The Same Old Song. Privatize Profits, Socialize Costs.

When will we learn? 

The Faro mine was supposed to be a boon for the Yukon. It was said to be the largest open-pit lead/zinc mine in the world. Now it stands abandoned, Ottawa left to pick up the tab for remediation.

On February 15, Canada signed a $108 million contract with Parsons Inc. for construction management and two years of care and maintenance on the Faro mine site.

Parsons, one of the largest players in remediation in the world, boasts that their “contract could span over 20 years and exceed $2 billion.”

Ottawa has budgeted just 2.2 billion in funding over 15 years but that's for eight mines in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. The Faro mine has already sucked 600 million dollars out of the federal treasury.

Geology drove the creation of the mine, and drives the clean-up. The tailings, which cover an area equivalent to over 26,000 football fields, creates acid-rock drainage, which, if not mitigated, grows worse over time. There are an estimated 70 million tonnes of tailings and 320 million tonnes of waste rocks on the Faro site.

Lewis Rifkind of the Yukon Conservation Society says the cleanup is a perfect example of "disaster capitalism." Faro went through several owner/operators including the now defunct Dome Petroleum. The mine is abandoned, the jobs are gone, Ottawa is left holding the bag, passing it off as a reconciliation effort with First Nations.

The owners waived a mine and a town into existence essentially in the middle of nowhere, and convinced authorities to build a new hydro dam and improve highways; and for banks and governments to open their wallets with an assortment of loans, loan guarantees and grants — sometimes referred to as “other people’s money”. A book of the same name documents the rise and fall of one of the Faro mine owners, Dome Petroleum.

Maybe it will cost 2 billion to clean up the Faro mine. If that sounds like a lot, it's chump change compared to the tab Ottawa will be picking up for remediation of Alberta's very own Love Canal, the Athabasca Tar Sands.