Jennifer Geens
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 28/05) - Miramar Mining Corp. unveiled its plans Wednesday for clean-up of tailing containment areas and sludge ponds at Con Mine.

Yellowknife has grown around the mine site since it opened in 1938, and city council is eyeing Negus Point for future development.

Ron Connell, environmental superintendent for Miramar's northern operations, looks over a map of the Con Mine site. The company unveiled its future plans for the mine's old sludge ponds and tailing areas on Wednesday. - Jennifer Geens/NNSL photo

Though most of the hazardous materials will be removed, none of the ponds will ever be suitable for development, said Ron Connell, environmental superintendent for Miramar's northern operations.

"Nobody in their right mind would build on top of tailings," he said.

However, he said former industrial areas of the mine site could be re-used for other industrial purposes.

The Con and Negus ponds were receptacles for arsenic-laced sludges from 1948 to 1970, and calcines until 1963. Connell said Miramar has already removed most of the hazardous materials from the ponds.

Next spring the company plans to wash out the empty ponds, then back-fill them with waste rock from the mine. Ultimately the ponds will be capped by a geosynthetic clay liner impermeable to water.

Miramar will also seed four tailing areas that haven't been used in the last 20 years in an attempt to re-establish vegetation cover.

Connell said two recently used containment areas are too salty to support vegetation and they will be covered with waste rock, along with islands of topsoil to help vegetation gain a foothold.

Miramar has spent $2 to $3 million already on the clean-up, and has $9 million set aside in a reclamation security fund.

Acting mayor Wendy Bisaro said the city isn't happy that Miramar has been carrying out reclamation activities without an approved mine closure plan.

"We have a problem with that," she said.

So far Miramar has submitted sections one through nine of the Con Mine reclamation plan to the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board. The full plan will go before the board in January.

By Miramar's schedule, the clean-up would be complete by 2010.

However, Con Mine's water licence expires next July. Miramar is seeking a licence extension, but Bisaro said a new licence is warranted, given the fact that the current licence was issued in 2000 to a working mine, not one in the midst of a clean-up. She said the City has alerted the water board to their concerns.

"We have indicated we want to intervene," said Bisaro.