the risk are are living downriver. And there's not a whole lot out of it for them if, you know, they strike it big or they don't strike it big.

00:53:41:09 - 00:54:08:17
Mark Titus
So to me, it makes more than enough sense that the people that stood to gain the most out of this at the very beginning of this operation, i.e. the mining companies, Teck Cominco, they ought to stand by it. They ought to be the ones who ought to be on the hook. And if it doesn't work out and it's a nasty clean up process, well, maybe they'll think about it at another time.

00:54:08:19 - 00:54:34:11
Mark Titus
Yeah. So it's going to be super interesting to see how this plays out. And, you know, from from this perspective here, I certainly think that the people that stand to gain the most ought to be responsible for it. And and frankly, you know, the people that have been there for thousands of years, like you say, you know, ought to have the most to say about evaluating whether this thing should go in in the first place.

00:54:34:15 - 00:55:00:19
Chris Zimmer
Well, as I say, starting Point, I forgot about the the risk benefit. I mean, that's here in Alaska, we bear all the risk and we get hardly any benefits from the the BC mines. And I think I did forget to mention is is the enforcement we've got to see better enforcement of existing and future laws from B.C. And what we really have never seen is, you know, people treat corporations like they're some entity that's not people you know, B.C. has fined the corporations.

00:55:00:23 - 00:55:21:12
Chris Zimmer
They hit Teck Cominco with a $60 million fine a couple of weeks ago. But you're looking at a $15 billion company. Does that impact them? But we need the fines and the enforcement and we need to see the officers of the company fined. We need to see them go to jail, not treating the corporation as some faceless beast, that there's no people there.

00:55:21:14 - 00:55:45:21
Chris Zimmer
If we start putting corporate officers in jail or hit them with the fines, I think we'll see a change in behavior. But there has not been the real willingness to go do that yet. That will bring it home. If we see some of these guys in an orange jumpsuit and see them have to write checks, because, for instance, the officers of the two companies that went bankrupt in the in the Taku with Tosca chief, they've never paid a dime.

00:55:45:23 - 00:56:00:19
Chris Zimmer
And there's never been any threat about going after them. And clearly under the law, you could do it. So the enforcement issue is here. It's something we need to see much better. And that may be one of the more effective sticks, but that requires government to act.

00:56:00:21 - 00:56:22:16
Mark Titus
It's exactly where I was going with that. I think that's brilliant. And yeah, because, you know, look, if if there's no repercussions, you're just going to keep doing the same thing. And frankly, we don't have that luxury anymore. Like we talk about in my film The Wild, You know, look, with places like Southeast and Bristol Bay, you've reached the end of the line here.

00:56:22:16 - 00:57:00:00
Mark Titus
Yeah. We just don't have we don't have the luxury of playing around with these fires anymore. All right. So what I'm seeing here is that, you know, time and again, a mine goes in, company goes bankrupt, bankrupt. Nobody wants to pay for the clean up, rinse, repeat. You've said this is a small project, but in the grand scheme of things and it takes all of this headache and all of the these incredibly disparate moving pieces to try to get it shut down and taken care of in perpetuity.

00:57:00:02 - 00:57:19:18
Mark Titus
So how would something like the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay compare to something like the Tosca chief in terms of size, scope, potential destruction to the bioregion and its salmon runs and the massive pain in the ass if, God forbid, it needed cleanup from a disaster and perpetual remediation or.

00:57:19:19 - 00:57:40:17
Chris Zimmer
The toxic, which Eve was a mine that was going to mine about 2000 tons of or a day. I've seen a couple proposals for Pebble, but I think we're talking a couple of orders of magnitude. I know we're talking 1500 thousand tons a day, a footprint of the mine. It's of the mine itself and all of its infrastructure.

00:57:40:18 - 00:58:03:21
Chris Zimmer
I mean, POSCO chief is a fairly small footprint. The mine itself, the processing center, diesel power plant. But Pebble would have I mean, the footprint would be massive. It would have a port, a huge road, a power plant. And then you finally get to the mine, which itself would be massive and toss which half is an underground mine, which is one thing.

00:58:03:21 - 00:58:29:04
Chris Zimmer
But some of these big open pits can create issues of, well, look at the Butte Pit in Montana. They closed that thing down decades ago. It's full of poisonous water. I think of a bird lands on it. It probably has a couple of minutes to live and that thing just sits there. So the footprint is massive. The amount of tailings produced from something like Pebble again be orders of magnitude more that would have to be managed.

