Concern spread across Canada after a cyanide spill at a gold mine in the Yukon Territory. The incident happened at Victoria Gold’s Eagle Mine, where a heap leach failure and landslide occurred. Energy, Mines, and Resource Minister John Streicker said four water samples were taken from different areas near the mine and had come back positive for cyanide, but levels were primarily low.
According to Alaska Beacon, Alaska salmon advocates say the spill isn’t just an issue for Yukoner. The spill happened upstream of a tributary of the Yukon River, and concerns spread because the Yukon is the state’s biggest transboundary waterway.
The spill happened in late June, and officials from Canada and the U.S. said it was too early to know its full impact and advised residents that there weren’t likely any associated health risks. Still, salmon advocates fear that the pollution that hasn’t been fully contained could worsen matters for the Yukon River’s struggling species. Residents along the area’s shores have depended on salmon for generations. Brooke Woods, a tribal member and salmon advocate in Rampart, told Alaska Beacon, “Now, we have a new threat to our salmon.”
The spill has raised “renewed objections” from Alaskans who claim that mining projects in Canada threaten the state’s downstream fisheries, stating that these mines risk polluting the rivers that flow into Alaska. The failure at the mine released 2,000,000 metric tons of material, which included hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of cyanide solution. Cyanide is toxic to fish and was detected in a creek downstream from the original spill.
The Yukon government told Canadian sources that they are committed to investigating what went wrong at the mine to cause the spill. The First National of Na-Cho Nyak Dun leaders, whose territory surrounds the mind, shared that they’ve been working with Victoria Gold Eagle Mine and Yukon officials to contain pollution. The Na-cho Nyak Dun government called for a pause on all mining activity within their traditional territory.
According to Alaska Beacon, state officials have said little publicly about the spill; however, Alaska Department of Fish and Game commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang wrote in an email, “We are monitoring,” and the site is “highly unstable” with few options for containment, and heavy rains could “easily overwhelm containment efforts.”
The spill may give Alaska policymakers ammunition to continue pressing for tighter oversight of Canadian mines. Senator Murkowski has been calling attention to mine issues for years and is tracking this current spill. Read more about the incident here.
