ave we really learned anything as a result ofthe toxic legacy left by the Giant Mine in Yel-

lowknife? A few facts to get us started. The Giant Mine

operated from 1948 to 1999, when it went into re-ceivership. Underground production continued until2004 when it finally shut down and became a hugepublic liability. The mine had horrendous culturalimpacts on the Yellowknives Dene First Nation.While its social impacts on Yellowknife are often por-trayed in a positive light, as part of the NWT’s‘founding’ story, an infamous labour dispute in 1992resulted in the deaths of nine workers.

Today, we are left with 237,000 tonnes of arsenictrioxide blown underground into old mine workingsand some purpose-built chambers. That translatesinto over seven times the volume of the ten storeyPrecambrian building in Yellowknife that houses themovie theatre. Arsenic trioxide is a proven non-threshold carcinogen and dissolves easily in water. In-deed, the chambers are leaking arsenic into the minewater which is then treated before it eventuallyreaches Yellowknife Bay. There are 95 hectares ofcontaminated mine tailings on the surface, the equiv-alent of about 300 football fields, 10-15 metres deep.Eight open pits and a roaster complex on the surfacecontain another 4,900 cubic metres of arsenic triox-ide and other waste.

Canadian taxpayers have now spent over $160million to look after the site since 1999. The govern-ment’s remediation plan will cost another $480 mil-lion and will require perpetual care that is estimatedat $2 million a year forever. A 2002 study by govern-ment officials estimated that 7 million ounces of goldwere produced from Giant Mine with a value ofabout $2.7 billion. The owners made $867 millionin profit, while the government only collected $454million ($360 million from workers as income tax,$78 million as corporate taxes and only $16 millionin royalties, while providing direct subsidies of $47million). Canadians should seriously questionwhether this was a wise investment and who reallybenefited from this resource development.

The Yellowknives Dene First Nation citizens

have described the area of the mine site as a previ-ously very productive valley full of blueberries andfish. This was completely destroyed by the miningoperation, which also caused extensive contamina-tion of snow, soil, and water from its gold roastingoperation. At least one Indigenous child died fromdrinking meltwater made from snow in 1951. Libraryand Archives Canada has records related to thistragic death and show the company paid the family$750 in compensation.1

Up until the 1980s, the theory was that per-mafrost would contain the arsenic stored under-ground forever. The mine owners and thegovernment were of the view that underground stor-age of the arsenic trioxide, a by-product of the roast-ing operation, would be safe. An engineer with themine warned that this method may not work, but itwas used anyway. Not once did government officialsever say “stop” or “maybe we should think thisthrough”. Careful monitoring of the undergroundstorage process was recommended by the CanadianPublic Health Association special task force that ex-amined the arsenic issue in Yellowknife in the 1970s.That recommendation was not followed.

When the federal government took over the sitein 1999, it began to develop a remediation plan byhiring numerous technical consultants. Numerousworkshops and meetings were held where optionsand alternatives were discussed, but the governmentremained in control and brought forward the optionsof its own choosing, based on the lowest cost. Nofunding was provided to local residents or the Yel-lowknives Dene First Nation to provide for independ-ent technical assistance. Little if any input from thelocals was allowed into the selection or evaluation ofalternatives. At the end of the process in 2003, theconsultants recommended that the arsenic be frozenunderground forever, without any consideration ofthe long-term funding and capacity required to doso. The consultants also recommended that the en-tire plan become the subject of an environmental as-sessment.

While the federal government controlled the al-ternatives brought forward, it ignored the last point,

Kevin O’Reilly

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ECONOMY

Giant Mine, giant legacy

50 Northern Public Affairs, Fall 2012

an environmental assessment, and attempted to leap-frog ahead to the regulatory process without final de-signs in hand, and despite significant public concernwith the approach that was perceived to be “freeze itand forget it”. The government and the regulatorsseemed to think that one of the most contaminatedsites in the world, located next to a community of20,000 people, did not merit an environmental as-sessment. The only way this happened was when theCity of Yellowknife made a mandatory referral underthe Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. This wasbased on request by myself and representations froma Yellowknives Dene First Nation Chief and the localMember of the Legislative Assembly of the NWT.

The federal and territorial governments resisted theenvironmental assessment from the beginning andmanaged to drag it out for longer than four and ahalf years. To illustrate their disregard for theprocess, some examples include:

• Extensions or delays 12 times during theprocess for a total of more than 1.6 years;

• During the scoping hearing, the federalgovernment promised to consider proposals forparticipant funding on a case-by-case basis. TheYellowknives Dene First Nation, City of Yel-

lowknife, and a private citizen submitted a pro-posal for $40,000 to study independent oversightin October 2009. After 11 months, the proposalwas rejected because the work was to be doneby the government. When the government’ssubmission was filed with the Review Boardmore than a year later, there was nothing in itregarding independent oversight;

• A Site Stabilization Plan to move forwardwith remediation outside of the environmentalassessment that was secretly developed and ap-proved by the federal Minister of Aboriginal Af-fairs and Northern Development in November2011 as shown by documents obtained underfederal Access to Information legislation;

• An Oversight Working Group was estab-lished outside of the process to attempt to reachsome consensus on a legally binding environ-mental agreement containing provisions for anindependent oversight body, much like thearrangements already in place for three north-ern diamond mines. After 12 meetings, 6 draftsof a discussion paper, 8 drafts of an environ-mental agreement, the most the governmentscould do was to say to the Review Board thatthey generally agreed with the concept of over-sight but wanted to discuss it further.

