Ore slide at Yukon's Victoria Gold mine not the first this year: government officials
CTV
A recent slide of ore at a gold mine in central Yukon was the second such failure this year, the territorial government said.
A recent slide of ore at a gold mine in central Yukon was the second such failure this year, the territorial government said.
That has one environmental group wondering if the previous problems at the heap-leach facility at Victoria Gold's Eagle Mine should have been a warning sign, while the government waits to find out if the latest slide released cyanide into nearby creeks.
Work was stopped at the mine north of Mayo on Monday when the company announced the failure of its heap-leach pad, part of the system that uses a cyanide solution to extract gold from ore.
Yukon's director of mineral resources, Kelly Constable, said Friday that the mine's ore stockpile was in a series of "benches" and this week's collapse was a "multi-bench failure, meaning it was significant in size."
"The company moved quickly following the slide to build dams to hold back contaminated water released from the slide material," she said.
Constable said a previous failure in January was at a different part of the facility, and that chemicals were not being used at that time. She said the ore in that case was contained.
A statement from the Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society said it wondered if the January event "should have been a warning sign about the flaws of the heap leach facility."
