In five years, a tailings pond and overflow pit will be filled to capacity. That's how long DIAND has to come up with a way to clean up the toxic "witch's brew."
Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Apr 06/01) - The clock is ticking on the dirtiest mine in the North: Colomac.
The mess is so bad at Colomac that new technology will have to be developed to clean up the site, 190 kilometres north of the city.
Where the main technological challenge at Giant is posed by the underground storage of 265,000 tons of arsenic trioxide dust, at Colomac it is the toxic mix of materials in the tailings pond.
Scott Mitchell, head of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development's contaminated sites division, said the "witch's brew" includes ammonia, cyanide and heavy metals.
"There's technology to take care of each component, but there is not technology right now to take care of them the way they are," Mitchell said.
That technology will have to be developed within the next five years. Five years from now, experts say, the tailings pond and a pit being used to contain its excess will be filled to capacity.
"At the end of the five years, if we don't have a (treatment) process in place we'll be up a creek without a paddle," Mitchell said.
Colomac went into operation in April 1990. Royal Oak Mines Inc. took control of the mine in 1993. With gold prices sagging, the mine was put on care and maintenance in 1997. The federal government assumed liability for the clean-up of the mine when Royal Oak went into receivership in 1999.
The main problem with the tailings pond is its design. The pond is in the middle of an area shaped like a basin. All meltwater drains into the tailings pond.
This year and next, two million litres of tailings will be pumped from the pond to a nearby pit to keep the pond from overflowing. Ditches will also be dug to divert as much run-off as possible from the tailings pond.
In five years, when they reach their capacity, the pit and the pond will contain 14 million cubic metres of effluent, enough to fill Ruth Inch Memorial Pool 21,021 times.
Public hearing planned
DIAND has a land use permit for the cleanup and is hoping to soon secure a water licence. A public hearing on the water licence is scheduled to take place in Rae early next month.
The mine lies in the middle of a river system in the heart of Dogrib traditional territory. If it escaped into the environment, contaminants from the mine would harm the fisheries, water and wildlife the Dogrib have relied on for centuries.
In a letter to the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board commenting on the cancellation of the water licence Royal Oak operated the mine under, Dogrib chief negotiator John B. Zoe said the current situation raises questions about how mines are managed.
Zoe asked how appropriate it was for the federal government, as the central monitoring agency, to allow a mine to start without an abandonment and restoration plan. He also wondered why the mine was allowed to produce waste there was no known way of treating.
Mitchell said over the next two years, the First Nation will help develop a clean-up plan. Dogrib will be contracted to carry out the clean-up.
There is no word on how much money will be available for the cleanup of Colomac. Mitchell said he requested $6.2 million in a proposal submitted last November.
