First Nation in Yukon calls for halt of mining on its traditional territory after Eagle gold mine accident

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A First Nation in Yukon is calling for a stop to mining in its traditional territory as uncertainty swirls over the scale of environmental damage caused by the failure of a gold processing plant.

Giant piles of cyanide-laced rocks collapsed June 24 at a heap leach facility at the Eagle gold mine in central Yukon operated by Victoria Gold Corp., triggering a landslide that likely released toxic cyanide into the environment.

The rockslide, which satellite imagery shows to be more than 1,400 metres long by up to 370 metres wide, caused widespread damage to mine infrastructure including the heap leach facility.

Heap leaching involves stacking mined ore into outdoor piles and then sprinkling it with water laced with cyanide, which collects in a lined pond. The operation at the Eagle mine was designed to hold as much as 92 million tonnes of ore.

Neither the company nor the Yukon government, which is investigating the incident, has revealed specifics around the extent of the damage from last week’s rockslide.

The open-pit mine is about 375 kilometres north of Whitehorse and 85 kilometres north of the village of Mayo, on the traditional territory of the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun.

The First Nation on Wednesday demanded “an immediate halt of all mining activity” on its traditional territory and called for an independent investigation of the incident in the face of what it called “negligent government oversight.”

Dawna Hope, chief of the Na-Cho Nyak Dun, said in an interview that she had little faith in the government’s investigation and pointed to other mining disasters such as the 2014 Mount Polley tailings dam failure in British Columbia, which was probed by the B.C. government in conjunction with external independent engineers and consultants. They determined the accident was caused by a multitude of factors, including design problems and inadequate on-site monitoring by the mining company and its consultants.

For generations, Na-Cho Nyak Dun members have hunted, trapped and fished in the vicinity of the Eagle mine.

“We actually have a spring fishery that we are highly concerned about now,” Ms. Hope said. “Our elders were concerned about even putting the mine there above our fishery.”

The Yukon government last week said that Victoria Gold had built dams to hold back contaminated water from the heap leach failure that was being pumped into storage ponds. However, the government has not revealed how long it took the company to build the dams, how much of the contaminated water the company was able to capture, and the quantity of cyanide that may have escaped into the environment.

So far, government officials have said that the risk of drinking-water contamination in Mayo is extremely low. Government workers have been monitoring water on-site, as well as water upstream and downstream of the mine.

“We remain committed to working with the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun to determine a path forward,” Laura Seeley, a spokesperson with the Yukon government, wrote in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail. “Our top priority in the immediate term is safeguarding the health and wellbeing of people and the environment.”

The territory of the Na-Cho Nyak Dun covers an area of more than 160,000 square kilometres with roughly 130,000 square kilometres within the Yukon. Almost half of Yukon’s mining activity encompassing more than 80,000 claims occurs within the First Nation’s territory. In addition to Victoria Gold, Idaho-based Hecla Mining operates the Kino Hill silver mine in the Yukon, which is also situated on the First Nation’s territory.

Shares in Victoria Gold have been decimated since the heap leach disaster with its market value down by nearly 90 per cent.

Investors are concerned that Victoria Gold won’t be able to generate enough cash to service its debt. The company had more than $230-million in debt at the end of March, with US$16.7-million due in September. A further US$119.9-million is due by the end of next year.

Whitehorse-based Victoria Gold has so far put out only one statement on the incident. John McConnell, chief executive of Victoria Gold, has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

Cord Hamilton, a consulting engineer working for the Na-Cho Nyak Dun, estimated at a June 28 technical briefing hosted by the Yukon government that between 800,000 and a million cubic metres of cyanide had leaked into the environment.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story included an incorrect spelling of the first name of Na-Cho Nyak Dun Chief Dawna Hope. This version has been corrected.