WHITEHORSE, YT – The Yukon Government has released another updates on the ongoing situation at the Eagle Gold Mine.
The Government says, PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc., the court appointed receiver for the Victoria Gold Corporation, had informed them yesterday that they have begun to discharge water stored on-site in preparation for the upcoming Spring melt.
The Yukon Government has confirmed that the water being discharged has elevated levels of Copper, and is not compliant with either the mine site’s amended water license or federal regulations. However, the Yukon Government says the water does comply with the requirements for Cyanide levels. They add, the decision was made to avoid the possibility of a future uncontrolled discharge of untreated Cyanide containing water if the site’s infrastructure becomes overwhelmed by meltwater runoff this Spring.
Work is underway on-site to construct a settling pond as a way to reduce Copper levels in the treated water going forward, but until it’s complete, The Government says around 3000 cubic meters of water containing Copper will be discharged per day, a little more than what’s contained within an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Additionally, water quality testing conducted between January 19th and 30th show that contaminates from a suspected leak in the mine’s storage pond have reached Haggert Creek, as well as contaminated groundwater affected by the original heap leach failure.
Cyanide has been detected downstream at levels that exceed British Columbia’s guidelines for aquatic life, with concentrations recorded as high as 0.021 mg/L. There have also been detections of Cobalt, Chloride and Nickel.
Daily water samples continue to be collected, and Yukon Government says they will host another technical briefing on the incident on Tuesday, February 18th.
