| Summary: | M. Kalin, Boojum Research Ltd., Toronto, Ontario for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Northern Environment Directorate, under contract to Supply and Services Canada # OST84-00445. In the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, mining has, for a long time, been a major industry. The resource industry continues to be a significant economic factor in the Canadian North, and due to increasing environmental awareness, the regulation of mining activities for the protection of the environment is an important issue of debate. In both territories, environmental concerns have been expressed at several lev- els about inactive or abandoned hard rock mining operations, some of which started operations as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, and in the 1930's to 1950's. Mining is associated with the production of waste materials (tailings and waste rock), which could affect, if they are not managed appropriately, the environmental quality in the vicinity of the mine site. It is possible that abandoned mine sites generate environmentally unacceptable conditions. Environmental degradation from past hard rock mining operations can be expected, but this is likely less significant than the environmental problems which may be caused by mine abandonment of both present and future operations, given the difference in scale between past and present activities. It is generally accepted that environmentally sound solutions have to be found for the management of wastes after cessation of the mining activities. Such solutions however, are particularly difficult to perceive in the absence of a technical evaluation of the long term environmental effects of mining wastes. The objective of this work was to obtain a perspective on the magnitude of potential environmental implications inherited from past hard rock (lode) operations. Geographical, historical and environmental data on 21 inactive mine sites in the Northwest Territories and 10 sites in the Yukon have been summarized and evaluated with respect to water quality ...
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