The Nova Scotia authorities desires to amass one of many province’s two most contaminated historic gold mines so it may well clear it up.
The Goldenville web site, positioned close to Sherbrooke on the Japanese Shore, was the best of Nova Scotia’s 64 historic gold mine districts. It was mined from 1862 to 1941 and included as many as 19 totally different open pit and underground mines.
These operations left a legacy of arsenic and mercury contamination that persists to today, each within the materials and water on the web site and downstream all the way in which to the Atlantic Ocean.
By means of the provincial environmental cleanup company, Nova Scotia Lands, the federal government has been growing plans to remediate Goldenville. It estimates cleansing up that web site in addition to the opposite most contaminated former mine, Montague Gold Mines, will cost at least $60 million.
However the plans for Goldenville hit a snag a few years in the past when workers realized the property that included the supply of the contamination — the stamp mill that crushed ore earlier than gold was extracted — was not Crown land. The province would wish permission from the landowner to conduct its work.
That is when issues bought much more sophisticated. Workers found that no one is aware of who owns the property.
Nova Scotia’s property registry lists the proprietor of the 32-hectare parcel of land at 34 Goldenville Highway Extension as “proprietor unknown.” The parcel has an assessed worth of $21,400.
The province has sought details about the historical past of the land, reviewing paperwork, together with handwritten papers, courting again to 1765.
Paperwork obtained by the CBC by way of a freedom of data request present the Division of Pure Sources and Renewables found by way of its analysis that the property is a part of 60,700 hectares granted to Rev. James Lyons in 1765, however no later titles or deeds have been recorded.
To be able to purchase the land now, the province might want to pay any excellent taxes after which promote its intent to buy it. Anybody with a declare on the property has 18 months from when the taxes are paid to return ahead.
In response to the paperwork, the excellent taxes quantity to $1,017.54, as of Nov. 30, 2021.
Provincial workers had a quick scare final 12 months when it appeared the Municipality of the District of St. Mary’s was going to promote the property at a tax sale, which might imply anybody might purchase it, and it could go to the very best bidder. The province doesn’t have the authority to purchase property by way of tax gross sales.
The Division of Pure Sources and Renewables intervened and the parcel was faraway from the checklist of potential tax sale properties.
Delay in cleanup
The possession drawback got here to mild when the Division of Pure Sources and Renewables was conducting environmental web site assessments, a part of the preliminary course of to scrub up contaminated websites.
The information got here as a shock to Diane Saurette, the chief working officer of the Division of Public Works. In an electronic mail final November to Nova Scotia Lands, she stated she was underneath the belief that the Part 2 environmental web site evaluation for Goldenville was on observe and could be accomplished within the fall.
“Once you known as me just a few weeks in the past was the primary time we heard there was a difficulty with Goldenville,” she wrote to Donnie Burke, the manager director of environmental evaluation and remediation for NS Lands.
The possession concern will delay cleanup plans for the positioning, as remediation cannot start till the parcel of land is owned by the province.
Requested for an replace on Thursday, the Division of Pure Sources and Renewables didn’t present a brand new timeline for when the remediation work would start. A spokesperson stated discussions with the Atmosphere Division will likely be wanted earlier than workers can entry the positioning for remediation.
On July 13, Burke stated in an inside electronic mail he hopes the difficulty is cleared “inside a 12 months.”
Contamination on the web site
The Goldenville web site is among the two most contaminated former gold mines within the province.
The province’s soil high quality tips name for not more than 31 milligrams per kilogram of arsenic. In Goldenville, the utmost stage discovered within the tailings was 209,000 milligrams per kilogram, and the common was 19,181 milligrams per kilogram, in response to a 2015 report from the Department of Natural Resources.
The province says Nova Scotians are unlikely to be affected by arsenic and mercury from gold mine tailings as a result of their publicity is low, however persons are suggested to keep away from areas the place tailings are current.
