Yellowknife city council calls for review of Giant Mine cleanup

Yellowknife city councillors are demanding an environmental assessment of the Giant Mine cleanup plan, even though reviewers determined last month to let the plan pass without that assessment.

Members at Monday's council meeting said they have called on the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board to order the assessment, on behalf of Yellowknife residents and members of the Yellowknives Dene.

"The public in Yellowknife needs to be concerned about what the actual outcome will be, and that outcome will receive much better scrutiny if the project goes to an environmental assessment," Coun. Shelagh Montgomery said.

The city's request would normally trigger an assessment automatically, but councillors may be too late: their request comes weeks after the board decided in late February to approve the federal government's $900-million Giant Mine remediation plan without the need for a comprehensive assessment.

Montgomery said most people thought an environmental assessment for the defunct mine, located just outside Yellowknife, was a given because it's one of the North's most toxic sites.

The mine had produced more than seven million ounces of gold from 1948 until 1999. The Indian and Northern Affairs Department is responsible for cleaning up the remaining contamination.

Officials with the federal department say cleanup efforts will include freezing 273,000 tonnes of toxic arsenic trioxide — the byproduct of 50 years of gold production — in underground vaults at the mine site.

In its decision, the land and water board said ordering a comprehensive environmental assessment would not be in the public interest because it could delay cleanup work by more than two years. As well, the board argued, many experts had already been consulted on the matter.

The city initially did not ask the land and water board for the assessment, instead calling for a working group to deal with concerns about the cleanup efforts. But Montgomery said the city decided to step in when no one else asked for the review.

Coun. David Wind added that the department's plan needs some work, arguing that Indian and Northern Affairs should not do the clean-up and monitor it at the same time.

"It's not a good idea to vest the oversight responsibility in the same department that's actually doing the work," Wind said.

"So I believe that by proceeding through an environmental assessment, that the need for this oversight will come to light."