Front Burner - A massive collapse and the troubling history of Yukon mining

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

A landslide caused by a heap leach failure at the Eagle mine site in the Yukon has been called a “disaster” by some local residents.Hundreds of workers are currently laid-off and there’s a chance that it has leaked cyanide and/or other heavy metals into the river, endangering the nearby environment and wildlife. Meanwhile, Victoria Gold, the company that owns and operates the mine, is facing charges and their stock has tanked, raising concerns the mine could close for good.Cali McTavish and Julien Greene from CBC Whitehorse join us to talk about how the incident fits into a long, troubling history with mining in the Yukon. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. So last week, giant piles of cyanide-laced rocks collapsed at a gold processing facility at the Eagle Gold Mine in central Yukon. This is a big deal, largely because there was, as I mentioned, cyanide and also heavy metals in those rocks. And if they get into local water sources, it could be catastrophic for wildlife and the people who live there.

The mine is currently shut down and the company's shares have completely tanked, which is raising a lot of questions about the future of the cleanup effort. In short, it is a real mess. Some people are even calling it a disaster. This latest incident is one of a bunch of troubling examples when it comes to the mining industry in the region. And we're going to talk about all of that today with my colleagues in Whitehorse, Kelly McTavish, who has been following this recent failure at the mine very closely, and Julian Green, who has done a lot of great reporting on the legacy of mining in the territory writ large. Julian, Callie, hey, thanks so much for coming by. Thanks, Jamie.

Yeah, hi. So Callie, let me start with you first. And before we get into what happened last week, can you just explain to me what is this mine, Eagle Gold Mine? What is its purpose? Eagle Gold Mine is an open pit mine in the north central Yukon. Victoria Gold's Eagle Gold Mine produces gold dore bars from a conventional open pit mine. The process includes blasting, loading and hauling from the pit, three-stage crushing. They use heap leaching, which is the industry standard for extracting gold from ore. Part of this process is a cyanide solution.

We've talked about that a lot in the last week. That's used to extract the gold from the ore. So the cyanide is diluted between 100 to 500 parts per million, and then it kind of filters through the ore, and that's how the gold is extracted. It's a really prominent mine in the territory, one of the biggest, if not the biggest. Am I right? It is the biggest by One of the biggest, if not the biggest, am I right? It is the biggest by orders of magnitude. The combined reserve contains 3.3 million ounces of gold and will take 11 years to

mine. The Eagle Open Pit is situated on a hillside and when completed will measure 1,400 meters long, 700 meters wide, and 500 meters deep. And Julian, just for people who might not be very familiar with mining in the Yukon, put this mine in a wider context for me. So what does the mining industry in the Yukon look like? How big is the industry in general? What kind of stuff is being mined? Kelly just talked to us about gold, but what are we talking about here?

Yeah, I feel like that context kind of warrants a bit of the history. So I guess you could look at it this way. What is now known as the Yukon Territory, it's really inseparable from the Klondike Gold Rush, which happened, as you know, at the tail end of the 19th century. Gold Rush, which happened, as you know, at the tail end of the 19th century. That saw also stampeters from all over the world just descend on the Han people's land to get at that yellow rock. And they did in waves. And for a span of about two years, it was a frenzy when it comes to mining in the Klondike Valley. And then those stampeders, they left. But mining really didn't stop. And as most politicians up here will tell you, mining represents sort of this cornerstone of our economy. jurisdiction with a large land mass and very few people relative to other jurisdictions, you know, our roads are pretty good and public facilities are actually quite nice. And for as

long as settlers have shown up here, mining has always sort of played into this sort of dynamic. There's always been at least one mine in operation. They're called quartz mines. They're sort of like a boom and bust period is sort of the pattern. And like the Eagle Gold Mine, they're large scale. They're, as Callie said, they're open pit mines powered by big money from around the world. And they're not only after gold like they were in the Klondike Gold Rush, but silver and copper, zinc, you get the idea. And with the transition to renewables, the demand for critical minerals, so that includes copper and nickel, that's increasing. It's shooting up, which of course means more mining

