Abandoned mines in Canada's North are polluting some of the last pristine areas of the planet, could trigger an international incident with the United States if waste leaks into Alaska, and have left the federal government liable for enormous cleanup bills, according to federal documents.
One of the largest environmental threats comes from the abandoned Terra Mine in the Northwest Territories. The mine is contaminated by PCBs, lead and mercury, according to the documents obtained from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs through access-to-information legislation.
The Terra Mine is on a river that feeds into Great Bear Lake, and contaminants from the site could threaten "one of the few remaining unpolluted lakes on the planet," the documents say.
The problem of abandoned mines will be highlighted today when federal Environment Commissioner Johanne Gélinas releases her second annual report, expected to be sharply critical of federal regulatory loopholes that have left taxpayers, not mining companies, liable for hundreds of millions dollars in cleanup costs at mines in Yukon, Nunavut and Northwest Territories.
In the House of Commons, Environment Minister David Anderson said yesterday that the government is committed to cleaning up those waste sites, although opposition MPs said that promise has been made previously and not kept.
In the past decade, there have been about a dozen high-profile cases of mining companies declaring bankruptcy and leaving behind what the documents term "substantive" cleanup liabilities.
The documents, obtained by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin through the Access to Information Act, outline the federal government's internal assessment of pollution problems faced at these abandoned mine sites.
Regulations do not require companies to set aside the full cost of cleanups when they close their mines. This leaves the federal government on the hook when corporate owners declare bankruptcy and are unable to decommission their sites.
"To prevent this happening again, they need solid, regulated reclamation bonds in place. You need to not allow a mine to go ahead unless you can assure that it can clean up after itself," said Joan Kuyek, national co-ordinator for Mining Watch Canada, an environmental group.
Ms. Kuyek said that Mining Watch, based on discussions with federal officials, estimates Ottawa's liability for abandoned mines to be about $640-million, but the figure could soar to an additional $1-billion when it includes the cleanup costs related to the Giant Gold Mine near Yellowknife.
In the early 1990s at Great Bear Lake, the owners of the former Terra silver mine declared bankruptcy, and responsibility for the site reverted to the federal government. None of the five individual mines that operated in the area has been decommissioned to federal standards, according to the documents.
The documents say Great Bear Lake, the eighth-largest lake in the world and the largest entirely in Canada, is also threatened by two other abandoned mines:
The Contact Lake Mine, a former uranium and silver operation that has not been in production since 1980. Leakage from the site "increases the concern of radioactivity issues in Great Bear Lake."
The Port Radium Mine, abandoned in 1982. There are 1.5 million tonnes of uranium and silver tailings deposited on the shores of Great Bear Lake. Contaminants include surface gamma radiation, radioactive dust, uranium, arsenic and mercury.
The documents express alarm over the abandoned Clinton Creek asbestos mine in the Yukon. It poses a "severe human safety risk."