No to tailings ponds – No to tar sands
In Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada it’s 12 degrees today – well below the point where ice should be solidly frozen. Yet, the Canadian Press Service is reporting that a man fell through thin ice and died.
A 49-year-old man has died after falling through the ice on a tailings pond at a former open-pit gold mine in the Northwest Territories.The RCMP say the man was taking photographs at the Colomac Mine site on Sunday, but didn’t return. Two employees noticed his vehicle still parked at the tailings pond and then saw a camera sitting at the edge of an open patch of water. The man’s body was found under the ice after a brief search. The RCMP are investigating, but say foul play is not suspected. The Colomac Mine, about 220 kilometres northwest of Yellowknife, operated for several years in the 1990s, but was shut down in 1997.
Tailings ponds just like this are a major by-product of the tar sands projects in Northern Alberta – where the population is far greater than in the Northwest Territiories.
Guess water that polluted doesn’t freeze….
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