An aerial view of the Giant mine remediation site taken in August 2024. Credit: Adrian Perez.
Canada’s C$4.4-billion plan to cope with a poisonous legacy at a former gold mine in the Northwest Territories risks complicating local efforts to find a permanent solution.
Ottawa is moving ahead with efforts to freeze a 237,000-tonne underground pile of arsenic trioxide dust for at least 100 years at the former Giant mine in Yellowknife, said Natalie Plato, a federal government official in charge of the cleanup. As permafrost thaws, officials see the method as the best way to minimize risks that the waste – a byproduct of gold mining that could fill seven 11-storey buildings and kill humanity several times over – could leak into water systems.
The strategy has met with mixed reactions in the community – including objections from locals who argue that the freeze should only be temporary. The Giant…
