Whitehorse, YT – Deputy Minister of Energy Mines and Resources Lauren Haney says the Yukon Government is ready to step in and help clean up Victoria Gold’s Eagle Gold Mine following a findings of a lack of storage capacity for cyanide contaminated water.
“To be very clear,” said Haney at a Victoria Gold briefing on July 18th. “The Yukon Government is contemplating and is ready to step in and take action to complement, or supplement, what’s already been done on site with that same view of, ultimately, health and safety and environmental protection.”
According to a recent inspectors direction from the Yukon Government containment ponds built by Victoria Gold in the aftermath of a failure at the heap leach facility on June 24th are not big enough to contain all the contaminated water and pose a “significant” risk for further environmental damage.
The inspectors direction, dated July 10th, said according to available on-site storage numbers provided by Victoria Gold, the company had until July 15th before exceeding capacity.
“The lack of available storage, onsite treatment capacity, and the inability to discharge mine site water compliant with [water license effluent criteria] pose a significant risk to the environment through potential uncontrolled discharge of contaminated water,” the direction notes.
The direction tells Victoria Gold to increase its storage capacity from its currently reported capacity of over 75,600 cubic meters with a further 50,000 cubic meters by July 15th and 100,000 cubic meters by July 29th.
During the technical briefing on July 18th, Government officials couldn’t say whether the company met this direction and expect a clearer picture in the near future.
Kelly Constable, Director of Mineral Resources said that to avoid filling containment capacity Victoria Gold is pumping contaminated water back on to the heap leach.
“The company expects to do this for 10 to 15 days, while it addresses water treatment and builds additional storage capacity,” said Constable. “The intention for this water storage is to hold contaminated water until it can be treated and then released to the environment.”
Cyanide destruction has begun to treat contaminated water but to date none of the contaminated water has met the water treatment criteria to be safety discharged. Victoria Gold’s water treatment facility is currently being upgraded to facilitate the full treatment of contaminated water. Finished upgrades are expected to take weeks.
Due to risks of a secondary slide, workers on site now sleep at a camp off-site.
Deputy Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources says it’s “unhelpful” that Victoria Gold hasn’t been more public about their work at the site but they have been communicating with Government officials with plans to treat contaminated water and stabilize the slope.
“We’ve learned a lot more about what they are doing at site. There is action being undertaken to protect the environment. They are diverting water. They are collecting it. They’re doing a lot of work right now to try to treat it. That’s that’s not to say it’s enough but it’s to say there is action being undertaken.”
