Last Friday, a letter by a former Victoria Gold manager appeared in this publication, arguing that Yukon government’s decision to oust the company and take over the heap leach disaster response was unfounded. The argument of the letter, and one I’ve heard elsewhere, is generally that Victoria Gold was doing its best in a tough situation and the site should have been left in its hands.
The government’s deadlines for Victoria Gold to take action, the writer insisted, were “stringent and unrealistic” and that the “lack of urgency and mismanagement now displayed by the government undermines its declared commitment to environmental protection and
responsible resource development.”
Given the territory’s checkered history with troubled mines, with the government often waiting too long to step in while failing companies allow environmental risks and costs to escalate at soon-to-be abandoned mine sites, this argument only pushes the territory’s progress
backwards.
I don’t doubt that Victoria Gold staff worked long hours to address the heap leach failure. I also think people can be forgiven for finding it hard to believe that Victoria Gold, as a company, was as committed to environmental protection and responsible resource development as it would like to appear. Between the heap leach collapse and years of water and heap leach mismanagement (the company was fined $95,000 for water license offenses in 2021 and was set to face charges from 2022 and 2023) it seems a dubious claim for the company to be making.
Despite Victoria Gold’s insistence on calling this an “incident,” as if it were merely a situation the company was swept up in, in reality the company designed, built and operated a heap leach that collapsed and created an environmental disaster. It’s difficult to see how responsibility for the failure of the heap, the lack of adequate storage and immediate treatment options for the cyanide solution, and the company’s downfall doesn’t ultimately rest with decisions made and
risks accepted by senior management.
Managing a crisis in which hundreds of millions of litres of cyanide solution have spilled into the environment demands a complex, coordinated and resource-heavy response. Although Victoria Gold could have worked in partnership with the First Nation of Na-cho Nyäk Dun and Yukon government, both governments were left frustrated with the company’s minimal communication. Victoria Gold also did not show it could adequately finance the response as its stock price plummeted and loans were coming due, with the danger that important actions were potentially left unpursued because of cost.
Last week’s letter, which argued that Yukon government’s deadline for the company to construct a “massive, lined pond, in just five days” was unreasonable, casts doubts on Victoria Gold’s response to the disaster and their ability to make prudent decisions leading up to it. The government gave the order on July 10, which required Victoria Gold to construct a 50 million litre (50,000 m3) storage pond by July 15 because the existing storage ponds were at risk of overflowing. Given the urgency of creating more storage, I would argue that the clock to build more storage ponds started on June 24, the day of the heap leach failure, not July 10. So why did Victoria Gold have to be ordered to start construction, rather than start this work weeks earlier?
Victoria Gold’s own water management plan for the heap leach facility offered assurance that they had set aside an area for a 90 million litre (90,000 m3) emergency pond, as required by their water license, and that it “could, based on the equipment that will be utilized during normal mining operations, be constructed in a short period of time.” In the same document, the company said they did not plan to construct the pond in advance because it would only be
required after a “combination of improbable circumstances,” apparently deciding that scrambling in an emergency was the best option.
Years before the heap leach collapsed, as noted in a July 16, 2020, inspection report, Victoria Gold was told by the government to actually build the emergency pond as the company was already struggling with a lack of adequate water storage. Regrettably, the CEO of Victoria Gold informed the inspector that company management had decided to “forego the construction of the emergency pond,” as the follow-up report from Aug. 20 notes. Constructing the emergency pond was again recommended in 2022 by a firm hired by the government to review Victoria Gold’s operation of the heap leach facility. The company did not follow this advice and the government didn’t force the issue either time.
This is why I don’t hold sympathy for the ‘short’ five day deadline for Victoria Gold to construct emergency storage. The company had weeks to construct a pond after the heap leach failure, and could have proactively constructed storage years before it. I suspect the experts conducting the technical review of the heap leach failure will find other instances of deferred measures and overoptimism. In the meantime, the former management of Victoria Gold would be better served
by reflecting on the heap leach failure and the company’s downfall, instead of deflecting responsibility for it.
That’s not to let the Yukon government off the hook — the government’s regulatory lenience and approach leading up to the heap leach disaster certainly deserve scrutiny. But the narrative that Victoria Gold should have been left in charge doesn’t fit with the facts, deflects responsibility and isn’t helpful as the territory leans on lessons learned to transform its mining laws and regulations.
Randi Newton
CPAWS Yukon
