YESAB recommends approval of proposed mine
The Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board is recommending approval of Newmont Goldcorp’s proposal to build the Coffee Creek gold mine along the Yukon River 130 kilometres south of Dawson City.
The Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board is recommending approval of Newmont Goldcorp’s proposal to build the Coffee Creek gold mine along the Yukon River 130 kilometres south of Dawson City.
The board issued its 320-page draft assessment and recommendations to the decision bodies on Monday.
The recommendations include 44 mitigative measures to reduce negative impacts from the project, along with several measures to be taken for ongoing monitoring of the project.
“The proponent proposes that the project operate over a period of 10 years, and will process up to 69 million tonnes of ore during operations while producing up to 330 million tonnes of waste rock,” the assessment board’s summary of the project points out.
“A construction phase would occur over a period of approximately two and a half years, while closure and reclamation would occur over a period of 11 years, with post closure activities occurring afterwards.”
The mine site would be accessed by road and river crossings, and by air.
Road access would be along the existing road heading south from Dawson through the gold fields, and would require 37 kilometres of new road.
Barge crossings at the Stewart and Yukon rivers would also have to be constructed, as the mine site is located on the west side of the Yukon River. Ice bridges would be used in the winter.
The board’s executive committee is seeking public input on the draft screening report and its recommendations. The period for public comment is open until March 26.
Goldcorp filed the project proposal with the board in December 2017. Newmont purchased Goldcorp in 2019, creating one of, if not the largest, gold mining company in the world.
Scores of supporting documents have been filed since 2017.
Goldcorp moved into the Yukon in 2016 with the purchase of Kaminak Gold and its Coffee Creek project for $520 million.
Newmont Goldcorp is looking to produce six million to seven million ounces of gold annually.
It’s been estimated a workforce of approximately 660 would be required during construction and 370 during operations on rotating shifts.
Comments (22)
Up 0 Down 3
Klaus G. on Feb 4, 2021 at 4:20 am
Don't worry about cyaniding the salmon because since the Trump administration there aren't any.
Up 3 Down 1
Wilf Carter on Feb 3, 2021 at 2:06 pm
One question to you all. What's in electrical systems - Copper. What's in electric cars - lots of minerals. What does gold bring to people - wealth. What does wealth supply - money for services. What services do we need - health, education, police, fire protection, power, heating, etc.
Go to communist country like China or Russia and see how they live.
But the liberals think they own the wealth of the public and can spend it any way they want. Discusting.
Up 5 Down 1
Groucho d'North on Feb 2, 2021 at 5:33 pm
Don't scold the butcher if you eat the meat.
Up 10 Down 3
Juniper Jackson on Jan 29, 2021 at 8:18 pm
How much is their reclamation (damage deposit) ?
Up 16 Down 2
Josey Wales on Jan 29, 2021 at 7:10 pm
Chiming in...Good thread folks, some great points here.
Of course there is some NPC drone like ones too.
Hey Beyond Angry...You may have made a mere error, but one too many O's in this projection..."maroons"
Unfortunately facts care little of feelings, if ya have a smart phone?
We need mines. If it can't be grown, it must be mined.
Cliché yes, but spot on true...even for electric cars.
Up 22 Down 5
If I may pontificate on Jan 29, 2021 at 3:52 pm
Methinks Mr. Beyond Angry is being just a tad bit melodramatic.
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Beyond Angry! on Jan 29, 2021 at 2:28 pm
Sorry Yo-DUH, wrong again! What is it with you maroons and your crystal balls? You and JC should take them in for a shine. Or maybe stop pretending you know so much about where people are coming from. I am a business owner, not a government worker. In 40 years of working I put in 2 years with the government, back 25 years ago. Grow up and rebut with facts, not conjecture.
Your entire post is based on the supposed 'fact' that I am a government worker. Even if I were, that's not the basis for arguing for the mine.
This is the mentality and the level of intelligence we are dealing with when trying to get through to people that the ecosystem is more important than playing Jackpot Lottery. What hope is there.
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Grizzly Nogal on Jan 29, 2021 at 11:23 am
Venture up to Dawson City some day. On the way into town mining "ruins" provide the setting for historical tourism. Mining is like firewood (warms you twice), it pays us during the mine life, and then pays us again after its designated as a historical area and the tourists come.
Up 30 Down 2
T on Jan 29, 2021 at 10:41 am
I take great pride in having worked on the property as a humble dirtbagger and claim staker. It's nice to see the results of all my hard work finally pay off. We were out there in -20 on some days and got caught in a freak snowstorm at one point and had to be evacuated. I had my eyes glued to the creeks as I walked along and snagged a substantial nugget, and no, I did not forfeit it. Please don't tell Shawn Ryan.
