(Yellowknife) Cleanup of one of Canada’s most contaminated sites is estimated to cost taxpayers more than four times what was originally estimated.
Posted at 10:02 p.m.
The Treasury Board of Canada recently approved a new $4.38 billion cost estimate for the remediation of Giant Mine, a former gold mine that operated from 1948 to 2004 within the city limits of Yellowknife .
The cost of the federally led project was estimated to be just under $1 billion in 2013, but that did not take into account inflation, contingencies and project management costs, as well as the fact that remediation plans have since expanded.
Giant Mine remediation project assistant director Natalie Plato said she learned about her rights and listened to stakeholders. “We think this is a very positive initiative for Yellowknife and the surrounding area,” she said.
Kevin O’Reilly, a member of the Northwest Territories legislature who was a stakeholder in the Giant Mine cleanup plan as an environmentalist, said he was not surprised by the new award .
“It’s certainly a huge amount, but it shouldn’t surprise anyone,” he said. Travel costs have skyrocketed lately to get contractors and so on. »
Mr. O’Reilly said he would like to see a breakdown of the cost estimate. He said he had to insist on knowing the previous estimate, eventually getting the amount by filing a freedom of information request.
The $4.38 billion cost estimate includes all remediation project expenditures since 2005 and projected future costs during ongoing operations.
While the remediation was originally scheduled to be completed in 2031, that deadline has been pushed back to 2038. However, some aspects of the project, such as the 237,000 tonnes of highly toxic arsenic trioxide dust stored underground at the site, will require maintenance. and perpetual maintenance.
O’Reilly said ongoing maintenance costs are likely to be significant.
Since the release of the initial cost estimate, the project has gone through a water permit process and an environmental assessment, which resulted in 26 legally binding measures that had to be completed before the project could be completed. remediation can be undertaken.
Other changes include the creation of a monitoring board, community benefit and contribution agreements, and a health effects monitoring program to measure levels of arsenic and other contaminants in residents of Yellowknife, N’dilo and Dettah through biological sampling.
Mme Platon said another change requested by stakeholders was to fill eight open pits at the site rather than leaving them open to protect the subsoil from flooding.
The scale of the mine cleanup is enormous, with the site spanning over 900 hectares. It also has 13.5 tonnes of contaminated soil, a landfill site, six settling ponds and 100 buildings, including an abandoned housing estate where former workers’ houses contain asbestos.
For the next decade, remediation work will include construction of a new water treatment plant, deconstruction of the old housing estate, underground stabilization using a mixture of cement, tailings and of chemical additives, and the freezing of underground arsenic chambers using 858 thermosyphons, which are essentially long tubes filled with carbon dioxide under pressure.
This dispatch was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta Exchanges and The Canadian Press for the news.