This news release has been edited to correct the date of the technical briefing.
On Friday, August 9, the Department of Environment’s Senior Groundwater Scientist Brendan Mulligan, Senior Fisheries Biologist Cameron Sinclair and Chief Veterinary Officer Dr. Mary VanderKop provided an update on water and fish monitoring offsite of Victoria Gold’s Eagle Gold Mine and mammal monitoring efforts. In addition, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Sudit Ranade provided an update on human health recommendations for recreating in the area.
A recording of the update will be made available on the Government of Yukon Facebook page and Yukon.ca/victoria-gold-updates.
Water sampling results
Groundwater:
- Victoria Gold has been regularly sampling locations where groundwater daylights to surface in the vicinity of Lower Dublin South Pond.
- Concentrations of weak acid dissociable (WAD) cyanide at these locations are significantly higher than the long-term water quality guidelines for the protection of aquatic life.
- Groundwater at these locations is being collected and contained onsite but not all the groundwater flowing down the Dublin Gulch and Eagle Creek is being captured.
- WAD cyanide concentrations from collected samples in the Dublin Gulch at monitoring station DG1 continue to significantly exceed guidelines for the protection of aquatic life.
- The Government of Yukon does not have evidence that impacted groundwater is discharging into Haggart Creek at this time.
Discharge event:
- Discharge from the mine’s water treatment plant occurred on July 31 at 12:15 pm and ended on August 2 at 12:30 am.
- The majority of the total volume of discharge was released on August 1.
- On August 1, concentrations of WAD cyanide exceeded both chronic and acute guidelines for the protection of aquatic life and water quality objectives at three monitoring stations in Haggart Creek: W4-mix, W29 and W99.
- On the same day, concentrations of WAD cyanide exceeded the chronic guideline for the protection of aquatic life and the water quality objectives further downstream on Haggart Creek at W23.
- Guidelines for the protection of aquatic life were not exceeded at monitoring stations further downstream on August 1.
- The Department of Environment will continue to monitor both surface water and groundwater, as it is safe to do so, and share those results when they become available.