YELLOWKNIFE — A team working to address environmental and health effects from a former gold mine outside Yellowknife has provided an update on the effort to clean up one of the most contaminated places in Canada.
The Giant Mine Remediation Project, co-managed by the Canadian and Northwest Territories governments, is expected to take until 2038 to complete. Arsenic trioxide waste stored underground is anticipated to require perpetual maintenance.
Here is a look at the mine’s history:
— Summer of 1935: C.J. (Johnny) Baker and H. Muir stake the original 21 “Giant” claims near Great Slave Lake’s Back Bay while working for Burwash Yellowknife Mines Ltd.
— June 3, 1948: The mine, owned by Frobisher Explorations, pours its first gold brick. Ownership later changes hands several times.
— 1949-1951: Airborne arsenic emissions at the mine, where no pollution control has been installed, is estimated at 7,500 kilograms per day.
— 1951: There are reports of widespread sickness, including skin lesions, among residents on Latham Island, where the Yellowknives Dene use snowmelt for drinking water. Local newspaper ads warning about arsenic in water sources are published in English, which many of the Dene cannot read.
— April 1951: A two-year-old Dene child dies from acute arsenic poisoning after drinking water. Giant Yellowknife Gold Mines Ltd. gives the family $750 in compensation.
— October 1951: A Cottrell Electrostatic Precipitator is installed to capture and control emissions. Arsenic emissions drop to 5,500 kilograms per day. That same year, storage of arsenic trioxide dust in underground storage chambers begins.
— 1959: Emissions drop to 200 to 300 kilograms per day after the installation of a second electrostatic precipitator and a baghouse.
— 1969: Water intake for Yellowknife is relocated to avoid contamination.
— 1974: Three uncontrolled releases of tailings into Back Bay occur. Environmental studies later find contamination of Back Bay, Baker Creek and Yellowknife Bay.
— 1975: The federal government begins public health studies, including hair and urine sampling in Yellowknife, which find especially high arsenic levels in mine workers.
— 1977: The National Indian Brotherhood conducts an independent study with United Steelworkers and the University of Toronto’s Institute for Environmental Studies, which finds high arsenic levels in mine workers and Indigenous children.
— 1990: Royal Oak Resources Ltd. gains control of the mine.
— April 1992: Local 4 of the Association of Smelter and Allied Workers and Royal Oak reach a tentative agreement, which a majority of union members vote down.
— May 22, 1992: The day before workers plan to go on strike, Royal Oak locks out union members and plans to use replacement workers.
— June 1992: A riot breaks out as a group of striking workers tears down a fence and storms the mine grounds, damaging property and injuring security guards. Later that month, a group of strikers, calling themselves “Cambodian Cowboys,” break into the mine, steal explosives and write threatening graffiti on an underground tunnel. They later set off explosions that cause damage.
— Sept. 18, 1992: Nine mine workers in an underground railcar are killed by a bomb.
— November 1993: The Canada Labour Relations Board orders an end to the lockout.
— 1995: Roger Warren is convicted of nine counts of second-degree murder in the 1992 bombing.
— 1997: The federal and N.W.T. governments begin studying how to manage the arsenic trioxide waste.
— 1999: Royal Oak goes into receivership and rights to the mine are transferred to the federal government, which then sells the assets to Miramar Giant Mine Ltd. while severing environmental liabilities.
— 2004: The federal government announces plans to freeze the arsenic trioxide dust underground long-term.
— 2004: The N.W.T. workers’ compensation board is awarded $10.7 million following a lawsuit against the territorial government, union, Royal Oak and private security firm Pinkerton that sought compensation for families of the workers who died in the bombing.
— 2005: The Giant Mine officially becomes an abandoned site.
— 2008: The decision on compensation for families of the workers killed in the bombing is overturned on appeal.
— 2012-2014: The roaster at the mine site is demolished.
