Giant Mine toxic mitigation to cost Canadian taxpayers 1 billion dollars

The Giant Mine, next to Great Slave Lake is now idle and there is enough arsenic residue, a bi-product of gold mining, to fatally poison the entire world. This arsenic must be contained as it cannot be destroyed nor does it lose its effective ability to kill. The proposed containment method is to freeze the arsenic in place however there is no long term guarantee that at some time in the future there will not be leaching into Great Slave Lake destroying all wildlife.

The owners of the mine went bankrupt and left the Canadian taxpayer to pay for the stabilization and containment of the residue.

This is, and will continue to be a problem for Canadians, it is part of the untold story when the Harper government wants to expand the mining industry in Canada. In recent weeks they have raised the liability of nuclear generation plants to 1 billion dollars which is a drop in the bucket when it comes to nuclear cleanup but have said nothing about mining, no fund set aside in the event of corporate bankruptcy that mitigates the peoples liability in cleaning up.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/money/Taxpayers+hook+billion+dollar+cleanup+toxic+Giant+Mine/8179413/story.html

Abitibi-Bowater stiffed the Newfoundland government for cleanup of their facility while there are several other mines around Canada that are in desperate need of clean up before they destroy our waterways. The Harper government with their changes to inland water protection have opened the door to future abuse and pollution.

http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/05/23/MiningMess/

Hovering above Johnny Mountain in a helicopter, derelict buildings and rusted-out machinery are all that appear to remain of the gold mine -- but there's much more going on beneath the surface. Mining ceased here in 1993, but the 3.7 kilometres of underground workings have the potential to generate toxic drainage like a malevolent factory, leaching acid and heavy metals into the wild Iskut River below.

Not far to the northwest, the Tulsequah Chief mine has been fouling one of Alaska's most important salmon rivers for 50 years with a steady heavy metallic plume -- despite four government "orders" to clean it up and six B.C. taxpayer-funded visits to document the damage since 1989.

There are at least 1,800 closed or abandoned mines in B.C. today that have little chance of ever being cleaned up, a legacy of our Wild West mining past when no regulations existed. But do not confuse the two above mines with that legacy. Both are "brown field" mining prospects that languish in a bureaucratic netherworld somewhere between abandonment and active extraction -- owned by modern mining companies intent on redeveloping the properties or adjacent claims.

There does not appear to be a willingness by any government at any level to legislate protection of the lands and waterways against the environmental abuses of the resource industry.

The oil and mining industry whined and lobbied the Harper government that the environmental requirements hindered development so the standards were lowered to speed up approvals with a total disregard for the future costs to the taxpayer.