'Every minute matters': Experts with first-hand accounts at Victoria Gold mine disclose gravity of problems

Experts working with Na-Cho Nyäk Dun who have witnessed the fallout at Victoria Gold's Eagle mine near Mayo, Yukon, say systems on-site are so severely compromised that damage to the land and water is all but inevitable.

What they describe is a system rendered mostly inoperable, with each affected piece elevating risks to the environment — every day.

"This is not a disaster that has happened. This is a disaster that is happening. Every minute matters," Farzad Mohamm, a water treatment expert and chemical engineer, who visited the site, told CBC News. 

On June 24, part of the Eagle mine failed and a massive rock slide involving roughly four million tonnes of material cleaved off a large piece of the facility where gold is extracted from ore using a chemical process called cyanide heap leach. Estimates put the amount of ore stacked on the heap leach pad — which functions as a giant industrial percolator — at nearly four times what was lost in the slide. 

With the heap leach pad downed, experts say a toxic soup of sodium cyanide and other contaminants — up to 300,000 litres of solution, according to the Yukon government — was released in the initial slide. Since then, they say, more of it has been draining. 

"We've lost about 50 per cent of that cyanide already," Mohamm said. "That other 50 per cent, we don't want it to come down. 

"There are some very harsh realities that we have to accept at this point."

Cyanide is a naturally occurring chemical, a compound of which is found in things like stone fruit pits. At high doses, it can be lethal to aquatic species and people.

The First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun has called the event "the region's most recent and potentially catastrophic mining failure."

In an email to CBC News, Chief Dawna Hope said citizens need time "to digest and grieve for our lands, waters, wildlife, and fish, our culture and ultimately the identity of our people resulting from the disaster."

The Yukon government has held three briefings with reporters since the failure. John Streicker, the minister whose portfolio includes mining, has said water samples taken from locations near the mine have come back positive for cyanide and that levels in a nearby free flowing creek "could affect fish."

In an email to CBC News on Friday, a cabinet spokesperson said there "isn't much to share beyond what was covered in previous technical briefings."

Experts with the First Nation's emergency response team, which includes Mohamm, tell a different — more nuanced — story. 

They warn the worst is yet to come. A "plume" or "rolling wave" of contaminated groundwater is heading toward Haggart Creek, which experts said represents the bellwether of impacts to the environment. Nearly one kilometre away from the edge of the debris field of the heap leach pad, the watercourse provides habitat for fish like Arctic grayling and salmon, which are starting to enter the Yukon River drainage on the Canadian side and whose numbers have been for years declining.