Contamination Nation: Toxic threat underneath old gold mine

[@thextrmntr]

Thanks Tom!

[@lohphat]

Corporate mantra: Privatized gains, socialized losses. This is why government -- not influenced by deep pocket industry -- must oversee corporations via informed regulations established by those without a profit motive.

[@WouldntULikeToKnow.]

As someone from the US, I couldn't agree more. We have the same issues.

[@MrTStat]

That's extreamly depressing, the worst part is most if not all of the offenders got away with it!! and got a lot of money in the process

[@TheCjcoon]

What's more depressing is the low views!

[@peanutbutterwarrior1956]

Who else is here from tom scott?

[@ToriKo_]

Peanutbutter Warrior yup

[@technicaldevil433]

Peanutbutter Warrior yup

[@desia.brimou]

I am. I'm so grateful that he made that video, every one of those links is eye-opening.

[@marietandyastronaut2896]

Yes. Thanks Tom x

[@feryth]

I remember him covering the arsenic cave freezing story tho...?

[@kimludlow1516]

what caught my ear was FEDERAL owned mines

[@CarsSimplified]

I was actively working on something involving mining for heavy metals recently, and then this video gets by someone I'm subscribed to. Quite the timing!

[@truxton701]

Do you watch Tom Scott too?

[@uint16_t]

Who sold the gold? Where's that money? Where are the responsible people?

[@sixtyfourchebby4507]

Retired, fat, limp, and happy all whilst their wives are none the wiser the damage their beloved limp dick husband caused. Former miner....

[@seanhewitt603]

Well Canaduh... Gosh ...

[@MrCotel19]

" there's gold in them hills!!... Ughe Ughe correction! There's arsenic trichloride in them hills" thats what those prospecters and the government should have said.

[@kurtminault8564]

I was rescued by the mine rescue team that was still on duty after a car accident literally just up the road from the mine, god bless those men

[@marshmaz]

😮 No R.U.L.E of L.A.W PRESENT in Canada 🇨🇦

[@Stevesbe]

Destroying part of the world to make a few people rich is unreal

[@sherri99516]

Yellowknife is one of Canada’s most contaminated places and will cost at least $900 million dollars to remediate damages. My first thought is why did the company leave this land so polluted in the first place. They never should have been allowed to make billions in profits and then leave a toxic mess behind.

[@kirstenmaitland9712]

Giant Mine opened in the late 1940's when people were less educated on Environmental Risk and the lasting effects of contamination. By the time the roaster was modified to decrease arsenic trioxide emissions the majority of contamination was already complete. We have a better understanding now of the toxic effects these mining processes can have and engineers everywhere are working to decrease these effects as much as possible. The fact still remains...if people are consuming products and materials, mining is a necessary evil. We can only hope to move forward together for a more sustainable future. Environmental scientists and geochemists are working extremely hard to right the wrongs of the past in the Yellowknife region.

[@79tazman]

+Kirsten Maitland yes they did not know arsenic was toxic LMFAO!! keep telling yourself that because anyone with any common sense knows arsenic was toxic long before those clowns even started that mine.

[@DigitalMonsters]

$1000 in 1959 is only $8500 for anyone interested.

[@tarlklatt8940]

Quebec is another place that is devastated with arsenic poisoning from mining, and yes the mining companies are not liable to clean it up.

[@dmknight08]

Could the chambers not be filled with concrete? I hate these mining industries. There’s so many places they leave like this. The people get all excited when they hear some major deposit is found near their towns, and they think “Yay, jobs!”. Then the city booms for a few years until the mines run dry or other disasters ends it and those who reaped the wealth disappear like phantoms. I don’t understand why we can’t educated people better so that when these mines are found near their towns, they can take precautions and end the negligence of these businesses. They should go to prison. In this era, there’s no excuse for the cruelty that these people unleash upon the unsuspecting. This is murder, and the fact that they are aware form the beginning what damages their practices cause, and that it WILL kill people, then they should be prosecuted with maximum sentences. I suggest that the world’s governments build prisons for these criminals on the land in which they’ve destroyed so that they have to breathe the aIr, way the crops, drink the water and so on.

