Work to clean up contaminated former gold mine site to begin this year
Social Sharing
Work to clean up one of the more contaminated former gold mining sites in Nova Scotia is on track to begin later this year, while work at a second site could get underway in 2026.
Donnie Burke, senior director of the environmental group with Build Nova Scotia, told reporters on Wednesday that engagement with the community about the work in Montague Gold Mines, near Dartmouth, is expected within days. The project should then go to tender next month.
"I'm quite confident that you'll see boots on the ground and construction happening in Montague this year," he said.
Burke spoke following an appearance at the legislature's public accounts committee to discuss an auditor general's report on contaminated sites.
Plans for the work were announced in 2018. Burke said it's taken so long to get to this point in part because of the size of the property to be cleaned up.
"Some of these are maybe a city block and some of them are seven city blocks. So it's like anything in construction — the bigger it is, the longer it takes," he said.
A containment cell about half a hectare in size will be constructed to blend into the natural area, said Burke. It will have capping material to prevent leakage.
The work is expected to take up to three years, followed by long-term monitoring.
Burke noted that the sites in question are frequented by people who hike or use ATVs in the area.
"Some of these tailings have, like, 14 or 16 per cent arsenic in the tailings, so we want to make sure it's contained, confined and managed in a proper way that's environmentally friendly both to human health and ecological health."
A similar approach is being used at a former mine site in Goldenville, near Sherbrooke. The process will take about the same amount of time, said Burke, but is about a year behind the Montague effort due to preliminary work that involved private property.
The site measures between 500 and 600 hectares in overall area impacted over time by the former mine operation, he said.
"So we had to put boots on the ground and look at the whole site because tailings would have been just let go by gravity and carried by stream," he said.
Burke said First Nation consultation is ongoing for a third site, the former celestite mine in Lake Enon, in Cape Breton. When that is complete, the project will move to tender. Because the site is smaller, he said construction should only take about a year.
The province has identified 68 former mine sites to be remediated.
Cost estimates evaluated each year
The most recent update in government financial figures puts the liability for the cleanup of all known contaminated sites in the province at about $600 million, more than half of which is related to the work slated to happen at Boat Harbour.
The figure for abandoned mine sites is about $148 million, with the majority of that — $64.5 million — reserved for Goldenville and Montague. For the remainder, the estimated cost for work at sites rated as high risk is $5 million each, the budget for medium-risk sites is $500,000 and low-risk sites are pegged at $250,000 per cleanup project.
Officials at the committee told MLAs that the figures for cleanup of abandoned mine sites are reviewed and updated yearly. While some might not be remediated, there will be some work required to contain sites.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBC
14 hours ago
- CBC
Mi'kmaw elder leads sunrise ceremony on National Indigenous Peoples Day
About 40 people gathered at the break of dawn Saturday near Louisbourg, N.S., for a Mi'kmaw sunrise ceremony led by Eskasoni First Nation Elder Lottie Johnson. The CBC's Anna Rak has the story.
CTV News
20 hours ago
- CTV News
Uniacke Firefighter Fair raises money for equipment
Atlantic Watch The 2025 Uniacke Firefighter Fair kicked off Friday in Mount Uniacke, N.S., to raise money to purchase equipment for the department.
CBC
20 hours ago
- CBC
Mi'kmaw sunrise ceremony near Louisbourg starts National Indigenous Peoples Day
About 40 people gathered at the break of dawn Saturday along the Atlantic coast near Louisbourg, N.S., for a Mi'kmaw sunrise ceremony to kick off National Indigenous Peoples Day. The ceremony was led by Eskasoni First Nation Elder Lottie Johnson, who said it's meant for all people to share. But as a residential school survivor, Johnson said the ceremony holds extra meaning for her. "It's a very special time. It's quiet and as the sun comes up, you see the creation of [the] creator. Everything is so beautiful and it's like almost-new again. That's where you get the hope and the will to go on." Johnson regularly conducts the sunrise ceremony and said dawn is a good time to connect with the Earth and to pray. National Indigenous Peoples Day did not exist when she went to the residential school in Shubenacadie, but June 21 and the summer solstice hold special meaning for many of those who went. "June 21 was Freedom Day, what they called it," she said. "That was the day you get to go home for the summer. But not all of the kids went home. Some of them had no places to go, so they stayed." The sunrise ceremony, which is sacred and cannot be recorded, was organized by Allison Bernard Memorial High School teacher Jonathan Cox, along with other members of his union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada. He said holding the ceremony at Louisbourg is an important part of reconciliation, honouring the original inhabitants of what is now Canada. "It's not just a checkbox. It's something we need to do — all the settlers, colonizers, Mi'kmaq, non-Mi'kmaq, visitors." The union's first sunrise ceremony was held last year in a clearing by a look-off not far from the historic Louisbourg lighthouse, which was being refurbished at the time. The beacon is on the site of the first lighthouse in Canada, lit in 1734 by the French at the entrance to the harbour across from what is now the Fortress of Louisbourg. Now that the work on the existing structure has finished, the sunrise ceremony was held east of the lighthouse on a small cape looking out over the cold North Atlantic Ocean. Before dawn, it was windy and cold, with the ceremony conducted in a huddle using a couple of large vehicles as windbreaks. Not long after the ceremony, the clouds broke up and the sun came out. Cox said despite the cold, everything was as it should be. The Mi'kmaq are known as the People of the Dawn and they call Cape Breton Island Unama'ki, the Land of Fog. "It is a perfect way to start this day," he said. "This should be a national holiday, but we'll start with ceremonies like this, so that people can celebrate heritage." "I don't think there's a better place anywhere, period, to see the sun come up."
