Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 03/99) - The arsenic trioxide problem at Giant mine isn't going to be solved any time soon.

Federal officials said Tuesday they have targeted 2003 as the year they will begin to implement a plan to deal with the estimated 260,000 tons of arsenic-trioxide bearing dust stored underground at the mine.

Right now, federal officials are figuring out exactly how they're going to do it.

The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is examining three different methods and is hoping to settled on one by December 2000.

"There's no simple solution we're hiding in our back pocket," said Neil Thompson, one of a team of five DIAND officials overseeing the project.

The information was presented at one of the series of information sessions DIAND is hosting this week in the W.H. Bromley Building. The final session runs today from 9 a.m to noon.

The focus for much of the question and answer session at the Tuesday evening session was not on how the problem will be solved, but how it happened in the first place.

"I'm not aware of anything in legislation that would prevent this from happening again," said Kevin O'Reilly.

The executive director of the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee said the government should be implementing a principle of zero public liability. O'Reilly said companies should be required to put up the full cost of reclamation before they start mining.

Last summer, the NWT Water Board issued Royal Oak the water licence the mine is currently operating under. The licence included a schedule for upping its security deposit by $6.6 million by 2002.

The first payment was scheduled to be made in June, two months after Royal Oak went into bankruptcy.

The balance in that account now stands at $400,000.

"The rules have to be set for the lowest common denominator," environmentalist Chris O'Brien advised Nutter.

"I think there's too much reliance on companies doing the right thing. I don't think that's the way the world works."

Nutter pointed out that Royal Oak is the exception rather than the rule, and that most mining companies take responsibility for the cleanup of their properties.