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Northerner on Jan 29, 2021 at 9:45 am
To Beyond Angry: it's interesting that you ask "for what" what is the mine for? It should be obvious to a thinker that not only would it produce a REQUIRED product in our modern society, but large businesses create wealth in the economy of a community.
Do you think, for example, that helicopter companies would survive solely on taking eco-trips up into the mountains? Or that Dawson City would have several good hardware and parts stores without the nearby mining? It's called a "service center".
For you see, what a lot of people don't think about, is that it's not just "THE PROFIT " (I know...bad word), or "THE ROYALTIES", but rather "the expenditures " . How the enormous costs these projects incur get spread around.
"Take your business elsewhere"? Really??!!
The territory simply could not function if everyone just worked for the government, or a non profit society. There is definitely a place for them as well, but we need to produce things, and support and service each other, and work together to make this a healthy and robust place to live.
It has all become so divisive, and unrealistic that it gets hard to see how we can all prevent things from going downhill fast.
Of course you must know of the old saying "divide and conquer"? A wise thing to always remember.
Working together from all sides to make a project be viable and responsible should be something to strive for shouldn't it?
And it's always best to educate yourself before forming such strong opinions. You seem to think that gold is only for greed and money or wedding bands.
Of course it's used for jewellery and finance, but surely you must understand by now its huge importance in electronics, the medical field, aerospace, dentistry, control of the climate in large buildings, etc. Are you aware that there are whole smelters that sell exclusively to electronics companies?
It has become such a cliche to mention that you wouldn't be reading and responding to the article without your computer, but it seems that some people still JUST DON'T GET IT.
Up 28 Down 13
Naturelover on Jan 29, 2021 at 9:37 am
Lately, the environmental hypocrites have been bleating about mining royalties being too low.
Perhaps they are. But what about the hundreds of other taxes that Yukoners pay whenever they do something?
Imagine the enormous taxes that Yukon miners now pay to produce an oz. of gold.
Don't Canadians already work from January until July before they stop paying taxes? Everything is taxed heavily nowadays.
Mining companies generate wealth, why strangle them with more taxation and regulation? Why chase them away from the Yukon?
What about future First Nation kids growing up into a communist state where there is no opportunity, because all the resource industries like trapping, fishing, mining, logging etc. have been destroyed?
When you drive all the highways of the Yukon, where do you see the horrible damage that the environmentalist hypocrites bleat about?
Apart from the Klondike dredge tailings (left as a world tourist attraction), it is hard to think of any.
Why is the Peel region still considered "pristine" after a hundred years of no protection?
Yukoners have had enough of this "woke" crap. Time to get over it.
Let's get some things like sawmills going again for some value added manufacturing.
Get some more clean hydro capacity.
And, most of all, let's find ways to limit the Yukon's human overpopulation. Population growth is fast destroying this wonderful natural planet.
Look at what is happening in Whitehorse.
We have the leaders, give them support to stop the politically correct nonsense.
Up 7 Down 11
Wilf Carter on Jan 29, 2021 at 6:30 am
Yukoners GM will be having all their auto engines electric by 2035. This means all industrial engines for mining and other operation can be electric driven. We have to develop green energy to support this new industrial change.
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Beyond Angry! on Jan 28, 2021 at 10:43 pm
JC, I have never been on 'social services' in my life. How about you? Ever heard of not destroying everything for your own grandkids, if you have any? I look at all the sudden 'thumbs up' and suspect that this hundred billion dollar mine is hard at work with their voting machine.
I believe you, JC, are venal enough to think this is a wonderful thing, but I have more faith in the average Yukoner than the '43 thumbs up' for destruction of our ecosystem for small minded adults to play their greedy game, would suggest. This is a war on the future, a war on our ecosystem, and for nothing! A few bucks for 10 years, and an environmental catastrophe, maybe forever like we've got at Giant Mine in the NWT and Faro in the Yukon, and all over the place, thanks to mining.
Up 23 Down 16
Wes on Jan 28, 2021 at 5:17 pm
So, who's gonna clean it up when they're done?
Asking for a friend.
Up 36 Down 12
Yoduh on Jan 28, 2021 at 5:16 pm
@Beyond Angry!
You have to be a government employee, possibly double dipping, recently arrived, privileged,nimby.
Not everyone in the Yukon lives in an ivory tower. Blue collar workers need jobs in order to live here, raise a family etc. This project will provide years of work, and create taxes for our governments. Taxes that will pay for your salary with real money created by the private sector.
