Decontaminating all federal sites will cost Canada several billion dollars.
For example, the cleanup of the former Giant Mine site in the Northwest Territories alone will cost $4.38 billion, a national high. The work, which began in 2005, will continue until 2038. To date, the cost is 710 million.
This sum does not include the long-term maintenance of the grounds.
“I don’t mind that it will cost $4 billion to clean up Giant Mine. What really troubles me is the fact that the burden will rest solely on the taxpayers’ shoulders,” said David Livingstone, Chairman of the Giant Mine Supervisory Board.
The Inventory of Federal Contaminated Sites (ISCF) lists more than 23,000 locations, of which 17,602 have been closed following historical reviews, detailed analyses, remediation activities or long-term follow-up actions. term having determined that no further action was required.
According to the Department of Environment and Climate Change, two of the five most expensive decontamination projects are located in the Yukon, namely the former mining sites of Faro Mine and United Keno Hill Mine. The other two locations at the top of the ranking are located in Port Hope, Ontario and Esquimalt Harbour, British Columbia.
Over two billion dollars have already been spent on these five locations so far.
It is expected that all these decontamination works will cost several billion dollars over the next few years, but it is still impossible to specify the exact total.
Expensive remediation work is underway at some sites, including the 21 former DYE-M DEW Line Radar Stations Cape Dyer in the Arctic region ($575 million), the former Goose Bay Air Force Base, Newfoundland (142.9 million), and the Tar Ponds and Coke Ovens site in Sydney, Nova Scotia (398 million).
The Public Accounts of Canada for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022 shows gross liabilities of nearly $10 billion for all 2,524 federal contaminated sites for which action is required.
They report 3,079 unassessed sites, of which 1,330 are scheduled to proceed to remediation work and for which an estimated liability of $256 million.
The Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan was established in 2005. This 15-year program was funded to the tune of $4.54 billion by the Canadian government. It was renewed for an additional period of 15 years, from 2020 to 2034, and endowed for the first five years with funding of 1.16 billion.
Jamie Kneen of MiningWatch Canada says the level of contamination on Giant Mine lands highlights the importance of planning and assessment processes for development projects.
“If we don’t plan anything, we’ll end up in a demented mess,” he says. In this case, it killed people before the mine even started capturing arsenic. We don’t want that to happen anymore. »
This article was produced with the financial support of the Meta Fellowships and The Canadian Press for News.