[@TimRomanelli]

sounds like some people in the Canadian Government supposedly in charge of making sure stuff like that doesn't happen got paid off, big-time! string those f'n hose-heads up!

[@ratsratsratsratsrats]

I suggest we end capitalism

[@seanhewitt603]

Won't be long now.

[@belltocher]

I'd like to know how many millions did the mining company give in political contributions to ensure they wouldn't have to pay the billions to clean up the mess

[@ppudwell]

WOW...Our Leaders Need To STEP UP and learn how to manage our country!

[@belltocher]

They did step up for their corporate friends making sure that they could take the profits and the taxpayers be left with the poison

[@djsangris]

One of the reasons I left home for Vancouver, BC

[@beaman444]

Thank you Global TV and 16x9 for bringing us this type of information. Most media wouldn't touch this sort of thing. This is the legacy of ONE mine - ONE OF 22,000 - JUST IN CANADA!!! Billion$ of taxpayer $$$ to deal with - not clean up - all their shit FOR ONE MINE. My, isn't it wonderful all the employment that mining provides. As we can see from the video taken around town, they certainly must have been tremendously well paid. And isn't our government looking after us and our environment wonderfully!! Thank you Stephen Harper and all your friends - all you degenerates who didn't have the balls to respond to 16x9's interview requests. Well done. Let's vote them in again.

[@Sc00terNut]

Wow, that's crazy. I was in Yellowknife a few months ago and saw the mine from the highway. The buildings and equipment looks like it's still standing. I was the only idiot thatcwanted to swim in Great Slave Lake. Not sure if it's related but after I got out of the water, my skin was burning for a couple of hours.

[@asafcohen8796]

tom scott i really learnt a lot thank you this is very disturbing i wonder how it is today

[@jeffclarkofclarklesparkle3103]

There are many plants i have just learned that can totally decontaminate this land!! Possibly deal with the stored arsenic much better as well! This could potentially heal all the land in the giant mine vicinity. Phytomining methods could be used 😁💖

[@adaswedentr]

tell me more!!

[@seanhewitt603]

Do you know how voluminous 237,000 TONS of arsenic is? Do you know how much plant matter it would take, and how long? Lol, k sure, bulrushes galore...

[@FeldwebelWolfenstool]

....our high-grade Native Silver Mine has absolutely no deleterious waste....

[@McCuneWindandSolar]

Question. was this arsenic already in the ground, or was it brought in to leach the out the gold. If it is a chemical that was already in the ground and was brought to the surface with the gold, why not put it all back down in the mine at the very bottom and bury it . if it was already there.

[@icepick832]

McCuneWindandSolar great question. It was already there in the rocks. It is release from the roasting to extract the gold. The issue is, is that it’s fairly harmless in its natural state. Once it’s removed from the ground and separated it is in a concentrated state.

[@McCuneWindandSolar]

thanks for the info. You think they would have a way to naturalize it. Its wired how the planet has so many usu full chemicals so many deadly ones. I hop they can fined a way to get rid of it.

[@sirandrelefaedelinoge]

It would contaminate the ground water...

[@ootommo1]

Tom Scott anyone?

[@theatheia]

jake williams yep

[@sirandrelefaedelinoge]

Who?

[@WouldntULikeToKnow.]

The 32 people who dislike this video are corporate boot lickers.

[@haploideallel]

"How To Lose Trust In A Government 101" :'(

[@ivuldivul]

How about having that AsO3 vitrified ?

[@adaswedentr]

what does it mean?

[@misoweli]

anyone from tiktok?

[@Jerome...]

237 000 tons. Yikes.

[@belltocher]

Cleaning up the site is out of the question that would only provide for short-term contracts to politician "friendly" companies ,but sitting on it for perpetuity will allow these "friends and family" private contractors to belly up to a trough where the slop (money) will never stop flowing. And eventually this time bomb will go off of course with nobody in the government held responsible and the Yellowknife area will be just like the areas surrounding the Chernobyl reactor and the Fukushima reactors, uninhabitable until further notice

[@joshdean9105]

thanks tom

[@ChemistryAmsterdam]

Who the f is Tom? Aim here to get ones more disappointed in Humans. I love the Indian's more, they live with the land.