00:58:29:04 - 00:59:08:13
Chris Zimmer
So it's the physical footprint, the just the absolute amount of minerals and the massive amount of water that's going to be moving around in there. So, you know, as you said, yeah, this is a little one, but look at all the trouble it's taken to deal with. I mean, I can't imagine dealing with a problem that you would see at a mine like KSM proposed in a unique drainage, which is Pebble Scale, you know, the Mount Holly mine, which was in southern B.C., its tailings dam blew out and the one kind of a saving grace there is that mine was not acid generating.

00:59:08:15 - 00:59:35:03
Chris Zimmer
It did not have acidic tailings. It wasn't full of the heavy metals like the tunnels, which even or pebble would be. So when the Mount Polley Dam let go, you had, I mean, a massive sediment bomb going downstream, destroying the water, ending up in one lake where all that stuff just sitting on the bottom now. And the company now has permission from B.C. to continue discharging other water into their.

00:59:35:05 - 00:59:58:23
Chris Zimmer
So if Mount Polley was an acidic mine, you would see that water be toxic. You would see that lake be dead. So for the grace of God, mount Polley was not an acidic mine. Look how big that problem was. Tosca Relatively small, but 20 years to clean up in total, it's probably going to take $100 million to clean it up and monitor the clean up over the long term.

00:59:59:00 - 01:00:20:03
Chris Zimmer
And it's given the industry a tremendous black eye and it's given people like me the motivation, the impetus to get up in the morning and make sure that we don't have this kind of stuff anymore. So when you look at Tosca, chief, it really has lessons for all these other battles, whether they're big or small mines. But again, it's such a small mine.

01:00:20:05 - 01:00:46:06
Chris Zimmer
If you have a tailings blowout at KSM or at Pebble or you have a big open pit that fills up and is full of toxic water, I don't even think the bonding that the mines are required to put up front would cover that and we'd be going to the to the taxpayer again. So, you know, chief, is the is the lesson here, and this should inform any other decisions we make about this kind of mining.

01:00:46:08 - 01:01:25:19
Mark Titus
Rinse, repeat. So, Chris, you've been at this a long time and you're obviously your heart is so passionate and involved in this. And you also know a tremendous amount of people and a generous, tremendous amount about this this issue. And you're also a pragmatist, it seems to me. You're very level headed on this stuff. So given all this time, you've devoted all of your life that you've devoted to this, if you had your druthers and you could wave a magic wand, what would the harmony look like in in this region of southeast of Alaska and in B.C.?

01:01:25:21 - 01:01:37:14
Mark Titus
What what does that look like to you? I mean, if you could just paint as a picture of if things could be balanced in a way that made sense for most people, what would that look like to you?

01:01:37:16 - 01:01:59:12
Chris Zimmer
I think to take that holistic, first of all, holistic view of what whatever we do, we need to maintain the integrity and the productivity of the watersheds and maintain those existing lifestyles, those cultures, those livelihoods and those jobs that right now are dependent on these watersheds. And as long as the water stays clean, the fish keep coming back, those jobs will will be there.

01:01:59:13 - 01:02:23:06
Chris Zimmer
So one is kind of that, and that requires certainly an attitude change on some folks. So it's the recognition that, you know, wilderness has value. We keep hearing, all you crazy greenies, you just want to put a fence up around everything and keep everybody out. Why would I want to do that? I fish my neighbors and friends, make money off tourism, off guiding off hunting and fishing.

01:02:23:08 - 01:02:41:10
Chris Zimmer
You know, this isn't some purist wilderness thing to where we just want to take the humans off the landscape. You can't do that. We've been here for thousands of years and we're going to be here for a lot longer. But we can behave a lot better here, I think. So it's that holistic view that humans will be here.

01:02:41:15 - 01:03:06:21
Chris Zimmer
We do impact the landscape. In doing that, we do have to continue to try to keep in mind the integrity and productivity of the watershed and the people that are already here. But also I'm also wonder we had a I had a mining exec tell us last year that if you keep wanting to have a new smartphone every year, you're going to need to let us mine more.

01:03:06:23 - 01:03:13:01
Chris Zimmer
And first of all, I told him why I have a flip phone and I've had that same flip phone for five years.

01:03:13:03 - 01:03:13:13
Mark Titus
I don't.

01:03:13:15 - 01:03:39:11
Chris Zimmer
Fantastic. He understood. But, you know, do do we need a new flip phone every year? Some of this is going to have to be the way, you know, people behave, the resources we use and what we demand in the marketplace. Electric cars are going to need more metals, but there's certainly good and bad ways to do that. So some of this is the the consumer and the average public saying, yeah, I do want some of these benefits, but I don't want them at the cost of this.

