SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Contractors for Teck Metals Ltd. have finished removing mining waste known as black slag from a beach along the Columbia River near Northport.
A smelter owned by the company in Trail, British Columbia, discharged the slag to the Columbia River over a 60-year period. Some of that granulated slag accumulated at Black Sand Beach, an informal recreation area just south of the Canadian border.
The state Department of Ecology and Teck signed a voluntary agreement last year to remove the slag and rebuild the beach. Teck paid all the costs of removing more than nine tons of sediment from the beach area, and the new beach is healthier for people and the environment.