[@stuck_in_sky]

For those here from Tom, you should watch the documentary "There's Something In the Water" by Ellen Page. This type of stuff is still happening today...

[@saramontour4075]

This makes me so angry.

[@thejdhe7681]

welcome to Yellowknife Michigan

[@brittanyanderson3189]

And with all the wildfires?????

[@SomeWittyBookPun]

Arsenic wasn’t banned until the 80s. It wasn’t a known concern and they used it all over the place, including in homes. So like, you can be mad about it but you should realize they didn’t fully understand what they were doing.

[@Kelownakiss]

This is tragic, was there no research prior as to the safe disposal of byproduct waste? Yellowknife is one of multiple places on earth with Gold. REALLY?? #ToxicWaste This saddens me so much! rip to the angels who passed on because of defective decisions and greed. The story mentions an engineer, how can an engineer "Miss" this. Shame on them.

[@sirandrelefaedelinoge]

Nope ... the same goes for nuclear waste...

[@johnross3752]

I vote for that guy

[@nhragold1922]

Actually in the case of free milling gold all we do is crush the ore. Not all mines use chemical prosess to extract gold** nice try tho it's in the mineral report. Almost said usgs lol

[@common_c3nts]

"A roasting process was used to extract the gold ore from the rock, creating the by-product aresenic trioxide."

[@common_c3nts]

tom scott sent me

[@bullsboat1]

Damn!

[@PaurRoo777]

its the toxicity of our city of our citty

[@BFDT-4]

I came from Tom Scott, too.

[@amymattingley8387]

give the native Americans new, free land!! yes!

[@1.4142]

Tom Scott

[@Jaykooooo]

why did tom send me to a 480p video

[@Snout007]

You can't handle a smaller quality video, how do you imagine people handling toxic , poisoned land? I think Tom proved his point really well here and showed us the devastation.

[@sirandrelefaedelinoge]

Priorities...?

[@claudiaogaz8912]

02:13

[@olaasagba]

This is horrible

[@BFDT-4]

Arsenic kills.

[@victoriagriffiths4205]

CEO

[@prathamsharma6928]

remove Justin tredeau he is doing the same thing with the pipeline!!

[@pluto8404]

So they dug up gold that contained arsenic, separated the two compounds, then put the arsenic back where it came from. Whats the problem?

[@slikrx]

Because gold was pretty much insoluble, and the vast majority was locked inside rocks. And the arsenic was a low concentration contaminant. Now, it's (the arsenic) is a highly concentrated powder, sitting piled in rooms, in a form that is partially soluble in water.

[@DucktorQuackers]

they clearly explained this in the video did you not pay attention?

[@zeeotter100]

Nice accent eh

[@sirandrelefaedelinoge]

Blame Canada!

[@matica3411]

SRBIJO GLEDAS LI OVO.

[@TomasPetkevicius94]

Tom send me here.

[@jamestrotman3238]

same here

[@nhragold1922]

The arsenic is in the rock. It was and has always been there. It comes from the bedrock. Come on people

[@crystalsoulslayer]

Minerals containing arsenic naturally occur in gold deposits, yes. Those minerals get converted into arsenic trioxide by the process used to extract the gold. Then it's no longer a rock in the ground, it's a lightweight, water-soluble dust. It can cause arsenic poisoning and/or cancer in anyone who breathes it in or ingests it.

[@nhragold1922]

Unless crushing the ore therefore consentrates and speeds prosess I suppose you are right in a sense

[@crystalsoulslayer]

Apparently, they dump acid all over the ore to dissolve some stuff they don't need. That also breaks down the minerals so the arsenic isn't stuck in the rock structure anymore. Then they stick it in a furnace, and the combination of fire with the other ingredients oxidizes the arsenic and converts it to arsenic trioxide. Makes sense if you think about it. Without human intervention, it's not particularly dangerous. If it were, nothing would have lived in that area in the first place.

[@nhragold1922]

That's only the case with micro gold mines when they use chemical leaching. What I'm saying is that is free milling gold, so only crushing the ore and water separation is needed. Really it's the dissolving sulfides from the rock that's the issue. The story does not fit the mine... I know this because I mine gold lol I get touchy when facts are misleading people to believe mines just screw up land.....

