'Nobody wins' with environmental review of Giant Mine cleanup: board chair

An environmental assessment of Ottawa's $300-million plan to clean up the defunct Giant Mine near Yellowknife would further delay work that needs to be done now, said the head of the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board.

The land and water board has released its reasons behind its decision to skip an environmental review for the federal Indian and Northern Affairs Department's remediation plan, which partly involves freezing 273,000 tonnes of poisonous arsenic trioxide now stored underground.

Board chair Willard Hagen told CBC News that most of the world's arsenic experts have already been consulted on how to clean up the mine site, which is considered to the North's most toxic site.

As well, he added, the board had not received any detailed arguments in favour of conducting a full environmental review.

"The process has been going on and on — I mean, it's time to get the work done now," Hagen said Wednesday.

"You want to clean up a dangerous polluted site. Well, it goes to an [environmental assessment], that's another 2½ years. So I mean, who wins? Really, nobody wins."

Hagen said some parties, including the City of Yellowknife, want remediation officials to "get to work and start cleaning up this mess, not talking about it again."

The board's decision not to order an environmental review came despite concerns from the Yellowknives Dene and environmental activists, who argued that the plan did not receive enough scrutiny.

But remediation project manager Bill Mitchell said the plan has already been thorougly reviewed and supported by a panel of nine experts.

"Certainly we've had a very thorough review, a lot of that review [was] by independent experts," Mitchell said. "So it's difficult to see what the environmental assessment would add to the project."

Mitchell said he's confident that freezing the vaults of arsenic trioxide — enough to fill a tall Yellowknife office tower 7½ times — will work. The toxic dust is a byproduct of the gold production process.

The Giant Mine produced more than seven million ounces of gold from 1948 until it closed in 1999. The Indian and Northern Affairs Department is now responsible for cleaning up the remaining contamination.

The remediation plan is subject to regulatory approval and funding by the federal government.