in the lower river as generally good, except for elevated copper levels. Several large new mining developments in the 21st century have generated concern over potential impacts to water quality and fish habitat in the Stikine and Iskut rivers. The Red Chris copper/gold mine near Iskut, BC began operation in 2015, despite concerns raised by the Tlingit tribe and downstream communities in Alaska. The boroughs of Wrangell and Petersburg have expressed concern over the safety of the tailings dam at the Red Chris mine, which is operated by Imperial Metals, the owner of the Mount Polley mine which suffered a tailings dam failure in 2014 that contaminated Quesnel Lake. Tahltan tribal leaders have generally been supportive of this mine and some others due to the economic benefits for the region; however, they have opposed projects that impact sites of cultural significance. The Klappan Coalbed Methane Project, first proposed in 2004, would drill for natural gas on the Spatsizi Plateau in the middle of the Sacred Headwaters, where the Stikine, Skeena and Nass rivers rise. The Tahltan heavily protested this development, which was in an area of great cultural importance to them. In addition, the drilling operations would have released large amounts of briny waste effluent into nearby streams. In 2012 the BC government scrapped the project, and announced it would not issue any more drilling permits for the area. The proposed Galore Creek mine, located in BC from the Alaska border, sits on one of the largest undeveloped copper/gold deposits in the world. The Alaska Department of Natural Resources has expressed concern over the safety of tailings storage there. As of 2020, the project was on hold due to economic uncertainties. Energy and infrastructure projects In 2014, BC Hydro completed the first stage of the Northwest Transmission Line (NTL), extending the electric grid north from Terrace to the community of Iskut near the Stikine River. The Red Chris mine was the first development to receive power from the line. Several run-of-the-river type hydroelectric projects, smaller in scale than the massive dams proposed in the 1980s, have been built in the Stikine basin to feed power into the extended grid. The largest of these is the 195 megawatt Forrest Kerr hydroelectric plant on the Iskut River, completed in 2014. The NTL project is part of the Alaska–BC Intertie, planned to connect Southeast Alaska to the North American power grid via BC.