Teams to inspect abandoned Nunavut diamond mine this week

A map showing the location of the Jericho mine, just north of the NWT boundary and at the northern tip of Contwoyto Lake in western Nunavut. (MAP COURTESY OF NIRB)

The mothballed Jericho diamond mine is still under “care and maintenance” from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, but monitoring officers from the Nunavut Impact Review Board still have to make periodic visits to ensure the site is safe for people, animals and the land around it.

So they’re doing that next week.

The NIRB’s executive director, Ryan Barry, said Heather Rasmussen, a NIRB technical advisor, will accompany officials from AANDC and the Kitikmeot Inuit Association on a day-long tour of the site this week, about 240 kilometres southeast of Kugluktuk.

Barry said Rasmussen will tour the facilities and surrounding areas to inspect it for structural integrity and to make sure there is no environmental degradation at the tank farm, for instance, and processed kimberlite tailings area.

“She’ll look at doing a tour of the site to understand the current condition of the site and whether there are any environmental issues of note, any structures that are a cause for concern, containment structures that are subject to failure,” he said.

Rasmussen will also look for evidence that wildlife have frequented the site or that birds are nesting in equipment, he said. The mine’s final environmental assessment report noted that caribou migrate north through the area in spring to calving grounds and south again in late summer.

“Even when a site is in care and maintenance, the board still does a lot of work trying to ensure whoever’s in charge of the site is aware of any potential environmental risks from our perspective,” Barry said.

Luigi Torretti, the KIA’s assistant director of lands and environment, said part of the Jericho site is on Inuit-owned lands and therefore the KIA has been, and continues to be, involved in monitoring the site.

“The KIA and AANDC have been working together, and communicating regularly (approximately every month), to ensure that the site is environmentally stable,” Torretti wrote in a June 5 email to Nunatsiaq News.

“The Tahiryuak (Contwoyto Lake) area has been very important to Inuit for cultural and subsistence reasons,” he wrote, but added he doesn’t think the abandoned site poses any undue risk to caribou or other wildlife.

NIRB staff members have monitored what was Nunavut’s first operating diamond mine since Shear Diamonds (Nunavut) Corp. washed its hands of the operation after extracting diamonds for about four months in 2012.

Before that, Jericho was owned by Tahera Diamond Corp,. which operated the mine, located in the western Arctic’s diamond belt, from 2006 to 2008 and then went into creditor protection in January 2008.

The last Jericho site visit reports on the NIRB website are from summer and fall of 2013 and were submitted by Delta Engineering Ltd. of Yellowknife, on behalf of Public Works and Government Services Canada’s Northern Contaminated Sites Program.

Because of reports that dust from kimberlite tailings was blowing away from the site during winter, Delta was instructed to spray the area with water to encase the tailings in ice.

According to the 2004 NIRB final hearing report, issued prior to Tahera obtaining its project certificate — a report emblazoned with a colourful tundra and majestic caribou — the tailings piles would be created from spent kimberlite along with waste rock and ore stockpiles.

Kimberlite is an igneous rock that often contains diamonds, so when companies are looking for those precious jewels, they search out areas with high concentrations of kimberlite.

When Delta was on site in October 2013, it reported covering about 60 per cent of the tailings piles in ice.

“A pack of six wolves were observed on several occasions on the site,” Delta reported. “They were healthy, demonstrated no fear of humans and did not seem bothered by the site work.”

In a separate report submitted to the NIRB, dated September 2013, the same company reported on the status of buildings and other facilities at the site.

The report details how water was collecting in berms constructed to hold fuel tank farms.

“A section of the berm containing the small tank farm has settled by an estimated 0.4 metres over 5 meters, increasing the risk of discharge,” the Delta report states.

The water, which was tested and found to be non-toxic, was pumped through a hose and then sprayed into a mist and accordingly, more than 50 cubic metres of water was eliminated through evaporation.

Crews also found barrels containing “hydrocarbon contaminated soils” were full of water and were “spilling hydraulic fluid product out of the barrels and into the lined facility.”

The barrels were covered in a tarp to “reduce further spillage.”

Torretti said both the fuel tanks and tailings piles are on Crown lands and that AANDC has been monitoring those to ensure they don’t cause any contamination. He added that to the KIA’s knowledge, “there is very little, if any fuel left in the tanks.”

The September report from Delta also noted animal tracks on or near the site from grizzly bears, wolves, foxes and thousands of caribou. They also saw live falcons, owls, hawks, rodents, geese and ptarmigan.

And it appears that not only animals were frequenting the abandoned mine site in the fall of 2013.

“All vehicles were filled with diesel before departure from the site on August 18 and upon return on September 12 the vehicles were only half full, there was a small boat motor missing and a [newspaper] dated August 28, 2013 was discovered in the van on site.”

Communications staff from the AANDC sent a brief update on the site in an email to Nunatsiaq News on June 5.

Michelle Perron mentioned three AANDC site visits from 2014 and added that an “assessment team” of engineers and specialists have gathered information for a “Phase III Environmental Assessment and a Remedial Options Analysis,” for the defunct Jericho mine.