Speech from the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun's Technical Consultant on Eagle Gold Mine. Yukon Geoscience Forum, November 2024.
Chief Hope has highlighted that the future for mining in FNNND territory is only with sustainable, responsible and respectful developments. As you can appreciate, this concept is hard to reconcile with the singular focus that the FNNND has been forced to follow since the failure that occurred at the Eagle Gold mine in FNNND territory on June 24. FNNND had to and continues to focus its efforts on preventing the disaster from destroying the land and water that Chief Hope spoke of so eloquently. FNNND’s largest spring grayling fishery occurs at the mouth of Haggart Creek a few kms downstream from the Eagle Gold site.
When Chief Hope first asked me about speaking today, she asked me to “summarize the rollercoaster of the Eagle Gold disaster and what we learned so that this doesn't occur ever again.” So, I want to take a brief look at the leadup and response to the disaster as we think about what responsible mining might look like in FNNND territory. Having responsible mining requires a responsible company operating within a responsible industry and regulated by a responsible regulator. Let’s think about all three as we consider the Eagle Gold project and failure.
I want to first consider the project before the failure – and specifically whether the project operations had a risk profile consistent with responsible mining. We know that leach solution management is a critical risk to consider for heap leach projects. During operations, the amount of cyanide solution circulating in a leaching facility is much larger than the available storage on site. This is true for Eagle Gold, which at the end of 2023 reported about 700,000 m3 of leach solution in the system, with about 350,000 m3 of storage capacity – if the Event Pond was empty which it never was.
In its first year of operation, Victoria Gold had no capacity to treat water running from the pit or waste rock areas – non-cyanide water. It therefore chose to store this water in the Events Pond – the critical storage space for managing cyanide water if there were pump failures or other events at the heap leach facility. Between mid-May and Mid-August of that year it did not have the required amount of storage intended to address solution management risks. You’ll say, “well this was their first year of operation.” But, the same continued – in 2021, they failed to have that capacity from mid-May to mid-July, and in 2022 they failed to have it from late April to late July, and again through the fall and early winter. By November 2022, they had only 26% of the required capacity – the company said it was having “issues with pumping infrastructure.” The In-Heap Pond was within a few cms of full, and the Events Pond had more than 200,000 m3 of non-cyanide water. At the worst, a few minutes of pumping failure would have contaminated that whole amount of water with cyanide, and less than 2 days of pump failure would have led to discharge of cyanide solution into the receiving environment – potentially at 100s of m3 per hour. And there was still no water treatment capacity. The first-year growing pains had evolved into an ongoing issue.
This certainly wasn’t a tolerable risk profile for the FNNND, and it should not have been for the mining company, the mining industry or the regulator.
During its operating period before the major failure in June 2024, Victoria Gold had five other losses of leach solution from the heap leach facilities, including three by the same mechanism. These were all minor with very limited environmental impacts. But again, this did not demonstrate a tolerable risk profile for the FNNND, and it should have raised red flags for the mining company, the mining industry and the regulator.
In January 2024, Victoria Gold had a landslide on its heap leach facility. At the time, it was placing ore on a single lift of over 30 metres high – “significantly exceeding the designed height of 12 metres per bench.” The engineer of record identified this as the primary cause of the failure. This too did not represent a tolerable risk profile for the FNNND, and is should not have been for the mining company, the mining industry or the regulator.
Throughout permitting and operations, Victoria Gold steadfastly refused to join the International Cyanide Code – an industry body whose goal is to ensure safe management and use of cyanide in the gold mining industry, to protect human health and the environment. The FNNND always considered this a necessary component of managing risk for the project. A responsible mining company, mining industry and mining regulator would also have considered this necessary.
Thinking about these risks before the failure occurred, what would a responsible mining company, mining industry and mining regulator look like.
A responsible mining company would have recognized that it needed a water treatment plant before the date specified in the licence and it would have built one – so that it could provide the storage needed to address risks. It would have designed and commissioned a robust cyanide treatment system. It would have built its facilities in full compliance with designs. It would have become a full member in industry organizations whose aims are to promote responsible mining. And, it would have complied with the licence it received, not asserted that everything would have been great if it only received the licence it wanted.
A responsible mining industry would have recognized the unacceptable risks presented by the operations at Eagle Gold presented for the viability of future mining in FNNND traditional territory. Industry organizations would have identified these risks, just like the FNNND was able to do, and would have required their members to take actions to address these risks. Responsible industry organizations would also have encouraged and supported robust regulatory actions to address the unacceptable risks – because as we now see, the company’s risks are the industry’s risks.
