For Frank Patterson, an old man of the first nations in May, Yukon, last year’s catastrophic failure in the nearby Eagle Gold mine was not a total surprise.
“It was devastating,” he said. “And you know, anyone who entered there could see something happened one day.”
A year ago, on the morning of June 24, 2024, that the Eagle mine was in a matter of moments of being a famous center of the territory resource industry to an expensive environmental disaster that is not yet completely understood.
The failure in the Eagle mine also gave another black eye to the mining industry of the territory, which has seen its share of failures and bankruptcies of the large and expensive mine over the years. Some people wonder what kind of future industry has in the territory.
The slide in the installation of storage leaching of the mine released hundreds of millions of liters of toxic cyanide solution in the environment and immediately stopped the operations in what was then the largest hard rock mine of the Yukon. In a matter of weeks, already request from the Yukon Government, a receiver appointed by the Court took over the company, Victoria Gold and its assets.
The emergency remediation work to contain the damage to the site and in the surrounding area is in progress. The groundwater is being pumped and treated to eliminate any cyanide, and the minister of mines of the territory admits that it will have “long before getting rid of all cyanide.” The cost of remediation has so far been more than $ 200 million.
“It is the cleaning of taxpayers, just like lighthouse, Whitehorse, byg in Carmacks, whatever … you know, it’s only taxpayers are paying for cleaning, and those boys get up and flee,” said Patterson, who is from the first nation of Nyäk Dun. The Eagle mine is located within the traditional territory of the first nation, and the area affected by the slide is where Patterson says he once learned about his traditional culture, from his elders.
Patterson feels that the mistakes were made from the beginning with Victoria Gold. He believes that his first nation made a bad agreement with the company and should have involved the elderly in decision making. Once the company obtained what it needed, it argues: “They close the doors” in the first nation.
“We were not allowed there. They finished it. They put security there, put their camp there, and they simply did what they wanted to do,” said Patterson.
Patterson says he is not against mining. He knows that he is still the main industry of the territory, as it has been for more than a century. But he believes that things should change, especially when it comes to passing mines and monitoring their operations.
“The way Victoria Gold did it was greed. Pure greed,” he said.
“It is vital that we have mining correctly,” says the minister
The exact cause of the slide is not yet clear. In August, the Territorial Government appointed an independent review board to investigate what happened when observing the design, construction, operation, maintenance and monitoring of the Leach Heap installation. The leaching of the pile is a method to extract gold from packed ore using a cyanide solution.
The results of that review are expected in the next few days.
Speaking to CBC News last week, Yukon Minister of Mines, John Streamker, said that understanding the cause of the slide will help prevent something similar from happening again. It will also determine how the continuous remediation will be seen on the site of the Eagle mine, and whether the mine may or may not be reopened or not.
“One of the ways of thinking about it is, you need mining. That is, it is vital that we have the right mining. That means that it cannot damage the environment, or why are we doing it?” Streaticker said.
Streatic argues that what happened in the Eagle mine is not only very significant for Yukón, but also for the country. Mining is essential for Canada’s movement towards a greener economy, he said, and failures such as the eagle mine slide hinders people to believe that mining can be done safely.
“If we can ensure that the environment is not very affected in the long term, then there may be the possibility of trusting that governments do the right thing and ensure that mining will be carried out properly. But there is also the possibility that it does not work well, and people believe that it is not safe,” said Streamker.
“So there is a lot in balance, and I think it goes beyond Yukón in terms of how we judge whether it is correct to mine or not.”
The receiver seeks to sell the mine site
Earlier this month, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Victoria Gold recipient, appointed by the Court, presented a report to the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario that indicates its intention to put on sale the site of the Eagle mine. The report says that things have improved on the site, and emergency work is expected to be completed before September 30.
On June 30, there will be a judicial hearing in which the receiver will present his case to make a sale. Pricewaterhousecoopers wants to close at the sale at the end of December.
In May, there are feelings found on whether the mine could or should ultimately reopen. Many local residents suddenly lost their work when the mine stopped operating a year ago.
Victoria Gold won $ 400 million in its last year of operation, and the first nation of Nyäk Dun received its first annual payment of the mine, almost $ 1.4 million, before the fall.
Bobbie-Lee Melancon does not want to see him reopen. She grew up in the area, fishing with her family on the McQueten river, and is angry at the environmental devastation of the Eagle mine failure.
“I don’t think we should be greedy, you know, let’s live in our beautiful land as it is,” he said.
“If you think about all the money that occurred there and what was done, you know, those are really big numbers. And I don’t think the first nation has had much of that cake. And we stay with the disaster.”
Doug Van Bibber, who grew up in May and works in Forestry, said he was never a great defender of the Eagle project, or Heap’s Leach mining. He says that the environment is ultimately more important than the economy, “because money goes and goes; the earth does not.”
“But I know that, you know, you have to have resource sectors. And I think we have to be a bit more creative, about how economic development occurs. You start looking at the forest and not just minerals,” he said.
Frank Patterson, Nyäk Dun Elder Nyäk, says he would like the Eagle mine to be reopened, because “mining is needed.”
“My thoughts about reopening are fine, because I want the people who owe money to them. And I also want the jobs that will assure our people. But opening to the same agreement, no,” he said.
“From now on, when the mining sector comes into play, we will make sure it is fine, because it is for our future generations.”
