The Environmental Protection Agency announced a settlement this week with the operators of the Red Dog Mine for nearly two dozen hazardous waste violations. Records show that Red Dog Mine failed to identify hazardous waste in its laboratory for over four years.
Teck Alaska, Inc. operates the mine, one of the world’s largest producers of lead and zinc located about 80 miles north of Kotzebue.
In June, Teck agreed to pay the EPA over $429,794 for hazardous waste violations spanning from October 2019 until January 2024. EPA representatives said those last four years amount to the largest hazardous waste violation in the mine’s more than 30 years of operating.
An inspection in 1995 revealed violations of a lesser nature. In that case, the two parties reached an informal resolution without any penalties for Teck. According to the EPA, it is the fourth recent violation involving Alaska mines; the others involved gold mines.
A representative from the EPA said that those 20 counts outlined in a consent agreement between the EPA and Teck include Teck’s failure to identify, store, and treat hazardous waste, as well as a failure to properly notify and report hazardous material to the EPA. The agency said that these are “serious violations.”
Kevin Schanilec, a hazardous waste compliance officer for the EPA, said while there have been no identified effects on humans or the environment from the violations, there could have been.
“Acids were stored in containers and a tank; they weren’t labeled,” Schanilec said. “If someone didn’t know what was in that container, they might have done something with it, or if it got spilled, people wouldn’t have known what was in the container.”
The EPA has what’s informally referred to as a “cradle to grave” policy for handling hazardous waste through the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. According to Schanilec, a mine’s laboratory – which was where the violations occurred – represents the cradle side of a mine’s waste stream. These areas are used primarily to assess core samples to determine their concentrations of particular metals.
A representative from the mining company wrote in an emailed statement that the violations were due to a “different interpretation of EPA requirements for identifying, storing and disposing” of the lab’s sample residuals. “These residuals went through a treatment process in accordance with our permit and regulations and had no negative environmental impact. Teck is updating its operational procedures to align with EPA’s guidance. For context, less than 200 grams of solid residuals per month are generated which is about the weight of 80 pennies,” the representative wrote.
But Schanilec said that isn’t entirely accurate.
“The amount of waste in question was such that, had Teck notified us as is required under the regulations, they would have been a category in a higher category of waste generation that exceeds 1,000 kilograms (2,204 pounds) per month,” Schanilec said. “So the amount of wastes in question were much greater in weight than a stack of pennies.”
The EPA verified that Teck had paid the nearly $430,000 penalty for the violations. The agency said the company has until June 2025 to ensure that their laboratory’s tank and associated piping where hazardous waste is stored is clean and does not have the potential to contaminate the environment.
