SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - With the freezing of 237,000 tonnes of arsenic trioxide set to begin at Giant Mine in January, a former city councillor is questioning how the project was able to proceed two years ago without undergoing an environmental assessment.

"In my view, it showed the project wasn't ready to move ahead if they didn't really know if the technology would work or not, and that allowing this to go ahead was really what you might call 'project splitting' - where you start to do the project before you have it approved," said Kevin O'Reilly, a former city councillor who has been a regular voice on environmental issues in the North through his work with groups like Alternatives North.

The issue came up during a media briefing last week by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs (INAC) on the remediation of Giant Mine.

Martin Gavin, the department's manager of the Giant Mine Remediation Project, explained that given the lengthy environmental assessment process, and a goal to complete the clean-up of Giant Mine "as soon as possible following the (environmental assessment) process," the department asked for an exemption on assessing its plan to freeze the arsenic buried under Giant Mine.

"We asked the board to consider allowing INAC to proceed with an optimization study so that we could gather some design that we would need or we would want to utilize in the carrying out of the remediation plan - the idea being if folks had some 'real time, made in Yellowknife' data that we could actually feed them back," said Gavin.

He insisted that even though the freezing study wasn't required to undergo an environmental assessment, the freezing process is "absolutely" safe to both the public and the environment.

In an earlier interview, Gavin explained that even though arsenic trioxide - slightly soluble in water and deadly poisonous if ingested - hasn't been encased behind a frozen wall before, there are several other examples of the freezing technology successfully working in other areas.

Mayor Gord Van Tigham agreed there are successful examples of the freezing technology. He's also confident in the experts, including international experts, who reviewed the government's plans and agreed with the recommendations that the freezing study need not undergo an environmental assessment.

The remediation project - the total clean-up of the mine site, including demolishing surface buildings and cleaning up the tailings ponds - is currently at the environmental assessment review stage. The review will investigate whether the project "is likely to cause significant adverse impacts on the environment or if it is likely to cause significant public concern," according to the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board website.

This, however, will not include a closer look at the freezing study, which calls for arsenic to be frozen underground at Giant Mine in perpetuity. The plan is to encase Chamber 10 of the 14 arsenic chambers in a 10-metre wall of ice.

To freeze the chamber, pipes have been inserted ten metres around and beneath the chamber and dynalene a refrigerator coolant, will be pumped into the pipes to freeze the rock between the pipe and the chamber. The arsenic stored underground at the site is a by-product of smelting at the mine.

Originally, the entire remediation project was exempted from the environmental assessment process, said O'Reilly, but after a complaint from the Yellowknives Dene First Nations, city council looked at the matter and triggered a mandatory environmental assessment review after O'Reilly and others made presentations to council. On March 31, 2008, the City of Yellowknife contacted the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board and used it's authority to trigger a mandatory environmental assessment for the remediation project.

But in a Dec. 17, 2008 written decision, the water board determined the freezing study would be a separate project from the Giant Mine Remediation Project and not "interconnected."

Zabey Nevitt, executive director of the water board, could not be reached for comment by press time.

Giant Mine, located about 5 km from Yellowknife off the Ingraham Trail, first opened in 1948. INAC took over responsibility for the site after Royal Oak went bankrupt in 1999. It is the second largest federal contaminated mine in Canada, next to the Faro Mine in Yukon, said Gavin.

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