Environmental advocates say costly cleanups of former non-renewable resource projects in the North show the need for better planning.
YELLOWKNIFE – Environmental advocates say costly cleanups of former non-renewable resource projects in the North show the need for better planning.
Three of Canada’s top five most expensive federal contaminated sites are abandoned mines in the North: Giant Mine in the Northwest Territories at an estimated $4.38 billion and the Faro and United Keno Hill mines in Yukon at $1 billion and $125 million, respectively.
Former resource extraction projects are also among the most costly sites where the territories are responsible. Lewis Rifkind, a mining analyst with the Yukon Conservation Society, said unlike contaminated sites where federal money benefits the territory’s economy, sites under territorial control have “terrible” financial and environmental consequences.
“All the money the Yukon government … spends on that could be spent on other things that we actually need,” he said.
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