Giant Yellowknife Mines, Ltd. opened a gold mine near Yellowknife in 1948, building an ore roasting facility that emitted large amounts (16,500 lbs, per day) of highly toxic arsenic trioxide dust. The arsenic posed a particular health risk to nearby Yellowknives Dene communities who relied on heavily contaminated snowmelt and spring runoff for drinking water. In April 1951 a young Dene boy died from contaminated water; sickness was widespread among the Yellowknives. The company installed pollution controls on the smokestack in October 1951, but emissions improved only gradually. The company stored the captured arsenic trioxide dust in underground chambers until 1999, when then owner Royal Oak Mines declared bankruptcy, leaving 237,000 tons of arsenic trioxide and an intractable remediation problem that has been labelled the worst toxic site in Canada.
The Canadian government has proposed freezing the arsenic underground in perpetuity, but a recent environmental assessment has suggested that this should be an interim solution until technology is developed to safely remove and treat the arsenic. Regardless, Giant Mine is likely to require care and maintenance over a very long period of time, raising issues of how we communicate and maintain knowledge of hazardous sites across multiple generations.
Contributed by John Sandlos
Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John’s, NL, Canada
- Alternatives North, From Dispair to Wisdom: Perpetual Care and the Future of Giant Mine, A Report on a Community Workshop, September 26-27, 2011. http://aged.alternatives north.ca/pdf/ Perpetual%20Care%20Workshop%20Full%20Report%20(lo-res%20revised).pdf
- Keeling, Arn and John Sandlos “Environmental Justice Goes Underground? Historical Notes from Canada’s Northern Mining Frontier.” Environmental Justice 2, no. 3 (2009), 117–125.
- O'Reilly, Kevin. "Giant Mine, Giant Legacy." Northern Public Affairs 1, no. 2 (2012): 50–53.
- Tataryn, Lloyd. Dying for a Living. Ottawa: Deneau and Greenberg, 1979.