Nanisivik, Nunavut — The final zinc and lead concentrate shipments from the High Arctic departed for Europe’s smelters in September, signaling the end of an era for Canadian mining.
For more than two decades,
The clean-up challenges for Breakwater are greater than those of its Arctic neighbour, because Nanisivik fell short of its expected lifespan. The accelerated closure caught Breakwater and government agencies unprepared as they faced the task of having to implement the company’s $9-million mine closure and reclamation plan. By contrast, Teck Cominco filed the decommissioning and reclamation plan for Polaris in 1984, and revised it in 1996.
Breakwater acquired Nanisivik through its CanZinc division in 1996, and operating profits were initially $17.4 million. However, in the late 1990s, the decline in the price of zinc had begun to take its toll: in 2001, the mine suffered an operating loss of $20.3 million, effectively ending Breakwater’s sojourn in the Arctic when prices fell below Nanisivik’s US50-per-lb. production-cost level.
“The decision to close involved a lot of number-crunching and soul-searching to see if we could keep it open for another three years,” says William Heath, vice-president of administration for Breakwater.
The company’s October 2001 decision to pull the plug could not have come at a worse time, as $7 million had just been invested in a dense-media-separation plant to improve ore recovery. With zinc prices unlikely to recover, the company acted quickly to avoid the million-dollar annual sea-lift resupply cost.
Over its 26-year life, Nanisivik produced more than 2.7 million tonnes of zinc concentrate in what Bernie MacIsaac, senior advisor of mineral development in Nunavut’s Department of Sustainable Development, described as a “shining example of how to develop mining in the North.” The most northern mine in the world when it opened in 1976, Nanisivik had a town — complete with church, indoor swimming pool, restaurant, ice rink, school and health facilities — that was home to 325 people.
Many of these structures are now the subject of debate as government agencies have to decide what to take over. The name “Nanisivik” means “the place where one finds things.” But whether there will be anything to find in the future remains in doubt as the townsite is to be torn down under the reclamation plan.
Such drastic action is sure to cause anger and resentment in the nearby Inuit community of Arctic Bay, where there is a chronic housing shortage. “The community does not want to see it just bulldozed and covered,” says Arctic Bay Mayor Joanasie Akumalik. Breakwater would prefer to donate housing units to the Inuit, and wants government to take responsibility for managing this. “We don’t want to shirk our social responsibility,” says Heath.
Akumalik wants to see mine facilities used to teach useful skills through the establishment of a vocational training centre. “There is no such centre in Nunavut, so it would be a benefit to all the Inuit in the province,” says Heath. The Nunavut government has yet to commit to the idea as it goes through the throes of deciding what to preserve for strategic and territorial reasons.
Native people will be hard-hit by the mine closure, as Nanisivik has been a steady source of income for the 700-strong Arctic Bay community. In 2001, Inuit workers at the mine earned more than $1 million in total. The wages, distributed through extended families, paid for the snowmobiles, rifles and boats needed for hunting. The community is now bracing itself for the deleterious impact the mine closure will have on the local economy.
Most miners have returned to the south, but Nanisivik’s 19 Inuit employees have few options. Closure of Polaris will put a further 30 Dene and Inuit aboriginal people out of work.
With the last concentrate shipment having sailed and the air service coming to an end, the loss of supply routes will be painful. “The loss of employment will be felt for sure. One of the main benefits [of the mine] was that employees had a sea-lift allowance with reduced transportation costs,” says Levi Barnabus, liaison officer for the Arctic Bay community. Adds community elder Mucktar Akumalik: “The mine meant we had access to emergency services.”
The Nunavut and federal governments are especially concerned about tailings containment, contamination and hazardous waste at the site. The Inuit community questions whether the proposed 1.25-million-tonne tailings cap will generate the permafrost required to freeze them permanently. There is also concern about the nature of hazardous material contained in an estimated 2,000 barrels of waste oil.
Also, Nanisivik’s strategic location at the mouth of the Northwest Passage, with a dock and airport, has helped reinforce Canada’s claims to sovereignty over the seaway — claims that have been disputed by the U.S. Now the government has to decide if it can justify the cost of maintaining these without the mine.
Until mining stopped at the end of August on Little Cornwallis Island, Polaris, at 75 north, was the most northern mine in the world. Operating from 1981, it processed about 21 million tonnes of ore to produce 4.4 million tonnes of zinc concentrate and 900,000 tonnes of lead concentrate. The concentrates were favoured by European smelters because of their low level of impurities.
Dale Andres, Polaris’s operating manager, says the orebody was ideal because it was easy to mine, with the main portal and processing facility right on the ocean next to a ship berth. Polaris was originally scheduled to close in 2001, and the $60-to-65-million decommissioning and reclamation plan has been in place for several years.
Surface structures will be cleaned and buried, including the concentrate warehouse painted with the world’s largest Canadian flag, and the 2,800 tonne-per-day mill facility, which had been built on a barge in Trois-Rivires, Que., and towed 4,800 km to the mine. The dock facility, one of two deep-water berths in Nunavut (the other is at Nanisivik) will be torn out at a cost of at least $2 million, leaving only the airstrip intact.
Both operations will bury mill equipment and vehicles, and Teck Cominco will send part of the flotation circuit to its Antamina mine in Chile; other equipment will end up at the Pend Oreille mine in Washington state.
A meromictic lake will securely hold Polaris’s 15 million tonnes of tailings. The waters of the lake are stratified both chemically and thermally, which means there is no water circulation. The tailings have been pumped into the anoxic (oxygen-poor) sulphide-rich conditions in the lower level, which acts to contain metals in a stable solid phase, leaving pure water on the surface.
Focus on Red Dog
With the closure of Polaris, Teck Cominco will focus its North American zinc mining activities on its flagship Red Dog mine in Alaska and at Pend Oreille. The company also owns and operates the Trail smelter, in British Columbia.
The Canadian mining industry is confident the closure of Polaris and Nanisivik will prove that minerals can be extracted in extreme environments without leaving a legacy of contamination. How the two operations meet their respective technical and political challenges will influence future Arctic mining developments.
Of particular interest to third parties is the clean-up cost in dollar terms. Teck Cominco estimates $60-65 million for Polaris, and Breakwater, $9 million for Nanisivik — though the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs prices the Nanisivik plan at $27.5 million. The difference in the scale of expenditure is striking. Polaris is a larger operation and is shipping out more equipment, and the sum there includes employee severance pay. Nanisivik is hoping to leave a number of its structures and does not have a port facility to remove.
While summer 2002 marks the end of a chapter for mining in the High Arctic, it does not signal the end. A new chapter may be about to start, with companies such as Kennecott and
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