On the coast of Newfoundland, waste from a shuttered asbestos mine has been a troubling source of contamination for decades. Now, a company plans to process the waste to draw CO2 from the air — one of several projects worldwide that aim to turn this liability into an asset.
Just outside Baie Verte, a tiny town on Newfoundland’s rocky north coast, a 50-ton toxic liability lingers like a bad dream. In the mid-20th century, a local prospector discovered asbestos in the hills above the bay. The Advocate mine opened in 1963 and became one of Canada’s largest asbestos producers, providing mineral fiber for insulation and fire-resistant materials.
But as asbestos’s health risks — which include mesothelioma and other lung diseases — became clear, global demand for the mineral dropped, and in 1995 the mine closed. “There’s a stigma now to the town,” says Trina Barrett, who grew up in Baie Verte. As a child, her father worked in the mine, as did most of their neighbors. When the mine shuttered, those jobs disappeared.
But the mine’s waste rock and tailings have stuck around. Mounded into a pile a half-mile long, the tailings are considered too big to address yet too dangerous to ignore. Rain and wind are dispersing tailings into the air and water over time, scientists say; occasionally, kids will ride dirt bikes or ATVs on the mound, kicking up dust that can blow for miles. Now, Barrett is hoping not only to clean up the waste, but to use it as a way to tackle climate change.
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