proposals and expansions at existing ones like Victoria Gold's Eagle Gold Mine. And we also have mom and pop placer mining all over the Klondike still. Those operations, they're small. But when something goes wrong at a placer mine, it can be bad for sure. When a quartz mine fails or has problems like there were at Victoria Gold's mine, buckle up with the environment being,

you know, usually the loser or taxpayers, sometimes First Nations rights. Callie, let's talk specifically about what happened last week at the Eagle Gold Mine. So what happened at the mine that led to it being shut down? And, you know, why are people talking about it like it's such a disaster? So there was a massive landslide at the Eagle Gold Mine, which is owned by Victoria Gold. They put out a statement that day saying that it was a heap leach failure. So the mine is located just to orient you a bit, 80 kilometers northeast of the village of Mayo. And essentially, the slide caused the ore that I talked about earlier to spill over the embankment at the, over its kind of containment lines at the base of the facility. Much of the pit wall collapsed.

A worker was inside this loader when it happened. He escaped with minor injuries. No one was seriously hurt. This happened on the traditional territory of the Nacho Nayak Dunn First Nation. And what is the worst-case scenario here in terms of the potential damage caused by this slide? Like, what are people concerned about? So if the, you know, contaminants have breached, have gotten into the environment, they're in the water stream,

besides fish breathing in, drinking in cyanide and potentially dying that way, that's very scary as a potential. I guess just to initially cover the concerns of our nation, you know, we're concerned of the health of the land, the water, the fish and the animals, not only for the First Nation of Natchanayikdun, but also for our relations downstream and their environment. The other major concern here is heavy metals getting into the water. This could cause a big problem because unlike cyanide, the heavy metals don't break down when they're exposed to sunlight or when they're diluted. And heavy metals can affect the pH of the water, which can have really scary know, really scary impacts on fish and other

wildlife. And then those heavy metals can also get into the food chain through kind of insects and smaller bugs that are then eaten by bigger bugs and fish and whatever else. I've reported on grassy narrows, First Nation in Ontario quite a bit. And I know that the devastating legacy of mercury poisoning when mercury kind of leached into the water system there and into the fish and they were eaten by the people there. And they're, you know, to this day, just dealing with a legacy of really horrendous health impacts.

It's really terrible. Has there been any testing done? You know, do we know at this point if cyanide is in the local water systems? Like, I know that right now people are saying there's no concern that the drinking water is contaminated. But what about these river systems? The government has taken many samples from many different creeks, but it's taken a frustratingly long time to get those samples back. They had to be flown all the way to Burnaby near Vancouver. long time to get those samples back. They had to be flown all the way to Burnaby near Vancouver.

And Chief Donna Hope has raised concerns that by the time those samples kind of get there and get processed, you know, is it possible that those samples will have expired and they will no longer, you know, reflect what's really going on on the ground. Just from our history with monitoring water and everything, we know that water samples, they have a time limitation on their own. So they have to reach the analysis company within a certain time limit. But also doing the analysis also takes time. And we just have to be patient for that to happen. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization.

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together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So what's been the response from Victoria Gold, the company, and the territorial government to all of this? The company has said very little. They put out a statement on the day of the incident on June 24th, and since then, we have not heard from them. Their statement said that there was some damaged infrastructure, quote unquote, and a portion of the failure has left containment. That's how they sort of characterized the landslide. They also said in their statement that there had been no injuries. And then we heard from workers and also at the technical briefing on Friday, workers' compensation board confirmed that there were three injuries that day.

One of them was a worker who was carried down in the slide in a dozer. We also heard about two workers who they were exhibiting signs of, you know, vomiting and they were dizzy. And at the technical briefing, the chief medical health officer, Dr. Shobit Marudi, confirmed that signs of acute cyanide poisoning include headaches, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting. And the government, tell me what the government has been saying here. Yeah, the government has said from day one that they were on site. Friday was the first time that we really heard from the government. There were some statements before, but it was pretty minimal. My name is John Thompson. I'm a communications analyst with

UConn's Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. A variety of Yukon government staff were on the ground shortly after the failure happened to inspect and monitor the situation. As soon as we attended the scene, the company had already taken mitigation steps to contain the water so that it doesn't go anywhere else. It's pumped into the various ponds that they have. But from our perspective, when we arrived, there was no visible water that was not contained. They say that they're working directly with Victoria Gold and they say they're working with the Nacho Nayak Dun First Nation closely on this. The Nacho Nayak Dun, on the other hand, have said they feel like the government is downplaying this.

