Yukon's Eagle Gold mine releasing treated water, coinciding with grayling migration

The Yukon Water Board has signed off on an emergency amendment that allows Eagle Gold mine to discharge treated water with less restrictive environmental standards. 

The Feb. 28 order coincides with the migration of grayling, swimming toward the confluence of Haggart Creek and the South McQuesten, an area continuously impacted by the mine's waters. It has been a popular springtime fishery for citizens of the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun for generations.

For months, water storage on-site has been limited with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the receiver in charge of the mine, and the territory stressing that making more space is crucial. With the incoming water from melted snow, the receiver is working to do just that. 

That's the crux of the order, effective until March 31. 

In the order, the Yukon Water Board states the area is populated mostly with adult grayling, which the board says are more resilient to copper concentrations in the discharge than juvenile fish. 

That, combined with the order's short time period, "should [have] minimal adverse effects to the grayling," according to the regulator.

The order states the decision allows a controlled discharge of effluent and that not doing so could result in more serious environmental impacts.  

Upgrades to the water treatment plant, more storage capacity and efforts to capture contaminated groundwater all help to keep whatever contamination to a minimum, it adds.

The receiver started to discharge water on Sunday into a storage pond, the same pond that sprung a leak earlier this year.

John Thompson, a spokesperson with the Department of Mines, said in an email the pond has yet to be repaired. 

The receiver will pump water into the pond, where it will be "exfiltrated" — or released into the ground, Thompson said. Travelling through groundwater channels, the water will eventually end up in Haggart Creek.

Biologists and engineers have long warned a "plume" of contaminated groundwater inching toward nearby waterways is a major concern to aquatic life.

Earlier this month, the territory said PwC finished building a settlement pond — needed to get copper concentrations below water guidelines before being discharged. Copper is being used by a contractor to treat the cyanide solution.

Water from the mine continues to show elevated levels of cyanide within six kilometres of Haggart Creek. Data from March 13 shows them spiking to concentrations powerful enough to kill fish. The same dataset shows heavy metals like mercury and cobalt above water quality and aquatic life guidelines.

'The best of bad choices'

Mark O'Donoghue, a fisheries biologist who works with Na-Cho Nyäk Dun, said the First Nation agreed to the order, reluctantly.

It's the best of two bad choices, he said.

"It's not something that anybody wanted to see.

"Waiting until the water treatment was perfect would ... really raise the risk there's gonna be uncontrolled release of cyanide contaminated water, which would be catastrophic," he said.

O'Donoghue said any given year, there's upward of 40 people ice fishing this time of year. Now with what's happened at the mine, for many, this is the point of no return, he said.

"We already have people in the community saying that, you know, this area to them is gone. It's poisoned. It's not something they would ever trust to go harvest. It's a real tragedy."