01:03:39:13 - 01:04:11:11
Chris Zimmer
And we need to change the way we we operate here. Some of it again, is the companies I mean look at our Google, the Google server farms, as I understand it, are sucking huge amount of juice out of the grid in Washington. That's you know, when I think a bunch that power comes from the dams. So, you know, Google you could say there may be that they're contributing to the problems that come from the dams by using that much power there and essentially propping up, you know, the whole electric system there.

01:04:11:13 - 01:04:32:21
Chris Zimmer
So I don't know if there's just one thing I could do and wave the magic wand, but it's it's really kind of, I think, an attitude change, a realization of the landscape, but also the understanding that, you know, you can't have all these different things work together if it's done right. I mean, that doesn't mean you have Pebble, that doesn't mean you can swim, but, you know, you can have some industrial development these areas.

01:04:32:21 - 01:04:52:08
Chris Zimmer
But there are some areas that just should be off limits to industrial development. And that doesn't mean that that those areas are now useless to the human race. There's still a variety of people that make their livelihood and living off the air and do it in a way that they want to do. You know, they don't want to be a stockbroker in New York City.

01:04:52:10 - 01:05:12:07
Mark Titus
Well, I think that's brilliant, man. And I think we really need to get to the most imperative question of the day here, which is how are your Pittsburgh Penguins doing? And and do you feel the fear of the Seattle Kraken?

01:05:12:09 - 01:05:33:17
Chris Zimmer
Well, the Penguins lost yesterday. I don't know what the Capitals did, but the penguins are the Capitals are trade in first place and the Penguins, despite a massive amount of injuries, have stepped up. It's been great watching that team step up, watching the coach get everybody together. And it's just a great sport. The only fear I have about the Kraken is through the expansion draft.

01:05:33:17 - 01:05:58:08
Chris Zimmer
They'll steal some of the penguins. But you're not getting Sidney Crosby. We're protecting him. He's staying in the in Pittsburgh. But, I mean, I think it's great to see hockey really so prominent now in the U.S. It's a great sport. I personally like it better than baseball in football. It has this amazing fan base and it looks like Seattle is just head over heels.

01:05:58:10 - 01:06:00:14
Chris Zimmer
Get ready for next year.

01:06:00:16 - 01:06:24:23
Mark Titus
Yeah, people are crazed already. And, you know, coming from a place here that lost a beloved franchise in our Seattle Supersonics Trust me, I understand that suspicion and that malaise in thinking about getting your your favorite players carted off. All right. So we're going to jump into the that the quick speed round three questions. Everybody gets it. Yep.

01:06:24:23 - 01:06:45:04
Mark Titus
And and end it. Just use your imagination here. So. Okay, your house is on fire or let's say it's in the path of a flooding river, perhaps in your case. So of course, you get your loved ones out and your pets out first. But in addition to them, what's the one physical thing that you take with you? If you can only take one thing, You.

01:06:45:04 - 01:06:50:13
Chris Zimmer
Mean like one thing, like one fishing rod or one picture or. Yeah, one.

01:06:50:18 - 01:06:53:09
Mark Titus
Yep, yep. You got to go.

01:06:53:11 - 01:07:12:13
Chris Zimmer
Wow. Okay, so we get Katie and the dog out. I might grab my. This is going to sound very weird, but I might grab my 1911, which is a 45 caliber pistol. That's been my favorite thing for years. It's a kind of an heirloom, and I might just grab that because that's right here and easy to grab the fishing rods.

01:07:12:13 - 01:07:29:19
Chris Zimmer
There's 20 of them in the basement. I don't know which one I get, so I don't know. I've got it right here on the desk. I'd probably grab that. But other than that, to just have one thing. Either that or I grab the the envelope on the desk here that has all my mom's letters.

01:07:29:21 - 01:07:30:05
Mark Titus
There you.

01:07:30:05 - 01:07:48:14
Chris Zimmer
Go. I grab that because, wow, I can see that right here. And she sends me letters. She sent me my baby shoes. She sent me shirts I wore when I was in fifth grade. I mean, it's like she sent me about this little thing about my life in an envelope, in a box. So I maybe I should say I'd grab that.

01:07:48:16 - 01:08:14:18
Mark Titus
Wow, that's treasure. Yeah. My my answer would be the box full of journals and and letters as well. So. Okay, that's that's beautiful. But, you know, the 1911, too. All right, So let's now let's call it your your like your spiritual house. Your what are the two most important characteristics about you that you would take if you could only take to the things that make you you?

