Americans sue Canadian company over river pollution

In what is believed to be the first case of Americans suing a Canadian company under the US Superfund law, a tribe is demanding that the owner of a huge smelter north of the border comply with environmental laws in cleaning up waste dumped for decades in the Columbia River.

In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in the federal court in Spokane, the Colville Confederated Tribes asked that Teck Cominco Metals be ordered to immediately comply with a US Environmental Protection Agency order to pay for studies of pollution from the smelter in Trail, British Columbia.