Whitehorse Daily Star

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Richard Mostyn

Lead exposure cases halted work at mine site

Following a stop-work order prompted by several cases of lead exposure at the Sa Dena Hes mine site northeast of Watson Lake, reclamation work has resumed.

By Chuck Tobin on July 29, 2014

Following a stop-work order prompted by several cases of lead exposure at the Sa Dena Hes mine site northeast of Watson Lake, reclamation work has resumed.

“So far, Yukon Workers’ Compensation Health and Safety Board has learned of 10 employees who have been exposed to lead,” safety board spokesman Richard Mostyn explained in an interview this morning.

“All those workers exhibit signs of lead poisoning. Blood samples have been taken from five of those workers to determine the extent of their exposure.”

Mostyn said the board has received injury reports from a total of 17 workers.

Whether they are currently at work or off work is information not available to the public because of privacy policies.

Before the compensation board can determine if those 17 cases are active claims, it needs to first receive a doctor’s report on each file, as well as a report from the employer.

The safety board has ordered the mine owner to provide blood samples from more than 200 people who have worked in the reclamation project since it began or continue to work at the site, Mostyn said.

“The stop-work order was issued July 17,” he said. “Work on a large portion of the site was allowed to resume on July 19 after safety officers’ concerns were addressed.

“However, work dismantling the mill site remained shut down until 2:30 p.m. on July 23. That’s when safety measures on that site were found to be acceptable by OHS.”

Yukon government records indicate the Sa Dena Hes Mine operated for 14 months from August 1991 to November 1992, when it closed because of the low zinc prices.

During its brief life, it produced 374,000 tonnes of zinc and 290,200 tonnes of lead.

The owners announced they were going to close down the operation permanently.

They then began reclamation efforts last year, and continued this past spring, with an aim to have permanent closure in effect next year.

Sa Dena Hes is owned by Teck Resources, 25 per cent, its subsidiary, Teck Mining, 25 per cent, and 50 per cent is owned by Pan Pacific Metals Mining Corp., a subsidiary of Korea Zinc, according to government records.

The mill at the site is owned by JDS Energy and Mining.

“What we demanded was the company put together a work plan to assess the hazard and come up with processes to mitigate that hazard, and to that end, we are satisfied they are doing that,” Mostyn said.

Of the 200-plus employees who’ve been at the site, he said, not all of them worked in areas that put them at risk.

Nonetheless, Mostyn said, the owners have been ordered to compile a list of all the workers who’ve been to the site and provide blood samples from each one of them.

A safety manual to prevent exposure to lead put together by WorkSafeBC, the province’s compensation board, says there are two primary ways to expose the body to lead: breathing in lead dust or ingesting it.

It is not absorbed through the skin in any significant way, says the manual.

The manual points out lead residue left on your hands after working with it can be ingested by biting your nails or smoking a cigarette.

Symptoms can include tiredness, weakness, aches and paints, headaches, abdominal pains, loss of weight and possibly constipation, says the manual.

“A worker with a high level of lead may have only one of these complaints, or a number of them, or none.”

The manual explains a person’s blood will remove lead, but may not be able to keep up if the exposure is higher than the blood can do its work.

Teck spokesman Chad Pederson explained this morning the concern arose with work being conducted dismantling the mill.

As a precaution, the safety board ordered all work at the site stopped, inside the mill and outdoors at the site, he explained.

He pointed out the outside reclamation work resumed two days later.

“We are committed to ensuring the health and safety of our workers and will continue to monitor the situation,” Pederson said.

The office of JDS Mining and Energy was contacted late this morning.

Its public affairs official was out of the office and could not be reached for comment.

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