More toxic water leaks into nearby creek from Yukon’s Eagle mine site
There’s been another leak of cyanide-contaminated water from the troubled Eagle Gold mine site in central Yukon.
In a report this week to the Yukon Water Board, the receiver responsible for the site, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), said a leak was detected on Feb. 17 in a pipeline that connects a control pond to the on-site water treatment plant.
An estimated 150,000 litres of toxic water made its way to nearby Haggart Creek over a couple of days, the report states.
It says the cause was identified as a “failed weld” in the pipeline. The pipeline was repaired and a temporary berm was installed downstream from the leak.
In a news release on Wednesday, the territorial government said that daily water-quality tests on Haggart Creek showed elevated cyanide, cobalt, copper and nitrite levels on Feb. 17 and Feb. 18, before returning to previous levels “within two days.”
“Despite the short period of elevated contamination, any level of cyanide above the British Columbia acute aquatic life guidelines can have harmful effects on fish,” the release states.
The leak follows a much larger one reported by the territory earlier this winter, in which about 19 million litres of toxic water escaped from a containment pond at the mine site and leaked over several weeks — adding to ongoing contamination from June’s catastrophic heap leach failure.
The territorial government also said this week that PwC had finished building a settlement pond at the mine site, which is the last part of the on-site water treatment process and represents a “significant milestone.”
The government says initial water testing on site suggests the process is “functioning as expected.”
Canada: Storage pond leak at Yukon’s Eagle Gold mine contaminating nearby creek, CBC News
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