Agnico Eagle asked to respond to concerns over Nunavut gold project

The final hearings into Agnico Eagle’s Whale Tail gold mine project will take place Sept. 19 to Sept. 22 in Baker Lake. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Among other things, the Baker Lake Hunters and Trappers Organization wants to see changes to the roads joining Agnico Eagle’s mine sites to Baker Lake. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

As Agnico Eagle Mining Ltd.’s Whale Tail gold mining project heads toward a final hearing next month in Baker Lake, the mining company has until Aug. 28 to respond to critical comments on its project, recently received by the Nunavut Impact Review Board.

The Kivalliq Inuit Association banked a $6.5 million cheque in Baker Lake from Agnico Eagle this past June, when the mining company and the KivIA signed an Inuit impact and benefit agreement for the Whale Tail project— Agnico Eagle’s third gold mine in Nunavut.

But several of the submissions to the NIRB reveal outstanding environmental and socio-economic concerns on the Whale Tail project which the mining company has been asked to address in advance of a final public hearing on the project, scheduled from Sept. 19 to Sept. 22 in Baker Lake.

A look at the comments from Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, the Government of Nunavut and the Baker Lake Hunters and Trappers Organization reveal some serious concerns about the project’s impacts.

A detailed list of concerns came from the Baker Lake HTO, which wants assurances that Agnico Eagle and the KivIA will work to ensure that “legacy benefits in the form of infrastructure and housing are provided to the community of Baker Lake.”

The HTO said that the community of Baker Lake, with a population of about 2,000 people, “has not received substantial permanent benefits” from the Meadowbank gold project.

“While the employment opportunities have been very helpful for many families, when the gold runs out, we will not have any lasting benefits. We have seen no major improvements to our infrastructure or housing stock as a result of mining,” the HTO said.

In its letter to the NIRB, the HTO said it’s concerned “the majority of economic benefits from the Meadowbank Mine are flowing out of our community, while we are left to experience the negative social and environmental impacts.”

The Whale Tail project is located about 50 kilometres northwest of Agnico Eagle’s Meadowbank gold mine, which is about 85 km from Baker Lake.

Meadowbank, Nunavut’s first gold mine, which started production in 2010, is now reaching the end of its lifespan.

During Meadowbank’s operations, the HTO said that Agnico Eagle has been unable to hire a majority of Inuit for its workforce of about 700 people. The HTO noted that the mining company has said they expect the Whale Tail project would only achieve 42 per cent Inuit employment.

“This is especially concerning, because AEM’s socio-economic studies do not contain extensive discussion of barriers to employment,” the HTO said.

The HTO also wants to increase community participation in project monitoring and mitigation decisions. That’s because monitoring is now undertaken by Agnico Eagle employees, the HTO said.

Instead, the HTO wants Agnico Eagle, the KivIA and the GN to form a monitoring committee that would include representatives from local councils and organizations and oversee monitoring and decision-making about mitigation.

The HTO also said there’s a need to remodel the Meadowbank road and the 64-km Amaruq road which, the HTO says, are not properly sloped to allow caribou and snowmobiles to cross.

“As a result, caribou migrations are disturbed, and hunters’ snowmobiles are damaged,” the HTO said.

The Whale Tail project’s impacts to caribou are of “particular concern” to the GN, its submission to the NIRB said, “due to the prominent role caribou have in Inuit culture, heritage, and economy.”

The GN identified, among other things, the following areas as needing “further refinement” heading into the final hearings: disruption of caribou movements and habitat use, caribou protection measures, management of mine operations to mitigate impacts on caribou and management of roads to mitigate impacts on caribou.

Whale Tail plans to use the existing mine infrastructure at Meadowbank—including mining equipment, mill, tailings, camp and airstrip—to begin open pit mining on the deposit by the end of 2019 at the new site.

But INAC said Agnico Eagle continues to underestimate some of the impacts.

Of particular concern to INAC: the short, three-year operational life of the Whale Tail mine.

“INAC remains concerned that the post-closure performance of the site could result in unintended impacts that will require mitigation,” INAC said.

Many of these issues will be discussed at the NIRB hearing and community roundtable in Baker Lake—which will lead to a NIRB recommendation to the federal government on whether the project should proceed.