Shared Waters: Ktunaxa and the Coal Mines comes to Sandpoint

Film highlights historic opportunity to resolve international coal mine pollution dispute

By Reader Staff

The Idaho Conservation League will bring its new documentary, Shared Waters: Ktunaxa and the Coal Mines, to Sandpoint on Wednesday, Nov. 11, with a 6 p.m. screening at the Panida Theater (300 N. First Ave.). 

The showing will include a question-and-answer session with Kootenai Tribe of Idaho Vice Chairman Gary Aitken Jr., film director Jennifer Ekstrom and cinematographer Jimmy Matlosz.

“Shared Waters amplifies a powerful Indigenous vision for justice, accountability and restoration,” stated Ekstrom. “The unprecedented Indigenous leadership of the Boundary Waters Treaty investigation gives us hope for accountability for the coal industry in British Columbia.” 

Shared Waters is a 43-minute documentary film exploring the impact of mountaintop coal mining in B.C.’s Elk Valley, and how the industry has for decades polluted water in the Canadian province, as well as the states of Montana and Idaho. The ongoing mining threatens the cultural resources of the transboundary Ktunaxa Nation — including the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho — and continues to pollute the Kootenai River with selenium.

The film features Aitken and other Ktunaxa leaders, along with scientific and policy experts, who are working against the clock to protect the watershed as new and expanding mines add to the decades of pollution.

“As the problem reaches the international stage through investigation under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, regulators face a pivotal choice: continue to prioritize industry, or rise to hold polluters accountable and protect the water, people and future of this watershed,” wrote ICL in a recent news release.

Tickets are $5.50 at the door or online at panida.org. Visit sharedwatersfilm.org to learn more.