With the receiver PricewaterhouseCoopers in charge of Victoria Gold’s Eagle Gold Mine and directing cleanup from the landslide that compromised the mine’s heap leach facility in June, the territorial government is offering information on what has been completed since the receiver took over.
Information on the ongoing cleanup was provided in a Sept. 20 briefing.
Progress reported by the government has included the construction of a new camp, addressing safety concerns for the roughly 150 workers on site after the original camp and a replacement built when Victoria Gold was in charge at the site were unfit.
Those at the briefing heard that Pelly Construction has started work on a safety berm with the goal of making more of the area near the slide accessible for groundwater monitoring wells.
“The construction of the berm has been seen as a critical development that is necessary to improve safety conditions on site and provide the ability to capture and treat any contaminated groundwater in the area. Eighteen groundwater wells have been installed on site. These have been installed downstream of the slide area and adjacent to the slide area. These wells will provide critical information on where to focus the efforts to monitor and intercept groundwater,” said Erin Dowd, the technical lead for the territorial government on the mine cleanup project.
Deputy minister Lauren Haney, also speaking at the briefing, explained that berm construction was slowed because adequate camp facilities were needed first. She added that the berm is expected to take about four weeks to construct, slower than it might have in the summer because there is less daylight.
Dowd said initial water quality results gleaned from the monitoring wells have shown the impacts of cyanide near the slide but not closer to Haggart Creek. She noted that the wells constructed so far are for monitoring groundwater, not intercepting it. Dowd said they are important for learning more about how groundwater moves at the site. Interception wells are also being planned for, immediately downhill of the berm. Dowd expressed confidence that in the planned location they will catch all groundwater.
The government officials also said that one water storage pond had been completed last week and that another was expected to be finished 24 hours after the Sept. 20 press conference. It was acknowledged that existing storage was filling up but Dowd said it is anticipated that the storage would be complete before the need to discharge any water to the environment arose.
The mine site still doesn’t have the capacity to treat and discharge water but those at the briefing heard that a new contractor, BQE Water, was investigating solutions. Numerous fish died downstream of the mine site following a discharge of water when Victoria Gold was still in charge of the site.
Also speaking at the Sept. 20 briefing was Michelle Grant, representing the receiver.
“Typically, the primary purpose of a receivership is to liquidate assets to maximize value for the creditors. However, in this receivership, the main goal is to complete the environmental remediation necessary for Victoria Gold to comply with the regulatory orders that have been issued in respect of the heap leach failure,” Grant said.
She said real progress has been made on the orders issued by the regulators but they are “not out of the woods yet.”
“I think it's important again to establish that the priority right now is the focus on the emergency work that's being completed before winter, and there has been funding secured for that. The long-term planning is in place to determine what needs to be done after the emergency works are completed, and once that planning is done, a budget can be put forward to determine the funding that's required for that. And that's where we're at right now,” Grant said.
On the funding front, it was noted that the surety bond the government holds to cover remediation at the mine has not been accessed yet. That fund exceeds $100 million. Those at the briefing were told that severance was not paid to either the Victoria Gold board who all resigned following the receiver taking control or to senior leadership who have left or, in the case of former CEO John McConnell, were fired by the receiver.
Both Grant and government representatives maintained that the receiver’s role is to oversee the mine site’s remediation to the state it was in prior to the June landslide with an eye towards Victoria Gold resuming mining.
Grant said it was too early to discuss the mine’s future following the remediation.
Both Grant and Haney said that the sale of the mine’s assets to another company is a possibility.
Commentary on the state of things at the mine has been coming from various corners: past mine management, government officials and conservation groups.
Nico Harvey, a former Victoria Gold engineering manager who wrote into the News on Sept. 13, suggested there was a double standard on how the territorial government is overseeing things since the receiver took over at the mine compared to practices when Victoria Gold was still in control.
Harvey suggested that that company was aware of the environmental sensitivity that the landslide created and the accompanying urgency. He wrote that his former employer had “worked tirelessly to mitigate harms and meet the deadlines the government imposed."
“The government, who once stressed the critical timelines, now seems to operate on a completely different clock,” he wrote.
Harvey’s letter drew responses from Yukon government cabinet communications, with its director Jordan Owens writing in to state that many questions Yukoners had for Victoria Gold’s management when it was in charge of the site went unanswered and that company leadership’s communications “often reflected a lack of appreciation for the seriousness of the situation.”
“Following the appointment of a receiver by the court over Victoria Gold Corporation, some former members of the senior leadership team are providing opinions in a public forum that seek to criticize, rather than assist in resolving the catastrophe. It is unfortunate that they are focused on the actions taken following the appointment of the Receiver by the Court, rather than what they could have done to better to protect the land, water, animals, and people near the Eagle Gold mine — both before and after the incident,” Owens wrote.
Another response to Harvey’s letter, this one from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s Yukon Chapter, accused the company of deflecting responsibility for the environmental harms associated with the landslide.
Contact Jim Elliot at jim.elliot@yukon-news.com
