Archives West Finding Aid

Letters, maps and published briefs about the Trail smelter fume case; also 1938 decision of the Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal before the International Joint Commission. All materials are connected to G.J. Bayle's work for for the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada (CMS), later Cominco, regarding the smoke damage cases. The printed documents date to 1930 when the International Joint Commission (IJC) conducted hearings at which Bayle testified. The IJC issued its decision with damage awards in 1931. Because the damage continued, the Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal was created under an agreement between the governments of Canada and the United States by the Convention of Ottawa in 1935. The Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal's 1938 decision is included in the collection. Correspondence from CMS attorneys in the collection dates to this second arbitration of the Trail Case from 1935 to 1941. Bayle seems to have testified in Ottawa in 1937, presumably regarding his 1936 inspection of timber in the Columbia River valley. The 1940 correspondence indicates that Bayle did not perform another valuation before the final damage awards in 1941. The collection includes two maps of Stevens County by Dr. G.G. Hedgecock, forest pathologist, showing "smelter fumes injury" zones. Hedgecock documented injury to timber in Stevens County in 1928 and 1929, and defined zones based on the percentage of trees exhibiting damage.