Siddon speaks in support of Yukon mining industry

Placer and hard-rock miners face tougher land-use laws in a draft report which the federal northern development minister unveiled recently in the territory.

Still, Tom Siddon, federal minister of Indian affairs and northern development, had words of support for the mining industry in an address to placer miners who gathered here for their annual Gold Show.

“If there’s to be a future for the Yukon and the Northwest Territories,” Siddon said, “it’s got to be built on the strengths which have allowed this area to flourish and develop over most of a century, and that future is going to hinge very heavily on the future of mining.”

Siddon made public a draft report of the Yukon Mining Advisory Committee, formed at the minister’s request, which recommends major changes to the Yukon Quartz and Placer Mining Acts.

The report calls for land-use rules to apply even on exploration activities on both quartz and placer claims and leases. It proposes a 4-tier system for classifying the level of environmental impacts on land.

Representatives of the mining industry, native people, conservationists and government agreed on the report, which is now under public review. Some placer miners predict the small family-run operations will slowly vanish, squeezed out by more regulation, low gold prices and increasingly marginal ground.

“Look at the Gold Show,” said placer miner Art Sailer, 60. “It’s a fraction what it was last year. There’s less people operating. There’s no doubt about it that it’s in decline.”

Gold Show manager Glen Mullen said business was the same as last year at the annual trade show, although staff at several booths said business was slow. Sailer, who operates a placer mine near here with his wife and children, isn’t impressed with the draft report. He said he thinks the industry has already done a lot to clean up its act.

However, Frank Taylor, president of the Klondike Placer Miners Association, praised the report as “a heck of a compromise” and called Siddon “a friend of the industry.”

While Taylor said the proposals will mean more planning for placer miners, he promised the extra paperwork will only amount to “a few pages.” Taylor said there’s no doubt the changes are threatening. Placer miners have handed more control over to government, he said.

“So I think that’s the challenge,” Taylor said. “Will government be able to support this industry in an efficient manner, recognizing the short mining season we have, how undercapitalized most of us are, the fact that (for) most of us, our whole livelihood is at stake and a few days can make a difference.” Placer miners have already had input into new rules on water quality and restoration of fish habitat.

Those guidelines are now in force. The plan is to have proposed new land-use rules in effect for the 1993 exploration and placer mining season. These won’t affect larger placer operations such as the 24-person outfit of Teck (TSE) at Gold Run Creek, an 80-km drive southeast of here, mine manager Gerry Klein said. That’s because Teck is already practising what’s in the proposed guidelines, he said, as far as sound environmental practices are concerned.

He said the Gold Run mine, which produces an average of 7,000 oz. gold per season, is the largest individual placer operation in the territory. The smaller outfits likely can weather another year of low gold prices, he said.

“However, the mom and pop operations are probably going to be slowly squeezed out of the industry,” said Klein, because of stricter environmental rules. And even larger placer mines are running out of reserves. Klein said Gold Run Creek has another 5-to-7 years.

Stuart Schmidt, vice-president of the placer miners’ group, added that there’s little incentive for exploration on creeks that haven’t been mined historically.

That’s because miners don’t know how fisheries officials will classify the creeks, and they fear that after investing in exploration they’ll be told the area is too sensitive for mining.

Siddon told placer miners that as he flew over the Klondike from Whitehorse, Yukon, he didn’t understand what all the excitement is about. “There’s a huge beautiful wilderness area out there,” Siddon said, “and I don’t see very many scars, I don’t see great signs of tragic irreversible damage.”

Pressed by a reporter afterwards about abandoned oil drums and machinery near some creeks, Siddon said that type of unfortunate littering occurs in many places, and cleanups are under way under the federal Arctic Environmental Strategy.

Siddon visited Taylor’s placer mine near Mayo in the central Yukon. Siddon refused to speculate on the future of Curragh (TSE) in the wake of the tragic accident at its Westray coal mine in Nova Scotia. Curragh operates lead-zinc mines at both Faro and Sa Dena Hes in the Yukon, and is seeking federal and Yukon government loan guarantees for stripping at Faro. “I don’t operate Faro and I don’t operate Curragh,” the minister said. “Those are private sector matters and there are government processes and procedures which will have to be followed, but we’ll just have to see how the future unfolds.”