Giant Mine ambient air quality monitoring program

Challenge

SLR has provided site perimeter fugitive dust monitoring, meteorological and community-based air quality monitoring for the Giant Mine Remediation Project in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories Canada for over 7 years.

The objective of the programme is to help ensure remediation activities will not adversely affect the residents or environment. Giant Mine is a former gold mine that ceased operations in 2004 and is in the initial stages of a major sitewide remediation programme to remove arsenic trioxide resulting from previous mining activities and asbestos containing materials associated with on-site building structures.

Solution

SLR’s air quality team began monitoring at Giant Mine in 2013 and was recently awarded a contract extension to continue the on-site and community air quality monitoring programme through March 2021. The ongoing programme includes continuous particulate matter monitors on the perimeter of the mine site to evaluate dust levels and composition. Real-time monitoring data is provided to construction managers, along with alarms when short-term action levels are exceeded, to assist with the implementation of appropriate and effective emission control measures.

SLR installed and continues to operate three community-based air monitoring stations. These community stations measure real-time particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) as well as 24-hr integrated samples of total suspended particulate (TSP), PM10, and asbestos. Integrated TSP samples are analysed for total mass, arsenic, and metals. Real-time NO2 measurements are also conducted at one of the community monitoring stations.

Impact

SLR reports all monitoring results on a daily, weekly, and annual basis. Real-time data are published to a public website as part of the public outreach programme associated with the remediation effort.