A leak in a pipe at a Canadian smelter spilled an acid solution laced with lead into the Columbia River, and authorities in Washington state were monitoring water quality.
The leak triggered an alarm late Wednesday afternoon at the massive Teck Cominco lead and zinc smelter in Trail, British Columbia. The town is only a few miles north of the U.S. border and 100 miles north of Spokane.
Teck Cominco said the spill involved a solution containing hydrofluoric acid and lead. Some of it ended up in the river, spokesman David W. Godlewski said. But water levels are high with spring snow melt and the chemicals should have been quickly diluted, he said.
"It's highly unlikely there would be any risk to human health," he said.
Canadian environmental regulators were immediately notified and then informed their U.S. counterparts, Godlewski said.
The Washington Department of Ecology said it was told that about 2,100 pounds of lead and 100 gallons of acid were released into the river before the spill was stopped after four hours.
"Historically, Washington's environment has paid the price for pollution released from this facility," Ecology Department director Jay Manning said in a statement. "We will do what we can to minimize the spill's impact here in Washington."
Smelting is the process of extracting a metal from its ore. British Columbia-based Teck Cominco and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been fighting for years over who must pay to clean up millions of tons of pollutants released into the Columbia over a century of smelter operations.
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a company appeal of a lower court ruling that said it was responsible for cleaning up the river. The United States contends its laws apply to Tech Cominco because the pollution crossed the border into the U.S.
The plant was operating again on Thursday, Godlewski said.
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