Water sampling program picks up at Meliadine
Water quality, plankton levels tested during third year of sampling program
April Hudson
Northern News Services
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
KANGIQLINIQ/RANKIN INLET
Water bodies around the Meliadine mine site are being tested for quality and plankton levels this month as construction heats up at the mine site.
Golder Associates contractor Jarett Nevill, left, and environmental helper Louis Ulayok spent July 21 and 22 sampling water at lakes around the Meliadine mine site. - April Hudson/NNSL photo
|
Contractors were on the ground in late July and are scheduled to return in August as part of Agnico Eagle Mine's aquatic effects monitoring program, which has entered its third year.
Jeffrey Pratt, senior environmental co-ordinator for Agnico Eagle on the Meliadine project, said the summer sampling focuses on a series of reference areas west and northeast of the mine site, as well as three lakes close to the site which are known as the Peninsula Lakes.
"We have our exposure area and that's what we're checking: is there anything running off from the mine to the lake areas?" Pratt explained.
"It's to see what effects we are having on the aquatic environment."
Once samples are labeled and processed, they are sent to Edmonton for examination. Pratt said that gives the company the ability to determine whether there have been changes in the water.
"The reference areas are there to represent natural change - for example, more sunlight one year could mean more plankton in the water," he said.
That also gives environmental staff an idea of when changes occur unnaturally.
"If we see an increase in aluminum, for example, in the near-field (reference area) but not in other areas, we know there's a problem," Pratt said.
The aquatic effects monitoring program is similar every year, with contractors visiting the same lakes each year in order to build on the data they collect from previous years. Although this is the third year of the aquatic effects monitoring program, some past data from the lakes is also available, Pratt said.
"There were years previously where the same lakes and locations were sampled as background work," he said.
The summer leg of the sampling program started with a team of two contractors. Pratt said as the program moves into August, more teams will be sent out to collect tissue and liver samples from fish.
"That's to check toxicity levels," he explained.
Contractors will also be collecting ground sediment samples.
Pratt said the work differs from sampling conducted in the winter months, which focus strictly on water quality and aren't conducted at as many sites. That sampling occurs in January and February.
The current round of testing will wrap up in September.
