07:28 AM EDT, 08/16/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Victoria Gold Corp.'s ( VITFF ) chief executive officer John McConnell says he regrets staying silent while the company was in crisis, and suspects June's catastrophic cyanide spill at its Yukon mine was caused by an uncontrolled buildup of fluid, The Globe and Mail newspaper is reporting.

It noted four million tonnes of cyanide-laced rocks collapsed at the outdoor heap-leaching facility on June 24 and half of that spilled into the local environment beyond the company's containment zone. The scale of the environmental damage is unknown, but the local First Nation fears the spill could devastate salmon fisheries, hunting grounds and groundwater. Dozens of dead fish were recently found in a creek near the mine and groundwater in the vicinity of the mine will have to be monitored for toxic cyanide for years to come.

Victoria Gold ( VITFF ) on Wednesday was put into receivership after Justice Barbara Conway of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice concluded that the Toronto-based miner wasn't handling the emergency with enough urgency, and it likely won't be able to fund the remediation of the site, which is now expected to cost up to $150-million.

The report noted heap leaching involves stacking mined ore into outdoor piles and then sprinkling it with water laced with cyanide. Gold leaches from the ore into a lined pond and it is then pumped to an enclosed facility, where it is collected. The operation must be monitored continuously to make sure the rock piles are stable, the cyanide solution is effectively percolating through the ore and there are no leaks in the piping system.

While Connell said investigators will ultimately determine the root cause of the rock collapse, he suspects it was caused by fluid collecting on the rock pile causing a massive instability.

"I use the analogy if you had a pile of sand three feet high, and you stuffed a garden hose in at the top, and pushed it down towards the bottom, then turned on the water, it would fluidize some of the sand. It would blow out the side, and above it would collapse into it," he said.

"How the water got there, whether it was a broken pipe, or a valve left open, I have no idea."

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