I don’t always agree with our government, but I do with this situation, and I only wish they would do more.
Up 47 Down 17
JC on Jan 28, 2021 at 4:10 pm
Beyond Angry: How long have you been on Social Services?
Up 18 Down 17
JC on Jan 28, 2021 at 4:07 pm
I'll believe it when I see it. But I don't believe I'll see it. FN haven't had their say yet.
Up 64 Down 11
Michael Garibaldi on Jan 28, 2021 at 3:33 pm
I think this is a great opportunity for Yukon, jobs, increased infrastructure dollars and taxes to help pay for social programs. Yes there are downsides to anything, but gold is used in circuitry to make your iPhone, iPad and all your wonderful electronics you use every day.
Up 24 Down 68
Richard Mueller on Jan 28, 2021 at 3:12 pm
I totally agree with 'Beyond Angry!' above. We so-called Yukoners are trashing the REAL value of this territory; functioning ecosystems. This value will only go up and up for thousands of years, as it is getting rare.
Gold on the other hand is useless; 90% of it sits idle in jewelry boxes and vaults. And for such idiocy we trash real value.
Those of you who favor useless mining, give your head a shake! Your descendants will grovel and die in hell if our present generations do not protect the basic conditions for biological health; protect air, water, soil, species diversity! If you're religious, then God/Allah etc made this world; who are we to blindly and greedily trash it? Just for a few meaningless jobs digging holes and - one hopes - filling them in again? What a useless way to spend one's life.
I feel really sorry for present and future generations of humans and all the other innocent beings affected by such idiocy.
Evolution has a lohhhhng way to go.
Search your spirit and follow it, doing work which enhances life, not destroys it.
Up 37 Down 18
Kevin tutin on Jan 28, 2021 at 3:10 pm
Where will this new mine get it electric power supply from? Currently Minto mine and Victoria gold are on yukon power grid. Are these mines paying going rate for power? Yukoners power rates keep going up possible subsidizing the mines power rates. Yukon doesn’t have enough hydro power supply and relies on diesel power when short which Yukoners end up paying for. Also when minto is off grid for power they start up there diesel generators and yec pays for the fuel till back on grid. These generators are old and use lots of diesel fuel outdated generators. Yukon currently does not have enough power to supply this mine and future power supply to Skagway cruise ships possible town of Skagway as well. Yukoners power rates have gone up twice lately and will go up again if they go on diesel power generation. This is something to think about also more power demand on Aishihik dam which is already at its capacity.
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Beyond Angry! on Jan 28, 2021 at 2:27 pm
They will be taking 12 billion dollars worth of gold from the Yukon every year, with somewhere in the ball park of $100,000,000,000 ($100 billion) being the final tally of what they take. The royalty on that, if it's the same as with placer gold, will be a grand total of 17 cents per ounce, which they will sell for $1700. (0.01% 'royalty' It hasn't gone up in over a hundred years, not even with inflation.) They will be obliterating an enormous tract of wilderness, including destroying wetlands and riparian zones. FOR WHAT?!!
For a substance held in vast excess, which is at this point entirely dug up out of greed, for speculation. Our priorities in the Yukon are completely sick. How in the world does this pass an environmental and socio-economic benefit test?!
Four hundred million tons of rock dug up, dropped somewhere else. Chemicals locked in that rock now exposed to drain into our waterways. Heaps of waste rock where forests and creeks used to be. All so that a few greedy people can chew this territory up to get more money for themselves. This kind of plundering of our wealth and environment should be a thing of the past. Money talks, and the sociopaths who care about nothing else are the ones talking and listening. A deal made on the lowest levels of human intelligence. That kind of deal making and thinking is going to be the death of us all eventually.
OUR MINING LAWS NEED TO CHANGE!! Yet the Chamber of Mines and the Placer Miners and others, freak out if anyone suggests that they should pay a penny more than their 17 cents an ounce or whatever other pittance they owe. Remember who you are dealing with. People who do not want to leave ANYTHING in the Yukon except a toxic mess, if past big mines are any indicator.
They'll whine, "Ohhh!! The Yukon is a BAD PLACE TO DO BUSINESS if you don't let us do what we want."
Good. Take your 'business' elsewhere.
I am absolutely disgusted.
Up 42 Down 18
JSmonk on Jan 28, 2021 at 12:22 pm
This can only help our economy that is being tanked by this regime we call the liberal party. Absolutely abhorrent spending practices and not enough coming back in. As long as there is some forced diversity laws for workers out at the mine I think this is a great idea. After all, like I always say, Diversity is Prosperity.