CBC -Go-Ahead For Mine Cleanup - Enough Arsenic Trioxide Dust To Kill Everyone On Earth

[hatrack]

A northern review board has given its conditional stamp of approval to a federal cleanup plan for an abandoned gold mine near Yellowknife.

The main environmental hazard at Giant Mine is the 237,000 tonnes of highly toxic arsenic trioxide dust stored in 15 underground chambers — there's enough to kill every person in the world. The arsenic trioxide is a byproduct from decades of gold mining.

The mine is close to the shores of pristine Great Slave Lake. Environmentalists and Yellowknife residents alike are worried the dust could leach into the lake.

The site is one of the most contaminated in the country, and it will cost close to $1 billion to clean up.

EDIT

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2013/06/20/north-giant-mine-report.html

[cprise]

1. High gold prices is one of the most environmentally destructive trends

7 billion people here on planet Earth, and now most of them dream of ways to tear up the landscape to find gold.

[wtmusic]

2. +1

[Joe Shlabotnik]

3. Profits privatized: check, Losses socialized: check.

Standard operating procedure being observed.

From 1948 to 2004 Giant mine produced over 7,000,000 ozt (220,000 kg) of gold. The last owners busted the union, and then things turned violent resulting in death of 9 scab miners.

Now tax payers must pay 1 billion to operate an underground hockey rink. Can't wait to see how we'll be paying for the Tar Sands debacle in 50 years.