Opinion: Conuma Resources experience shows we can and must do better

By Scott Lunny
Western Canada Director
United Steelworkers

British Columbians would be rightly shocked by recent news reports of a B.C. coal mining company’s history of repeatedly violating regulations intended to protect our environment and human health.

Conuma Resources Limited, which operates metallurgical coal mines in northeastern B.C., has been fined $13,000 by the provincial government for releasing dust emissions that exceeded legal limits 32 times over an 18-month period in 2023 and 2024. 

The majority of Conuma’s violations at its Brule Mine exceeded legal emissions limits by more than 50% and even reached 375% above the air quality limit. The B.C. government found Conuma failed to take adequate measures to keep dust emissions below legal limits, despite the company’s history of non-compliance with environmental regulations over several years.

Conuma’s history of non-compliance includes a fine of over $40,000 imposed last year for more than 400 violations of the Environmental Management Act (EMA).

Conuma was found to have repeatedly failed to properly monitor mine waste flowing from the Brule Mine into a fish-bearing tributary of the Sukunka River between 2020 and 2023. These violations occurred after the company had previously received several notices and warnings of other violations, the government reported.

Under the EMA, Conuma could have been fined $40,000 for each of its violations of the law, which would amount to millions of dollars, but the government opted to levy a single such fine.

In the government’s recent decision on Conuma’s 32 violations of dust emissions limits, the director of the EMA cited evidence of the potential for immediate and long-term risks to human health from such emissions.

The Conuma experience reinforces the steadfast view of our union, the United Steelworkers, that significant regulatory and legislative reforms are required in B.C.’s mining industry to better protect our environment and the health and safety of workers and the public.

As we too often see, existing legislative and regulatory provisions fall short of meeting these goals. Our union has proposed several critical reforms needed to strengthen and modernize the mining sector’s health and safety regime, to the benefit of workers, companies and the public.

Key reforms include strengthening worker health, safety and environment representation, particularly in larger mining operations, where there is a need for worker representatives who:

• are elected by their co-workers through a transparent and employer-free process to ensure their independence;
• are full-time health and safety worker representatives, fully compensated by the employer for their time and responsibilities;
• have access to standardized, government-certified training with paid time off to attend; and
• have legal protections to ensure they can act without fear of employer reprisal.

Strong, independent, worker-elected health, safety and environment representatives have greater ability to act proactively to identify and mitigate hazards to the environment and to the health and safety of workers and the public alike. This benefits workers, communities and employers.

Our union will continue to advocate for the B.C. government to adopt long-overdue reforms to strengthen health and safety in all mining workplaces. Meanwhile, the best way for workers to protect and improve their health and safety on the job is to join a union, such as Canada’s mining union, the United Steelworkers.

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