Victoria Gold's Eagle gold mine site in the Yukon on July 3, 2024 a little over a week after a landslide was caused by collapsing rocks.HO/The Canadian Press
The Yukon government is looking at tightening its oversight of the mining industry as a cleanup and risk-mitigation effort continues after a devastating heap-leach failure at a gold mine last month.
A giant pile of cyanide-laced rocks collapsed June 24 at an outdoor gold processing facility at the Eagle mine operated by Victoria Gold Corp. triggering a massive landslide.
Two million tonnes of material escaped the mine’s containment area, with roughly 300,000 cubic metres of highly toxic cyanide solution seeping into the environment.
Within a few hours of the accident, the Whitehorse-based mining company built dams to prevent more contaminated water from escaping the area, and started pumping it into storage ponds.
The Yukon government has been overseeing the company’s cleanup efforts and, in the absence of in-depth disclosure from Victoria Gold, the territory has been providing almost all of the information about the accident.
At a technical briefing in Whitehorse on Thursday, John Streicker, Yukon’s Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, said the government had recently issued numerous directives to Victoria Gold, including to install groundwater interception lines to manage the water flow, to stabilize areas where the risk of further slides is elevated and an order to develop a comprehensive water-treatment plan.
“Each of these measures has an urgent timeline associated with it and underscores the gravity with which we are addressing this situation,” he said.
Last week, the government said one of its water tests had revealed elevated levels of cyanide had been detected in Haggart Creek, a water body downstream of the gold mine. On Thursday, officials said subsequent testing had not revealed any further cyanide contamination. However, only a small number of samples have so far been taken and much more monitoring has to take place to gain an accurate read on the situation. In addition, a small number of toxicity tests on rainbow trout that were exposed to water taken from Haggart Creek have so far showed no ill effects.
The Eagle mine is located about 375 kilometres north of Whitehorse and 85 kilometres north of the village of Mayo, on the traditional territory of the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun. For generations, its members have hunted, trapped and fished in the vicinity of the mine.
Yukon’s Department of Environment is working with the First Nation to develop a long-term monitoring program on fish populations in the Haggart Creek watershed.
The Na-Cho Nyak Dun nation has called for an independent investigation into the landslide at the mine.
Mr. Streicker in the Thursday briefing said the government is open to bringing in external experts to find out the cause of the accident.
While he said it was too early to determine a cause, it is extremely important to find that out, and learn from the accident and potentially tighten oversight of the mining industry. He said the government would be looking at heap-leach operations but also overall mine safety.
“We never want a mine that fails like this,” he said. “No government, no First Nation government, no mine company wants this type of failure.”
So far Victoria Gold is paying for the cleanup, but the Yukon government has made it clear it is prepared to step in financially if that is needed.
Victoria Gold is in a precarious financial situation. As of the end of March, it was only holding $27.7-million in cash but had more than $230-million in debt. With the mine not in production, it currently has no cash flow. Last week, the company said it had received notices of default from its lenders.
Victoria Gold chief executive officer John McConnell did not respond to a request for comment.
Yukon is holding $103.7-million that it received from Victoria Gold. The funds are supposed to be used to reclaim and rehabilitate the site in the event the mine’s owner doesn’t have the financial wherewithal to do so.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story used an incorrect measure, cubic litres, in reference to the size of the spill of cyanide solution. The correct measure is cubic metres. This version has been corrected.