By Canadian Press

Yukon mine inspector directs Victoria Gold to shore up water treatment efforts

Jul 23, 2024 | 11:46 AM

WHITEHORSE, YUKON — A Yukon mine inspector says a water treatment plan submitted by Victoria Gold after a disastrous spill of cyanide-laced-rock and water last month at its Eagle Gold mine is insufficient and the company must shore up its efforts after missing a deadline.

In an inspector’s direction issued July 20, mine inspector Sevn Bohnet says Victoria Gold was required to come up with a water treatment plan earlier this month, and the company submitted a pair of “unsigned memos” in response.

Bohnet says the memos don’t “sufficiently describe” the company’s ability to handle and treat the amount of contaminated water at the site, including its ability to source “large quantities of reagents,” the compounds or substances needed for the water treatment process.

The inspector’s direction says the company’s “groundwater interception plan” is also insufficient because it doesn’t describe how it would “effectively” intercept groundwater in the Dublin Gulch valley.

An earlier direction issued to the company required Victoria Gold to build a water storage facility to hold up to 50,000 cubic metres of contaminated water by July 15, but Bohnet’s latest direction says two days after that deadline, “a Natural Resource Officer observed that no lined water storage facility had been constructed.”

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The inspector’s direction says the company must meet six new conditions, including not to discharge contaminated water that can’t be completely contained, to build more water treatment capacity and to provide “certainty” that it can treat between 15,000 and 20,000 cubic metres of contaminated water a day, among other conditions.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2024.

The Canadian Press