"Documents expose the huge cleanup BC faces for Port Alice and 11 more shut mills. Will new projects also slip off the hook?" 

"On a cloudy February morning in 2019, the owners of a century-old pulp mill in Port Alice, on northern Vancouver Island, told their workers to leave, shut off the power and “lock the gate.”

Inside, a sprawling waste site containing oil, asbestos, mercury, chlorine and carcinogenic chemicals stood at “imminent risk of failure.”

Six years and one landfill landslide later, the province has spent over $150 million to address the site’s immediate risks — but dangers remain, including unstable toxic waste landfills perched on cliffs overlooking Neroutsos Inlet, once a spawning site for Pacific salmon and in the traditional territory of the Quatsino First Nation."

Zoë Yunker reports for The Tyee July 14, 2025. [2]