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Canada’s top five federal polluted sites will cost taxpayers billions to clean up

Estimated to cost $4.38 billion, remediation of the Giant Mine, one of Canada’s most polluted sites, is expected to be the most expensive federal environmental cleanup in the country’s history. It has been.

The figures, recently approved by Treasury Canada, span costs from 2005 to 2038, when aggressive restoration at the original Yellowknife gold mine is expected to end. That includes his $710 million that the federal government has already spent, but not long-term care and maintenance costs.

“I don’t really care that it costs $4 billion to clean up Giant Mine. What really bothers me is that taxpayers are paying for it,” said Giant Mine. Oversight Committee Chairman David Livingston said.

This indicated that the federal government could not guarantee that private developers would provide financial guarantees to repair the site. More problems are likely, he said.

“As a society, we need to better handle the costs of supporting the mining and oil and gas industries,” he said. “If the numbers suggest that the cost of cleaning up a site is higher than the revenue that site brings to the King, then we have a problem.”

The federal dirty site inventory lists more than 20,000 locations, ranging from waste and abandoned mines to military operations on federal land.

Environment and climate change According to Canada, after the Giant mine, the four most expensive cleanups are Yukon’s Faro mine, Ontario’s Port Hope Area Initiative, British Columbia’s Esquimalt Harbour, and Yukon’s United Kino Hill mine.

More than $2 billion has been spent on five sites to date, and is expected to cost taxpayers billions more in the coming years. The final price tag is not yet known.

The latest figures from the Canadian Ministry of Finance show that more than $707 million has been spent on the restoration, care and maintenance of the Faro Mine, a former open pit lead-zinc mine. It is now estimated that in addition to $1 billion, his first ten years of long-term operation and maintenance will cost him $166 million.

Parsons Inc. won a $108 million contract in February for construction, care and maintenance at the Faro Mine through March 2026. The deal, according to the company, could ultimately span him 20 years and exceed $2 billion.

In 2012, Ottawa contributed $1.28 billion over 10 years to clean up historic low-level radioactive waste in the municipalities of Port Hope and Port Granby, Ontario. To date, more than $722 million has been spent on his evaluation and restoration.

The Port Grandby project was completed earlier this year, moving into long-term surveillance over hundreds of years. The Port Hope cleanup effort, which began in 2018, will continue through 2030.

There is currently a $162.5 million budget to clean up the sea bed at Eskimalt Harbour, Victoria. About $214 million has already been spent on restoration and appraisal. The Pentagon said it could include costs prior to 2015 when the restoration project began.

Cleanup of the United Kino Hill Mine, a historic silver, lead and zinc mining facility near Kino City, Yukon, is expected to cost $125 million, including $79 million during the active regeneration phase. Estimated. This is expected to take five years, he said, starting in 2023. This is followed by a two-year transition phase, followed by long-term monitoring and maintenance. To date, he has spent over $67 million on site repair, care, and maintenance.

Other costly federal sites include the Cape Dire Dew Line, 21 former radar stations in the Arctic at $575 million and the Sydney Tar Pond and Coke Oven on Cape Breton Island, New South Wales at $398 million. $142.9 million, 5-wing Goose Bay Air Force Base in Labrador.

The 2022 Public Accounts says the total liability for the 2,524 federal contaminated sites requiring action is about $10 billion based on site assessments. Of the 3,079 sites that have not been valued, 1,330 are projected to proceed to restoration, with an estimated debt of $256 million.

The Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan was developed in 2005 and has invested $4.54 billion over 15 years. This was renewed for another 15 years, from 2020 to 2034, with $1.16 billion pledged to him in his first five years.

Jamie Kneen of MiningWatch Canada said the Giant Mine contamination highlights the importance of the planning and evaluation process for development projects.

“If you don’t really plan for something, you can end up in a pretty bad mess,” he said. “In this case, we killed people before we even started capturing arsenic.

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This article was produced with financial support from the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Emily Blake, Canadian Press

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Canada’s top five federal polluted sites will cost taxpayers billions to clean up

Source link Canada’s top five federal polluted sites will cost taxpayers billions to clean up

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