Giant Mine, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, 2008.

Northern Public Affairs, Fall 2012 51

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The federal and territorial governments also didnot engage fully with the process at the September2012 public hearings held by the Mackenzie ValleyEnvironmental Impact Review Board. On the firstday, the Chair had to urge the government represen-tatives several times to answer the questions being putto them. Federal government officials stated, onmore than one occasion, that the focus of their workwas on stabilizing the site, thus the big picture issuessuch as perpetual care and oversight had not beenaddressed very well. Vague commitments on over-sight and perpetual care were made at the very lastpossible moment, in the presentations filed by thegovernments just before the public hearings began.

If there was any doubt about public concernwith the government’s remediation plan, one onlyhad to witness any of the over 20 presentations madeby private citizens during the hearings. Over 50 peo-ple waited in the dark one evening before the powercame on again to make many of these submissionsdirectly to the Review Board. Here are a few of thekey messages made to the Review Board:

• Lack of perpetual care, planning, and in-dependent oversight for the project;

• The current plan for the Giant Mine is

really a “stabilization plan” and not a “remedi-ation plan” that truly reflects the views andneeds of the community;

• As the proposed plan requires perpetualcare and is not a real solution, strategic invest-ment for ongoing research and developmentinto a more sustainable and permanent outcomeis required;

• There is still an opportunity to work to-gether, but a firm written, legally binding agree-ment is needed to firm up the vaguecommitments made by the governments;

• Proper management of the project will

cost a lot more money and community leaderswill need to work together with the project teamto convince decision-makers and funders thatthis is the case; and

• There is more than enough evidence forthe Review Board to conclude that there is sig-nificant public concern with the RemediationPlan and that there is the potential for significantadverse environmental impacts. These two find-ings are necessary to establish the legal basis forthe Board to recommend binding measures be-

Giant Mine, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, 2008.

Photo credit: Marke C

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fore the project can proceed.

In its final submission to the Review Board inOctober 2012, the governments continued to con-clude that the project “poses no significant risks ofadverse environmental effects” and “is not the sourceof long standing concerns”. The governments con-clude that the legacy of the site is the source of publicconcern and not the incomplete stabilization propos-als in its Remediation Plan. The governments actu-ally stated in this letter that “during the hearings,there was wide support for the ground freezing ap-proach”. Not one person offered support for the Planduring the public hearing. The letter denies the con-cerns expressed and appears to be motivated fore-most by the desire to ‘get on with it’.

The solution is apparently “continuing and evenincreasing our engagement efforts so that concernedi n d i v i d u a l s ,groups and thepublic can feelconfident, as wedo, that the pro-posed Remedia-tion Plan presentsthe best availableapproach”. Moreof the same is sim-ply not going to work. A lot more resources need tobe dedicated to develop a real remediation plan thatis based on a foundation of trust and working to-gether. Calls for a public apology, compensation tothe Yellowknives Dene First Nation and a legallybinding environmental agreement that contains pro-visions for access to information, independent over-sight, investment in strategic ongoing research, anddevelopment into a more permanent solution, and areal commitment to develop a comprehensive per-petual care plan, appear to have been ignored.

Given the lack of learning from the public hear-ings, it is difficult to predict what may happen whenthe Review Board issues its report in early 2013.Nevertheless, the federal government has alreadybegun a formal process to attempt to exempt or splitout from the ongoing environmental assessment thedemolition of the most highly contaminated build-ings on the site, the roaster complex, to start this workin May 2013.

To go back to the original question, what havelearned from Giant Mine? Unfortunately, it seemsvery little. Governments apparently do not feel theyare in the business of protecting the public interest.

There is nothing in federal or territorial law thatwould prevent another Giant Mine — no regulationson air quality in the NWT, no mandatory financialsecurity for mines, and no mandatory requirementfor closure plans for mines. Only through the actionsof individual citizens and a few regular Members ofthe Legislative Assembly, was the territorial govern-ment embarrassed into amending its land manage-ment legislation to require mandatory financialsecurity for industrial and commercial surface leasesover the small pockets of land it controls, beginningin February 2011.

With the current federal government dismantlingdecades of work to establish environmental assess-ment to prevent impacts to human health and the en-vironment, and the dramatic weakening of the mostimportant federal environmental protection legisla-tion, namely the Fisheries Act, we are likely to see more

Giant Mines. Our territorial government has actedas a silent accomplice throughout much of the GiantMine tragedy. This does not bode well for the muchvaunted devolution of authority over resource devel-opment.

Prevention is worth a pound of cure. As a nation,a society and a species, we do not seem capable oflimiting ourselves. It will take individual citizens andcivil society to hold governments accountable. Westill have a chance to get it right with what is left atthe Giant Mine, to build a true partnership based ontrust, learning from our mistakes, and communicat-ing to future generations what we have done. Are weup to the task? !

Kevin O’Reilly is a member of Alternatives North, a socialjustice coalition based in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.

Footnotes1. A.K. Muir, General Manager, Giant Yellowknife Gold Mines, Ltd. toG.E.B. Sinclair, Director, Northern Administration and Lands Branch,Department of Resources and Development, no date. RG 29, vol. 2977,file 851-5-2, pt. 1, LAC.

Governments apparently do not feel they are in the business of protect-ing the public interest. There is nothing in federal or territorial law

that would prevent another Giant Mine — no regulations on airquality in the NWT, no mandatory financial security for mines, and

no mandatory requirement for closure plans for mines.

Northern Public Affairs, Fall 2012 53