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by Mike Caswell

A plan by Imperial Metals Corp. to raise the height of the tailings dam at the Mount Polley mine by four metres has drawn a legal challenge from the Xatsull First Nation. The Xatsull complain that the Mount Polley mine, which was built without their consent on land that they claim as their territory, does not have the proper environmental certificate for the higher dam. They are seeking a court order that would effectively keep the dam to its present height.

The request from the Xatsull is contained in a petition filed at the Vancouver courthouse on April 15, 2025. The case stems from a recent approval that provincial officials issued to the Mount Polley mine, a copper-gold operation that has been in operation since 1997. The approval authorized an increase in the height of the Mount Polley tailings dam to 64 metres from its present height of 60 metres.

As the Xatsull see things, the increase to the dam's height required provincial officials to perform an environmental assessment and to include them in the process. This assessment would have required the government to "seek to achieve consensus with Xatsull" before proceeding, the petition states. The net effect is that the "impacts to Xatsull's Aboriginal title, rights, culture, and way of life" of the four-metre increase were not properly assessed, the Xatsull claim.

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