Former Victoria Gold engineer blasts Yukon gov't for 'passive' response to mine failure

A former engineer with Victoria Gold says the Yukon government needlessly forced the company into receivership, slowing down the environmental response to a major cyanide spill and effectively putting a lid on any information about that response.  

In a letter published in the Yukon News on Friday, Nico Harvey says the territorial government, "once heavy-handed and demanding in its oversight" of the beleaguered mine, seems now mostly "passive" when it comes to dealing with the mess.

Harvey was a manager of engineering for Victoria Gold's Eagle mine up until last month, after an Ontario court appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers as receiver of the mine. The Yukon government had asked the court to put the company into receivership, with the territory's justice minister asserting at the time that Victoria Gold "does not possess the capacity itself and has failed to carry out the work that is required."

The heap leach slide at the Eagle mine site on June 24 released cyanide solution into the environment and prompted the company to immediately cease operations.

According to Harvey, Victoria Gold was doing its best to manage the fallout from the heap-leach failure in the immediate wake of the incident, with mine staff working "12-to 16-hours-a-day kind of thing," he said.

"It's not like we weren't doing anything ... There was a plan in place, we were enacting it," he said.

Harvey believes the territory seemed to have a different agenda that was "not in any realm reasonable" for the company.

"It feels like the government wrote a bunch of orders and directives that were obviously unattainable or unachievable," Harvey told CBC News.

"Building a 50,000-cubic-metre pond in five days is not feasible. And they kind of used these orders as justification, at least in my opinion, for the receivership." 

'They have nothing to update on'

Harvey would not say exactly why he believed the Yukon government wanted to force the company into receivership.

He argues that the transfer of responsibility slowed the environmental response. He also believes there's now less transparency and accountability around what's happening at and around the mine site.

"You would think with them effectively in control that they would have way more access to information and way more ability to share that with the public," Harvey said.

"The last technical briefing was three weeks ago, right? They were doing it weekly and now they've stopped. Why, right? Probably because they have nothing to update on."

The last public briefing from the territorial government about the Eagle mine was on Aug. 23. Since then, the government has issued periodic statements about the progress at the site.

The government's latest statement was issued Friday. It said work was continuing at the mine site to contain and treat contaminated water, and to monitor the stability of the heap. It said construction of a berm was continuing.

The statement also said that between Aug. 29 and Sept. 5, there were low and "non-detect" concentrations of cyanide at monitoring locations in nearby Haggart Creek, and that all cyanide concentrations detected in the creek were "below the relevant guideline for the protection of aquatic life."

It also said there have been no new reports of more fish die-offs in Haggart Creek. Last month, the government said 78 fish had so far been found dead in or near the creek.

Harvey is unimpressed with the government's updates and feels there is a double-standard compared to what was expected of Victoria Gold in the initial weeks after the heap leach failure. 

"It seems there was so much urgency and that's stated throughout the receivership application. And now that it's gone through, it's yeah, no more briefings, no more information, vague statements," Harvey said.

He's also skeptical about whatever progress has been made to construct the berm on site. The berm was a key sticking point for the government that prompted it to seek legal action.

"Love to see a photo of that," he said.