01:08:14:20 - 01:08:30:17
Chris Zimmer
boy. I think it's the the the this fascination with water and fish, not just the fascination, the broader landscape and outdoors, but there's this fascination with water and fish is one or that two.

01:08:30:19 - 01:08:31:16
Mark Titus
I think that's one.

01:08:31:19 - 01:08:56:10
Chris Zimmer
Okay. So I got a fascination with water and fish. And then I said, I'd like to be able to take the camaraderie and fun in friendship. My two brothers that I have every year when we go off on our 2 to 3 week fishing trip. One brother's in London, the other's at a tough job in Pittsburgh. This takes them totally out of that element, puts them in a, you know somewhere out in a remote cabin.

01:08:56:11 - 01:09:14:12
Chris Zimmer
They get chased by bears, they get to eat fish, they fall in the water, you know, get hooked, stuck in them. But it's it's that whole dynamic of not only me getting out there, but taking my brothers out of there, kind of, you know, day to day world and put them into something that's much different, much more fun.

01:09:14:17 - 01:09:26:12
Chris Zimmer
And that they they take back home with them. And it allows them to get up every day and continue to, you know, keep the fight going back in Pittsburgh when they're 3000 miles away from salmon.

01:09:26:14 - 01:09:37:08
Mark Titus
It's about the story, man. It's always about the story. All right. Lastly, is there anything that you would leave in the fire to to burn up, to be gone, be rid of or purified?

01:09:37:10 - 01:09:57:11
Chris Zimmer
My laptop and cell phone because I can I and technology up perfect. I'd probably grab my backup desk because it has a lot of fish pictures on it. But the laptop and the smartphone or the laptop and the flip phone, they'd be sitting on the desk while I'm running around here digging up everything else.

01:09:57:13 - 01:10:05:08
Mark Titus
Well, I'll leave our Gen Z audience with the two words flip phone to ponder. Okay.

01:10:05:10 - 01:10:08:17
Chris Zimmer
And that is, I can go get it and show it to everybody.

01:10:08:19 - 01:10:33:03
Mark Titus
God love you. Yes. A simpler time. Well, Chris, what what a delight. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your passion with us here. And, you know, we'll continue conversation. And I was going to say to like for all of these complex issues, we just got to keep telling the story. We got to keep getting these idea guys and these voices out there.

01:10:33:03 - 01:10:57:08
Mark Titus
And your voice is a strong one. And I just never heard a more clear elucidation about what's going on. And. Q In this transboundary. So thank you very much for your time and we will we will see you later down the trail. But lastly, you mentioned the ways folks can check out the work that you're doing once, once again, what is that URL for folks to go to and see what you're up to?

01:10:57:13 - 01:11:06:09
Chris Zimmer
yeah. And my email and phone is on there. It's WW w dot Rivers without Borders dot org and there is no.

01:11:06:10 - 01:11:06:19
Mark Titus
Perfect.

01:11:06:19 - 01:11:17:05
Chris Zimmer
Borders. I constantly see people spell borders b0r DRC that if it border up here rivers without borders with no way.

01:11:17:07 - 01:11:24:04
Mark Titus
Perfect. Well, appreciate you, sir. Well we'll let go for now and have a great weekend and so long.

01:11:24:06 - 01:11:27:22
Chris Zimmer
Excellent. Thank you very much Mark. This is a pleasure.

01:11:28:00 - 01:11:30:18
Music
How do you say words?

01:11:30:18 - 01:11:38:00
Music
You how do you say.

01:11:38:00 - 01:12:08:21
Mark Titus
Thank you for listening to save what you love. If you like what you're hearing, you can help keep these conversations coming your way by giving us a rating on Apple Podcasts. You can check out photos and links from this episode at evaswild.com. While there, you can join our growing community by subscribing to our newsletter, you'll get exclusive offers on wild salmon shipped to your door and notifications about upcoming guests and more great content on the way.

01:12:08:23 - 01:12:47:23
Mark Titus
That's at evaswild.com. That's the word Save spelled backwards Wild Tor.com. This episode was produced by Tyler White and edited by Patrick Troll. Original music was created by Whiskey Class. This podcast is a collaboration between Ava's Wild Stories and Salmon Nation and was recorded on the homelands of the Duwamish. People. We'd like to recognize these lands and waters and their significance for the people who lived and continued to live in this region whose practices and spiritualities were and are tied to the land in the water, and whose lives continue to enrich and develop in relationship to the land waters and other inhabitants today.