They feel like Victoria Gold is downplaying this. They feel like Victoria Gold is downplaying this. They are putting together their own weekly briefings and an assessment team on this because they are calling this an environmental catastrophe. We do not agree with the public statements made by a media thus far that appear in our view to be downplaying the seriousness of what has happened and how this will have long-term impacts. They're just not seeing the response that they think is worthy from government or Victoria Gold. The company has taken a huge hit, as I mentioned in the intro, financially since news of this recent slide broke. There are worries, right, that the facility could close for good. And so what kind of impact could that have, I guess, both on the local economy and on the potential cleanup efforts?

Yeah. So, you know, we talked at the top about how it's the biggest mine in the territory. So not surprisingly, it's also the biggest private sector employer in the territory. They employ 400 Yukoners. It is going to be really hard for those Yukoners to find equivalently well-paying jobs. equivalently well-paying jobs. We have talked to a number of them. They've been told they're off for 13 weeks. They don't anticipate going back. And then the other obvious cost to this is the cost of cleanup. Right now, it is the mine has been covering those costs. In the event that they can't cover those costs, the Yukon government does have $104 million in bonds that was provided by Victoria Gold. I want to zoom out a little bit more. And at the beginning of this conversation, you really laid out for us the landscape of mining in the Yukon, the history and also now how important it alluded to before. There is a long history here. And I wonder if you could tell me what happened with the Faro mine in the 90s. I think this would be a good place for us to start here. Yeah, I just want to back up for a spell here. For decades, Faro was considered the largest open pit mine in the world. So just huge. This is the Curra Resources Mine near Faroe, Yukon, Canada.

These trucks haul 170 tons each. In a day, they bring out close to 80,000 tons of lead, zinc, ore, and waste. On a daily basis, miners processed upward of 9,000 tons of ore and just on average, it's just a lot of output. It's such a toxic legacy. I feel like when you speak with Yukoners here, people just sigh before they say anything more. And maybe that's just because some of the details are enough to make your head hurt. For 29 years, it operated at nearly 30. And with every year, that waste pile and tailings would just keep getting bigger and bigger. And I did a story about this time last year, and a recent estimate put the number of

that waste rock pile at 260 million tons. And that's equivalent to covering downtown Whitehorse, 90 meters deep. At the time, there weren't any real plans or right tools to sort of deal with this. The way we talk about reclamation now, in the 90s, it just wasn't there. And over the decades, the mine changed hands until 1998. And that's when the operator became insolvent and, like so many mines in this territory, declared bankruptcy. And now what's left behind has been called, you know, things like a moonscape or a wasteland. Since that time, the largest, most complicated cleanup project has been launched by the federal government, which is active and underway right now. The government, Ottawa, considers the site one of its top priorities as part of its northern mine remediation program. And that's just, I think, owing to the sheer scale of the site. It's 25 square kilometers. And I'll say the remediation project has a long road ahead of it, that the

carbon emissions alone from the cleanup could be massive, amounting to 46% of the territory's total. And the cleanup, it's expected to take about 15 years, but it doesn't really end there. There's going to be 10 years thereabouts of care and maintenance. But listen to this. The Yukon's Environmental Assessment Board has said monitoring and work to keep the site stable will need to continue forever. And that's its own words. Wow. And it's not just Faro, right? Like, give me some other examples. I know it's the one that people focus on a lot, but give me some other examples of some other recent problematic projects.

Yeah, and I kind of alluded to it there earlier. You're right. There's a string of mines that have been abandoned and some not in this so distant past. There's the Wolverine mine, which I'm sure many folks across the country know about. It saw its owners walk away because they basically couldn't pay mounting costs required to keep the mine from polluting the surrounding environment, keeping the water clean, ensuring that heavy metals don't leach out of the site in the mining shaft. There's Mount Nansen as well. And so that's northwest of Whitehorse near a community called Carmax. It's a former silver and gold mine, which was once called by a judge an embarrassment to Canada.

