Town officials in Dawson aren’t doing enough to stop a rogue placer miner from working his land, say frustrated citizens.
Ignoring orders from council, Darrell Carey again fired up operations on his Slinky placer mine on Dawson’s Midnight Dome last Thursday.
The town has already issued him a stop-work order and taken him to court for not applying for necessary development permits with the city.
As of yet, Carey hasn’t responded to the statement of claim filed against him in late June.
Now citizens want council to step up to the plate even more.
“Council has been pretty quiet about all this lately,” said downtown resident Jim Taggart.
“They’re there to protect the best interests of residents and as far as I’m concerned they haven’t done enough.”
He would like to see council put a cease-and-desist order from the Yukon Supreme Court against Carey.
What’s stopping them, he believes, is the threat of being sued.
Taggart and resident Glenda Bolt met with Dawson’s chief administrative officer last week to talk about Slinky mine operations starting up again.
The meeting was futile, said Taggart, because the city didn’t say much about what they were planning to do.
“I do feel they need to be far more open about the issue - even if they can’t discuss the legal reasons for their course of action at least they should tell us their course of action.”
The Slinky mine issue began simmering last fall when Carey applied to renew his water licence for the gold claims he owns along the Midnight Dome.
When the Yukon Water Board approved his water licence last month, the board skirted the issue of whether Carey needed to follow city bylaws in the operation of his mine.
The city has long maintained Carey needs the necessary development permits to clear vegetation on his land and work near and around the city-owned Dome Road.
Taggart is concerned that the department of Energy, Mines and Resources also hasn’t tried to stop Carey from working on his land.
“EMR knows that the mine is operating illegally yet they are giving him advice and support,” said Taggart.
But Energy, Mines and Resources dismisses that assertion.
“I don’t think (the department) is encouraging the miner to go ahead and break city bylaws,” said Energy, Mines and Resources spokesperson Jesse Devost.
Mine inspectors visit the site and check to see if the miner is upholding the provisions of his Class 4 mining licence, said Devost.
“But what happens between the city and the miner, we don’t have the authority to intervene on that,” he said.
Calls to city council and Dawson’s chief administrative officer were not returned before press time.
Contact Vivian Belik at
vivianb@yukon-news.com