Feds say Agnico Eagle has failed to protect caribou at Nunavut gold mine as promised | 24CA News

The federal authorities says Agnico Eagle Mines isn’t doing what it has promised to guard migrating caribou on the Meadowbank gold mine in Nunavut.

An order issued final month by Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) says the corporate has failed “on multiple occasions” to fulfill its obligations underneath its venture certificates for the mine, and underneath the Nunavut Planning and Project Assessment Act.

The order requires the corporate to adjust to its permits to function or face potential penalties. 

“[Agnico Eagle Mines] has failed to close roads as required while migrating caribou are passing,” the order, written by CIRNAC useful resource administration officer Kyle Amsel, states.

The 13-page order doc particulars the corporate’s repeated failures during the last decade and a half to implement caribou safety measures on the mine website, adjust to an ecological administration plan, and precisely and appropriately report actions.

The federal order follows issues raised by the Nunavut authorities. Last fall, the territory’s Environment division wrote to CIRNAC asking for an investigation.

“This is the fourth consecutive year in which the GN has presented evidence of [Agnico Eagle’s] failure to implement the road closure provisions of the TEMP [Terrestrial Environment Management Plan],” reads a letter despatched by Jimmy Noble Jr., Nunavut’s deputy minister of Environment, to regulators in October 2022.

The Oct. 17 letter, addressed to officers at CIRNAC and the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB), states that the corporate’s promised caribou safety measures, outlined within the TEMP, had been “an important factor in the GN’s review of this project.” It requested federal inspectors to research.

An organization spokesperson advised 24CA News on the time that the corporate had fulfilled all of its obligations, and would maintain speaking to authorities “to find a common understanding of this issue.”

In an e mail to 24CA News on Wednesday, Agnico Eagle spokesperson Natalie Frackleton stated the corporate is reviewing the CIRNAC order issued final month and “the allegations it contains.”

She additionally stated the corporate is reviewing objects “that have already been addressed by the company as part of the formal annual report review,” however didn’t present specifics.

“The company remains confident that it is taking the necessary measures to protect caribou. We will communicate directly with the appropriate stakeholders and will not comment further publicly at this time,” Frackleton wrote.

Focus on roads at mine website

The issues about Agnico Eagle’s caribou safety efforts have largely centered on two roads on the mine complicated close to Baker Lake, Nunavut: the Meadowbank all-weather entry highway, and the Whale Tail haul highway, which connects an open pit mine to processing amenities.

Production started on the Whale Tail pit in 2019, the identical 12 months manufacturing ceased on the Meadowbank mine. The operation at Whale Tail continues to make use of processing amenities on the Meadowbank website, with the 2 websites related by a 64-kilometre haul highway.

The Nunavut authorities has stated the corporate’s TEMP for the Whale Tail mine growth venture features a requirement to robotically shut the highway to site visitors if a dozen or extra caribou had been seen inside a kilometre and a half of the highway throughout migration occasions. Those embody the intervals from April 1 to May 25, and from Sept. 16 to Dec. 7.

Amsel’s CIRNAC order questions a few of the corporate’s choices round highway closures, and the accuracy and thoroughness of its record-keeping and reporting through the years. For instance, Amsel factors to the corporate’s 2018 annual report on wildlife monitoring which included discrepancies in knowledge assortment “which caused misleading statistical analysis.”

The similar 2018 report included a listing of inner firm correspondence that “appears to denote daily instances of road closures,” however consists of minimal or no knowledge.

The correspondence “appears to have been compiled at random,” Amsel wrote, saying the information “has little value upon review to determine compliance with the TEMP.”

Amsel additionally refers back to the firm’s 2019 wildlife monitoring abstract report, which asserted that extra migrating caribou had been noticed that 12 months from the all-weather entry highway than in every other 12 months since surveys started. Amsel calls the assertion “factually incorrect and misleading,” and factors to increased survey numbers years earlier.

Also in 2019, the corporate reported 94 full days of highway closure however Amsel states that on 82 of these days the corporate “did not respect the road closure and allowed such things as convoys, daily rides, food truck etc.”