Governments reach consensus on Faro mine cleanup plan

More than a decade after work stopped at the Faro lead-zinc mine in the Yukon, the federal, territorial and First Nation governments haveagreed on a plan to clean up the now-defunct mine site.

Officials from all three governments revealed plans Friday for what they've called the biggest mine remediation project in Canada one that will include dealing with 55 million tonnes of toxic mine tailings.

"There's going to be three phases of the project," Stephen Mead, Faro senior project manager with the Yukon government's assessment and abandoned mines branch, told reporters in Whitehorse on Friday.

"There's going to be a construction phase of 15 years, a learning and adaptation phase of 20 or so years, and then there's going to be a long-term water treatment, which is hundreds of years."

Located near the town of Faro, the mine produced lead, silver and zinc from about 1970 until 1998. The federal government has since been maintaining the mine site, in part by treating water flowing from the site.

Under the remediation plan, the tailings will be covered up in order to slow water runoff and control dust in that area.

Trees and other vegetation will be replanted, while waste rock will be contoured to blend in with the natural landscape.

Funding for the remediation project will come from the federal government's Contaminated Sites Action Plan. The cleanup is expected to cost between $400 million and $600 million over its lifespan.

With federal, territorial and aboriginal governments in agreement about the overall plan, Mead said it now has to enter the Yukon's regulatory process, seeking environmental approvals for the cleanup to proceed.

"The next thing to get moving is to make all those 10,000 decisions that this one recommendation was hinging on," he said.

"The big next step is to prepare all the materials, the design, to the right level to get us into the Yukon regulatory process."

Mead said his staff will start going through the regulatory process in the fall.

As well, upgrades to bring existing dams and diversions to proper international standards will begin as soon as permits will allow that work to begin.