.

Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Kevin O'Reilly believes a bad precedent has been set by a review board's decision not to review plans to store indefinitely some 237,000 tonnes of poisonous arsenic underneath Giant Mine.

O'Reilly, a former city councillor and executive director of the Independent Mine Monitoring Agency, said he was disappointed with the decision by the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board.

"It's a bad precedent for dealing with reclamation or clean-up plans," he said. "The issues of alternative ways of managing the arsenic and the remediation standards for the soil, those two items are now off the table."

The impact review board ordered an environmental review of clean-up plans by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development after Yellowknife's city council requested it last summer.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem said he had not reviewed the decision, which was released before Christmas, but said it wasn't going to be the end of the debate with the review board.

"We're working with the other intervenors, the Yellowknives Dene and O'Reilly on some other recommendations for them," he said.

"That's the decision they've given so far so it gives us a guide as to what we will be talking about so the discussion ain't over."

Van Tighem said the biggest concern laid in the long-term plans for the site, is there needs to be assurances made to residents of the city that the site will not be a problem in the future.

"Our concern is they don't freeze it and forget it," Van Tighem said.

"There has to be some long-term assurances to the community that it will be funded and monitored. That's what we're looking at."

O'Reilly said other issues that need discussion include how to monitor the arsenic properly and who should be doing it.

"We need a more permanent solution," he said. "Unless you set aside some money it's not going to happen and we're going to be in trouble."

The federal government plans to freeze the arsenic trioxide, a byproduct of gold production, in giant underground vaults.

O'Reilly said freezing it underground and forgetting about it is an unacceptable solution and will become a problem for future generations.

"We're going to have to know when to flip a switch on a freezing system or what to do if this stuff starts to melt," he said. "It's not a solution it's just a holding pattern and don't think it's a very responsible way to deal with this."

A significant piece of land where the arsenic is located falls within the city limits and Van Tighem said the city is concerned with whether the land will be usable or not.

"There is a significant quantum of land within city limits that could be not available ever," Van Tighem said. "In the larger scheme of things where does the city go if it had any intention of going in that direction. What's going to be in it for Yellowknife in the long run."

Calls to the review board office were not returned.