What is Mining?
Mining is the extraction of minerals and metals from the ground. In the Yukon, there are two main types of mining: placer and quartz.
Placer Mining
Placer mining is where gold dust, and flakes and (if a miner is lucky) nuggets, are found loose in gravel. To extract the gold the gravel must be dug up and all the rocks and mud must be washed away from the gold. Placer mining is almost always, in the Yukon, associated with gold mining.
Common Issues
Placer mining typically involves the destruction of existing streams, river valleys, and wetlands to access the gold bearing gravel. Access roads to placer operations leads to habitat fragmentation and opens up areas to cumulative impacts not only from other placer operations but also different types of industrial activity.
Quartz Mining
Quartz mining is when the metal or mineral is part of another rock, called an ore. This ore is dug up and then the wanted metal is extracted through physical or chemical means. Metals extracted this way include gold, copper, silver, zinc, and lead.
Common Issues
Quartz mining involves distinct phases: exploration, mining, and site closure/remediation, each with its own set of disturbances.
Exploration can cause habitat fragmentation through access trails and roads. Disturbing wildlife through low flying aircraft and ground based exploration crews are also exploration issues.
Quartz mining usually involves digging a massive pit in the ground to access the ore, although some Yukon operations dig underground shafts. Some operations are a combination of the two. Removing rocks from underground can cause acid rock drainage. Certain rocks, when exposed to air and water, can release acids. This in turn breaks down the rocks further and can release contaminants into surface and ground waters causing pollution issues.
Site closure and remediation is a big issue in the Yukon. Some mines have been abandoned by their operators, forcing both the Yukon and Canadian governments to not only pay but also to perform the proper mine closures and remediation.