Faro Mine as a surrogate for the Pebble Mine 100 years hence

The Faro Mine is arguably the most polluted closed mine in Canada.  From what I can work out, they did just about everything wrong, and there is really no way to fix it.  The official web site won’t tell you that; it is a master piece of propaganda that makes the mine sound like a make-work opportunity for locals.  And for those taking the water quality samples it is. 

But, in fact most of the money spent on the mine each year probably flows back to Vancouver, Toronto, and other Canadian capitals.  For that is where they deliberate and decide on possible solutions.  And as there are no final perpetual solutions in the offering, there is a lot of lucrative deliberation yet to undertake. 

Back to the locals and their work opportunities:  in a news report, we learn that Denison Environmental Services, a division of Denison Mines Inc has been awarded a three-year contract for care and maintenance of the Faro Mine Complex in the Yukon.  For the locals there is this solace at the tail end to the report: 

Denison Mines noted that the contract also includes provisions for training and employment opportunities for affected Yukon First Nations and Yukoners.

The contract is worth about $7.2 million annually.  For that sum, Denison will do at least the following:

The three-year, $7.2 million per annum contract will provide care and maintenance services at the Faro Mine Complex. This will include the ongoing collection and treatment of contaminated water, management of uncontaminated runoff, inspection and maintenance of dams and diversion channels, water quality monitoring, general maintenance, and site security.

Funny thing about the many reports on the web about the Faro Mine is how even the politicians make it seem like this is a good thing.  And it is if you are committed to cleaning up mining sites with public money as a way to make work for otherwise unemployed locals. 

I acknowledge there are vast differences between the Yukon and Alaska, between the scallywags who mined Faro and those seeking to mine Pebble, between how they will mine at Pebble and how they mined at Faro, between then and now.  But the funny thing is that once again we have a mine that made the city folk rich, and then they left, and now the community is paying to be employed cleaning up the result.  And the locals are being told how lucky they are to have jobs. 

Somehow I cannot but think that $7.2 million a year on education would achieve more in the long run than keeping pollution in check.  Course at Faro  they do not have the option; they have to maintain the site, for the results of neglect would be far worse than an uneducated populace. 

At Pebble they have the option.  They still have plenty of time to decide not to mine.  They have plenty of time to decide that they want jobs now and in perpetuity.  Now and for 50 to 100 years they will have jobs mining.  And then forever and ever, they will have jobs maintaining the waste disposal facilities. 

It is really quiet simple:  if Alaska wants to decide what the Pebble Mine offers them—or at least what it offers future generations of Alaskans—take a look at Faro.   Maybe your grandkids would prefer water quality sampling as a way of life to fishing.