This mine was also abandoned and in the 1990s, like Wolverine and Pharaoh, with Ottawa intervening to really keep the site from catastrophic failure. And that the site still hasn't really been cleaned up. It often draws the ire of the Little Salmon Carmax First Nation. So that's a northern Tshoni First Nation. It's long advocated for changes. And the Mount Nansen site, you know, used to serve as a traditional harvesting place because of just how abundant the plants and wildlife and fish were. Now, citizens, they don't want to harvest there. They're fearful. They fear contamination. One report I read as a part of a story I did recently said hunters who got a moose found its

liver liquefied. Wow. Oh, my God. Wow. Another example, too, and not so far away is Minto, which last May turfed nearly 200 workers and declared bankruptcy. Also, you know, it's often the case. It's sort of a cycle here, unfortunately. And in this case, with Minto, the territorial government also had to step in to secure things as well. Is it fair for me to say that for you, Connors, while mining has, of course, as you've talked about, been this boon for the economy, it's also taking place at their expense, like quite literally, because they are on the hook for cleanups and also at the expense of the environment. You know, do they feel like there are not sufficient mechanisms to hold companies accountable? Like, how do they feel about all of this? Yeah, I would say, anecdotally, as well as related to my journalism, it seems many Yukoners are just fed up. They've been calling for changes for so long, of several levels of government, you know, of course, the territorial government, but also Ottawa. And I will say, you know, a big part of the reason for that is just because the stakes are so high, and arguably higher for the people who live outside of Whitehorse. So I'm

talking the communities, small towns, the mines, you know, they're located nearby. And so many families, many First Nations citizens, you know, are employed by these major mining companies. And in a way, you know, it's a good thing. Families benefit with the stability of, you know, a good job provides. But it's just, it's, I would be remiss not to mention that, you know, a good job provides. But it's just, it's, I would be remiss not to mention that, you know, First Nations citizens, of course, they use the land, you know, all the time, they carry out their traditions to connect with each other, they steward the environment like they always have. And that too is crucial to families, many of whom have already lost so much. And so when a mine fails, all of that is sort of

jeopardized and First Nations rights are violated or there's a risk for them being. And at least that's what the history says. I understand that the territory is in the midst of rewriting its mining laws. And so will that do anything here? Like, what does all of that mean? I think that it will do a lot. But the longer that that rewrite isn't complete, we're going to maybe be risking seeing other situations like we have seen recently at the Eagle Gold Mine. And I mean, the reason for that is the mining laws here are just antiquated. There's no other way of putting it. Some clauses date right back to the Klondike Gold Rush, which we talked about earlier.

And so, I mean, yeah, what does this mean in the context of Eagle Gold? It's hard to say in some ways because the territory, it just hasn't finished the job yet. And what we've heard from politicians for years, myself included, is just we're working on it. Sort of this throwaway sentence. But what I can tell you is many people want what they want to see. And I think ultimately that revolves around introducing more accountability. On the part of mining companies, yeah, but also the territorial government, Ottawa, and the government years ago now created an independent panel to sort of investigate and sort of suss out what residents would like to see out of these new laws. And many people involved in this process, they said they want to see new legislation that

holds governments to, quote, a higher social, environmental, and economic standards while strengthening things like enforcement. And so as well, like some say, if companies can't come up with the cash, we'll start cleaning up the site during the operation of the mine. It's something called progressive reclamation. And the idea behind that is that the price tag of remediation is lowered incrementally. So say in the off chance a landslide takes out your heap leach pad, you won't have such a high cost of security to pay out. So in short, plan for the worst rather than reacting after the facts like Victoria Gold and the Yukon government have. The independent panel suggested new laws be put in place by the end of 2023. And now we're, you know, six months

into 2024. I think it's fair to say the government has missed that recommendation and I think we're all still waiting for that change. Okay. Julian Cully, thank you so much for this. I learned a lot. So thanks so much for coming by. You're welcome. Thanks, Jamie. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

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