What work is coming up at Giant Mine in 2025?

Remediation work at the Giant Mine site this year will include construction of a water treatment plant and demolition of the former mill.

The team behind the Giant Mine Remediation Project updated Yellowknife city councillors on Monday about work completed to date and work that will take place in 2025.

Remediation of the former gold mine, which is expected to cost more than $4 billion and take until at least 2038, officially began in 2021.

Work completed thus far has included deconstruction of the old roaster – once one of Canada’s most contaminated buildings – and the former townsite, as well as the creation of a non-hazardous waste landfill and closure of the mine’s underground.

Natalie Plato, deputy director of the remediation project, said “the big item on site right now is the water treatment plant.”

Plato said workers have removed contaminated soil, completed blasting and installed intake walls for the water treatment plant. Now, work is beginning on interior structures and processes, which she said will continue into next year with the goal of commissioning the plant in the summer of 2026.

Last year, the remediation project awarded a $101.3-million, two-year contract for core area demolition to True North Environmental Ltd. The core area refers to the big remaining structures on the Giant site, including the former mill and reprocessing plants, which you can see from the Ingraham Trail. Plato said demolition of the mill will begin this year.

“It is probably our most complicated structure on site now that the roaster has come down,” she said.

Also taking place this year, Plato said, will be monitoring of revegetation test plots. The plots were constructed in an area off Vee Lake Road in 2024 and are set to be monitored over the next five years.

While the project team has committed to the Yellowknives Dene First Nation not to revegetate the former mine site, Plato said they are required to complete revegetation in select areas – such as around the townsite – for erosion protection.

“We don’t have a lot of topsoil here, so we’re looking at the growth media to see what the best growth media will be,” she said, adding they plan to use local species.

Other upcoming work will include remediation in Baker Creek, soils remediation, decommissioning of the effluent treatment plant, and boat launch and nearshore cover.

Procurement and employment

Andrei Torianski, an economic policy analyst at Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, gave an update on the project’s procurement, employment and training in the 2023-24 fiscal year.

He said the project spent a total of $187 million on sub-contracting, half of which went to northern businesses.

Torianski said the project supported 259 full-time equivalent positions, including 34 northern Indigenous employees and 46 northern non-Indigenous employees.

He added the project provided a total of $3 million through contribution agreements in the 2023-24 year.