Incineration of massive fuel cache near Sachigo Lake finally begins

Create: 12/01/2015 - 19:32

Last summer, a forest fire came within 13 kilometres of igniting a stash of almost one million litres of fuel just west of Sachigo Lake.
It was mostly a matter of luck that the community avoided the catastrophe it has been warning the provincial government about.
But while the fire had the community on edge, it may also have spurred the government to act on the issue of the old fuel, which Sachigo Lake has been pressing for cleanup for over two decades.
In February, Ontario’s Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (MNDM) ordered work to begin on cleaning up the mine site and incinerating the old fuel leftover from an exploration camp in the 1980s.
The incineration work started on April 21, with all of the fuel expected to be burned by mid-May.
“At the present time, the community is satisfied with what is being done,” said Sachigo Lake First Nation Chief Titus Tait. “We’ve been working for years to try and get that work done.”
Last week MNDM moved an incinerator to the site, 47 kms west of Sachigo Lake, and started burning the fuel. As of April 26, Tait said he was told that over 130,000 litres of the estimated 850,000 litres at the site has been incinerated.
The fuel was brought to the site by Twin Lakes Gold Mines in the 1980s, for use in the company’s underground exploration of the Lingman Lake property.
Since the mining company left, Sachigo Lake First Nation has been pressing industry and government to deal with the hazard and clean up the site.
Tait said the community was concerned with the effect on the land, water and animals that leakage from the fuel tanks would have. Sachigo Lake was also worried each summer that a
forest fire would ignite the fuel.
Fuel leakage from the tanks has been confirmed in a series of reports, including the first assessment of the site done in 1994 that found one of the tanks had a leaking valve.
A later assessment done for the Ontario government in 2006 determined that four of the fuel tanks showed visual signs of leakage.
One challenge for the government when it came to cleanup was that the mining site was privately owned. The current site owner, Cool Minerals of Timmins, was ordered by Ontario in 2005 to clean up the site and close an uncapped, 500 foot-deep mine shaft, but it never complied.
According to a ministry spokesperson, under Ontario’s previous Mining Act the government could not conduct any rehabilitation measures on privately held sites “without first meeting all of the legislative requirements of the Mining Act.”
Ontario’s new Mining Act, however, gives the government the power to clean up a site if there are health concerns or issues that could affect the safety of a community.
Under section 148(5) of the new Mining Act, Rick Bartolucci, minister of MNDM, ordered in February 2012 that the site be cleaned up immediately. The normal process of public consultation on the issue was vetoed in order to speed up the work and avoid potential health effects.
Tait said he has received assurances from the government that once the fuel is incinerated, environmental monitoring of the site and surrounding area will take place to ensure the community is not left with long term environmental degradation due to the old mine site.
He said the community expects that the site will be remediated, as community members still use the area for hunting and trapping.
But even though cleanup has begun, the way the issue has been handled over the past two decades still rankles in Sachigo Lake.
“Our point has always been that with mines built close to urban centres, owners are required to have closure plans in place before the mine opens,” Tait said. “That’s for the health and safety of the community. In this case the owner has been given so much time to come up with a closure plan, and that’s not right.”
According to the minister’s directions posted to Ontario’s Environmental Registry, work on the site will include the incineration of approximately 843,000 litres of old, unusable fuel, treatment of the remaining oily water, removal of remaining sludges, and ensuring that the tanks are left in clean and ventilated state. The fuel incineration is expected to be finished by May 12.
While the work continues, Sachigo Lake will send a monitor from the community once per week.
Tait said that so far the community has not noticed any smoke or emissions from the incineration work, even with winds blowing from the northwest during the week.

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