A responsible regulator would not have tolerated the risk profile repeatedly demonstrated on this project. It would have showed up at the water board hearing for the project and argued for the most robust regulatory instruments – not simply stayed home. It would have had qualified geotechnical engineers reviewing designs, as-built reports and inspection reports for the heap leach facility, and doing their own inspections. It would have hired water treatment experts to review the designs and plans for cyanide destruction, and it would have required testing and commissioning of a treatment system. It would have understood the severe risks presented by solution management on the heap leach facility and responded accordingly before the problem dragged on for three years.
Now that we understand the context that got us to June 2024, I want to briefly do what Chief Hope asked me to, talk about the outcomes of the failure. But I want to continue of the theme of risk and risk management.
When the failure occurred on June 24, it dumped 10s of thousands of cubic metres of cyanide solution into the Dublin Gulch valley. And perhaps more importantly, it destroyed the pumping systems that would keep that 700,000 cubic metres of cyanide solution circulating in the heap. That solution would drain into the valley – anyone who understood heap leaching knew that on Day 1.
Within hours of seeing the first pictures of the failure, the FNNND team understood that additional water storage, surface water collection, groundwater collection and water treatment capacity were urgently needed. All of the risks that the FNNND had previously been concerned about had been realized. Cyanide solution would inevitably reach Haggart Creek – we were now faced with triage, how to minimize the damage. Within 24 hours, FNNND had identified the need for the parties to work together to figure out the response. It took a few days to get Yukon on board for that, but we never managed to get the Victoria Gold management team to cooperate and collaborate – or even recognize the scale of the disaster. By late July Victoria Gold was indicating that the worst was past, even though ponds where nearly full, there was still no functional water treatment, and there were no efforts to address groundwater collection.
As the Chief said in her note to me, it has been a rollercoaster since the failure occurred – but not a regular roller coaster, it’s one where we realized as we left the station that the locks to hold the wheels on the tracks had not been installed. We know that if we don’t all lean the right direction at the right time, this roller coaster WILL fly off the tracks. We have been perilously close to that situation many times – and we still face disaster every single day.
Since June 24, cyanide solution continues to accumulate on site, because there is still no way to safely treat and release it. That has meant that we need storage, something Victoria Gold failed to address, but the receiver has built more than 300,000 cubic metres of storage. Most of that is now full. More than once we have been within one rainstorm of releasing large amounts of cyanide solution. Winter is here, freshet is coming.
We still don’t have groundwater collection systems in place, and groundwater is contaminating Haggart Creek as we speak – with concentrations continuing to increase every day. They are now consistently above acute water quality guidelines.
They still aren’t releasing treated water to Haggart Creek and don’t have proven water treatment capacity – we hope they are close, but we are almost 5 months in and it is winter.
In the days and weeks and months following a failure like this, what would a responsible mining company, mining industry and mining regulator do?
A responsible mining company would immediately seek to cooperate with all parties to find and implement the most effective solutions. It would not disappear from the public eye, and only provide information specifically requested by regulators. It would have built storage and groundwater collection systems.
A responsible industry would have recognized the scale of the disaster. Just like the FNNND experts, those in the mining industry must have understood the implications of the disaster. A responsible industry would have acknowledged this and helped to explain to the public the implications. A responsible industry would have demanded that its member company provide the necessary information to develop effective responses – and that it develop effective response plans and demonstrate that it had things under control. In this case, a responsible industry would have countered its member company’s assertions that the worst was over, that things were under control.
But, instead industry as a whole has been quiet about this failure. As if the failure occurred in some other industry, and it won’t affect the future of mining here in Yukon. The agenda and program for this biggest annual mining conference in Yukon has almost no reference to the biggest mining event of the year in Yukon. The only reference is in the Minister of Energy Mines and Resources statement. No sessions about the failure or its consequences or about how the industry is going to move forward from it.
As an industry, you can be silent about it, but you can’t ignore the elephant in the room. The outcomes of this disaster will be the future of mining in FNNND territory. As an industry, this failure is your failure, not just Victoria Gold’s failure. When Victoria Gold was facing extremely high solution management risks in November/December 2022, as an industry you were still clinking glasses at Christmas parties celebrating the successes of the Eagle Gold Mine. As an industry, you have to turn that around. You have to be prepared to call out and address the unacceptable risk profiles that are operating in your industry. For there to be a future of mining in FNNND territory, you have to fix these issues before they happen. Now is the time to do that.