[@crystalsoulslayer]

That was my understanding of it based on some quick research I'd done. I'm not a miner, so I don't know when they'd need to use acid and when they wouldn't. Oops. Bear in mind, these sites were working over 50 years ago, so methods might have changed quite a bit. Combustion of arsenic _will_ produce arsenic trioxide, though. It's actually used in the production of some other stuff, so I guess a lot of gold/copper foundries capture it during roasting and sell it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_trioxide#Production_and_occurrence I don't think mines necessarily _have_ to be destructive. They tend to be run by huge corporations, though. Corporations don't generally give a shit what they do to the environment or their workers as long as they profit. Kind of gives the whole thing a bad reputation.

[@mohammadaladham7721]

Isn't she the same lady from dirty money honey heist

[@christopher9727]

John 3:16-21 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

[@daniellassander]

The math doesnt add up at all, 750 kilos of arsenic trioxide a day. And now we have 237,000 tons of it. That means that the mine has been operating for the past 865 years 7 days a week. If you want to make a credible story at least get the numbers correct. This mostly seems like people that are greedy and want part of the "gold" because there is dangerous materials under ground. Where else should they store it, i mean at least give us an workable alternative and if there is one, why are you not working on it if you are so worried?

[@iamanidiotsavant]

Daniel Lassander I understood it to be 7,500kg per day. That would change your calculations.

[@espressonoob]

+Daniel Lassander are you dense or just low iq?

[@daniellassander]

That is not an argument at all. sure disagree all you want but if you actually want to change anyones mind including mine you have to actually make an argument. Calling people things is very counterproductive in that pursuit. I dont think you are stupid, you disagree with me which is perfectly fine that is your right.

[@TheCaptainObrian]

a few things, one the actually figure is 7400 kg not 750 kg, its also specified that that was just for the first three years. It could of easily increased after that. Finally and most important that figure is the amount that was released into the atmosphere (going up the stack) to spread across the local land, far more of the arsenic triocxide would of stayed at the mine.

[@daniellassander]

I was wrong about the number i do admit that my memory decived me there. First of all i would like to point out that arsenic trioxide is a byproduct of how they extracted the gold out of the rock or from the smelting process as is the case for copper which is the largest villain when it comes to arsenic trioxide by orders of magnitude. For hundreds of years we extracted copper from raw rock rich in coppar, arsenic trioxide is a gas (at that temperature) that is being released by that same rock as you heat it up, so why are they focusing on a gold mine and not a copper mine? That would by default release far more arsenic trioxide. So the example would be copper smelting emits atmospheric arsenic trioxide, gold extracting emits solid arsenic trioxide. So why are they focusing on a gold mind and not the copper industry? Which is by far the biggest villain in this case. My reason would say, they are greedy and wants the money because "arsenic trioxide" without even so much take a look at the actual world for their claim. In the case of gold extraction arsenic trioxide is a byproduct of the extraction process, in the case of copper it comes from the smelting of the copper as copper is rich in arsenic in its natural state.

[@michaeldomansky8497]

All the "chicken little" scenarios ...... These are tree-hugging career building boondoggles ....

[@Crispman_777]

So... you want people to die from cancer and arsenic poisoning?

[@scottbaker4314]

The people who are mad are just the ones who didn't capitalize off it. Who gives a shit just leave it alone. Move out or ignore it.

[@silvertayuun]

Scott Baker you’re an idiot

[@feryth]

So you should just move out when someone robbed your house and burned it down? Hey, you can't live in it anymore anyway.

[@feryth]

Look here, an adult insulting the opposition because he's got no intelligent arguments. Pathetic. edit: seems like the comment is deleted... Scott Baker said: "Are you a TALIBAN goat humming Muslim?" i.imgur.com/3eNq6Y3_d.jpg

[@espressonoob]

+Scott Baker americans LUL

[@pluto8404]

These people did profit off it. And they took money for their dead children. All they care about is money, and are just complaining to get reparations

[@mattbogdalamatt4685]

Typical natives complaining about mining and "their land"

[@Crispman_777]

I mean they were there before anyone else...

[@cyberschn1tzel997]

Crispman 777 that, and knowingly poisoning water especially under settlements cannot be excused

[@Crispman_777]

Cyberschn1tzel Exactly.