— June 2015: The federal government signs an environmental agreement for remediation with the N.W.T. government, City of Yellowknife, Yellowknives Dene First Nation, Alternatives North and North Slave Métis Alliance.
— 2016: The N.W.T. issues a public health advisory warning residents to avoid drinking water, swimming, fishing and harvesting plants and berries in and around several lakes in the Yellowknife area due to high arsenic levels.
— 2019: Initial baseline results from urine and toenail samples from residents of Yellowknife, Dettah and N’dilo find arsenic exposure levels similar to the rest of Canada.
— August 2020: The Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board approves the federal government’s land-use permit to remediate the site and the Northern Affairs minister approves the project’s water licence the following month.
— December 2020: The Yellowknives Dene call for a federal apology and compensation for the mine, as well as involvement in remediation.
— July 2021: Full remediation begins.
— Aug. 2021: Canada and the Yellowknives Dene sign three agreements, including a community benefits agreement that promises up to $20 million over 10 years to support the First Nation’s participation in the remediation project.
— April 2022: The federal budget earmarks $2 million between 2022 and 2024 to support the Yellowknives Dene in their pursuit of an apology and compensation.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2022.
NEW YORK (AP) — Teen smoking hit an all-time low in the U.S. this year, part of a big drop in the youth use of tobacco overall, the government reported Thursday.
There was a 20% drop in the estimated number of middle and high school students who recently used at least one tobacco product, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and hookahs. The number went from 2.8 million last year to 2.25 million this year — the lowest since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key survey began in 1999.
“Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, in a statement. However, “our mission is far from complete.”
A previously reported drop in vaping largely explains the overall decline in tobacco use from 10% to about 8% of students, health officials said.
The youth e-cigarette rate fell to under 6% this year, down from 7.7% last year — the lowest at any point in the last decade. E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, followed by nicotine pouches.
Use of other products has been dropping, too.
Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of high school students smoked. This year, it was just 1.7%, down from the 1.9%. That one-year decline is so small it is not considered statistically significant, but marks the lowest since the survey began 25 years ago. The middle school rate also is at its lowest mark.
Recent use of hookahs also dropped, from 1.1% to 0.7%.
The results come from an annual CDC survey, which included nearly 30,000 middle and high school students at 283 schools. The response rate this year was about 33%.
Officials attribute the declines to a number of measures, ranging from price increases and public health education campaigns to age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers selling products to kids.
Among high school students, use of any tobacco product dropped to 10%, from nearly 13% and e-cigarette use dipped under 8%, from 10%. But there was no change reported for middle school students, who less commonly vape or smoke or use other products,
Current use of tobacco fell among girls and Hispanic students, but rose among American Indian or Alaska Native students. And current use of nicotine pouches increased among white kids.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.
There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.
The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.
Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.
Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.
“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.
But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.
That includes his own teenage daughter.
“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.
It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.
“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”
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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alabama man was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in the January hack of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission social media account that led the price of bitcoin to spike, the Justice Department said.
Eric Council Jr., 25, of Athens, is accused of helping to break into the SEC’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, allowing the hackers to prematurely announce the approval of long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”
But soon after the initial post appeared, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC’s account was compromised. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products,” Gensler wrote, calling the post unauthorized without providing further explanation.
Authorities say Council carried out what’s known as a “SIM swap,” using a fake ID to impersonate someone with access to the SEC’s X account and convince a cellphone store to give him a SIM card linked to the person’s phone. Council was able to take over the person’s cellphone number and get access codes to the SEC’s X account, which he shared with others who broke into the account and sent the post, the Justice Department says.
Prosecutors say after Council returned the iPhone he used for the SIM swap, his online searches included: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”
An email seeking comment was sent Thursday to an attorney for Council, who is charged in Washington’s federal court with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
The price of bitcoin swung from about $46,730 to just below $48,000 after the unauthorized post hit on Jan. 9 and then dropped to around $45,200 after the SEC’s denial. The SEC officially approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin the following day.
