It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of Giant Mine to the city of Yellowknife.

No one wants to lose the hundreds of jobs that it represents. Not mine owner Peggy Witte, not the city, territorial and federal governments that enjoy the mine's tax contributions, not other businesses that profit from miners' spending habits, not the media and not even environmentalists (with the exception of those few who oppose all development whatsoever.)

And yet, Giant Mine is responsible for some of the worst arsenic pollution in the country.

The latest study from Environment Canada says our air is roughly nine to 13 times as contaminated with arsenic as the average Canadian city. Should we just grit our collective teeth and bear it, knowing that sooner or later, someone's loved one is going to die of cancer as a result of breathing Giant Mine's toxic fumes?

The same government study says it would cost as much as $35 million for Giant to replace the process responsible for the arsenic with a safe one. Obviously, Peggy Witte and Royal Oak Mines aren't going to swallow that kind of cost. They have made it clear that expenses of that order will mean the mine will close.

Fortunately, there are alternatives. Several relatively inexpensive technologies, variants of what the industry calls "scrubbers," are available to treat the mine's emissions and bring the pollution down to acceptable levels.

None would break The Royal Oak Mines bank account. In fact, according to the report, proper treatment would raise the mine's operating costs by no more that two per cent. And Royal Oak would see the net cash flow from Yellowknife fall by only nine per cent.

If that's still too much, perhaps some government assistance would be in order. Either way, it doesn't seem like too much to ask to keep the air in our little piece of the North clean and safe.