Giant Mine remediation passes $1.5 billion in spending

Work to remediate Yellowknife’s toxic Giant Mine has now involved more than $1.5 billion in spending, figures released by the federal government on Monday show.

The overall budget remains $4.38 billion, a sum Ottawa announced in 2022 that includes more than a decade of work to come.

Even once active remediation is complete – a milestone expected in the late 2030s – the federal government said on Monday it expects to spend about $10 million a year on “post-remediation operation, maintenance, and adaptive management.”

That’s an early estimate and is subject to significant change.

Existing spending has been compared by local politicians to the presence of a working mine in Yellowknife’s economy, driving job creation and also complicating the city’s housing market. At the same time, the remediation project’s status as a huge federal budget line item has drawn criticism from opposition parties.

A financial update on the project was delivered on Monday as a response to a written question from Conservative MP Bob Zimmer, who represents Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies. Zimmer is the party’s shadow minister for northern affairs and Arctic sovereignty.

The federal government said in its response to Zimmer’s written question that $1,583,642,231 has been spent remediating Giant Mine to date.

Zimmer introduced a motion earlier this year seeking an audit of the Giant Mine remediation project, which is tasked with addressing more than 200,000 tonnes of toxic arsenic trioxide left underground after the gold mine ceased operations. Its owner, Royal Oak, went out of business in 1999, leaving the federal government responsible for remediation.

Answering another written question from Zimmer about past audits and evaluations of work at Giant, the federal government listed 18 such reviews since 2016.

The latest – a health and safety compliance audit in March this year, conducted by BluMetric Environmental – “identified a total of 10 legal non-compliances, six non-conformances, and 19 areas for improvement,” Ottawa stated, without going into detail.

“While foundational systems are in place,” the response added, “the findings indicate opportunities to strengthen regulatory compliance, documentation practices, and consistent implementation of Environmental Health and Safety management system requirements.”

Ottawa asserted the latest financial audit of the project “did not note any significant issues with regards to management’s measurement, recognition or disclosure of environmental liabilities.”