BYG Wants Standards Dropped
A Whitehorse Star Archive story originally published February 10, 1998
BYG Natural Resources Inc. says spring runoff is threatening to overflow the tailings pond at its Mt. Nansen mine. It's asking the Yukon Territory Water Board for permission to release water from the pond.
More troubling to government officials and a conservation group is the gold mining company's request that the environmental standards imposed on the water discharged from the pond be lowered.
BYG wants the test changed so water to be sampled is taken at a point about 2.5 kilometres downstream from where treated effluent from the tailings pond is released into a creek.
In a Feb. 3 letter to the board, BYG president Graham Dickson says the company expects about 50,000 cubic metres of water to enter the tailings pond during spring runoff.
BYG says there are only about 10,000 cubic metres of space left in the pond.
To avert a possible overflow, BYG has asked the board for permission to spill about 1,200 cubic metres of water per day from the pond for the next 60 days.
"If we do not discharge at a higher rate continuously, we will be in imminent danger of having an uncontrolled discharge at the spring run off," writes Dickson.
The emergency application is complicated by the fact that BYG has been working for the past six months to find a way to pass environmental tests administered to the water released from the tailings pond.
Last November, the Mt. Nansen mine was forced to halt production after the tailings pond filled up faster than expected.
BYG had said in January that three water samples sent to a lab in Edmonton passed the discharge test. However, the discharged water had failed to pass federal water quality tests for fish toxicity. The most recent federal test was Jan. 27.
The water board is expected to hear the emergency application shortly.
David Sherstone is the regional manager of water resources for the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. He said today that BYG is currently releasing about 225 litres of treated water from the pond per hour. The water meets all standards except for the fish toxicity test.
The federal government objects to BYG's request to lower the test standards. The request to move the test site downstream would dilute the discharged water before it encounters any fish.
"That's basically using the environment as a treatment system and that's contrary to normal or standard or even best practice anywhere," said Sherstone.
He doesn't have a problem with BYG's first request to spill treated water .
"The alternative is far worse," he said. If a spill occurs due to spring runoff overflowing the tailings pond, untreated water containing heavy metals, cyanide and arsenic could escape into the waterway, he added.
To allow an uncontrolled discharge to happen would have a much great impact on the environment than the possible release of treated water that could still kill fish, he said.
"We mind, but the alternative ... is far worse," Sherstone said. "It's really a question of what's the lesser of the evils."
Sherstone pointed out that the creek BYG is releasing water into is a placer creek, not a fish creek. The treated effluent initially enters Dome Creek.
About 2.5 kilometres later, Dome Creek runs into Victoria Creek, a fish-bearing stream. BYG wants to move the test site down Dome Creek to just prior to where it empties into Victoria.
Releasing treated water into Dome Creek seems to be the best current alternative, said Sherstone, "but it's not desirable."
Bob Van Dijken, a director with the Yukon Conservation Society, said it's simply not acceptable that BYG should be allowed to use Dome Creek to dilute the effluent from its operation.
Van Dijken said the company knew the original terms of its water licence. He accusesthem of waiting until the situation was at a crisis point before making the emergency application to the water board.
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BearDesign 1998
Could this be the reason for the declines today?
Sincerely,
Al Cern |
