The province has taken a step toward long-awaited work to rehabilitate the Long Lake Gold Mine site, which has been leaching arsenic into area drinking water for years.
Late last month, rock drilling began on Lakes End Road along the south shore of Long Lake to help open up the historic mine site for subsequent rehabilitation work to be completed by 2029.
The Long Lake Gold Mine access route is a 20.6-kilometre network of roads made up of existing public and private roadways.
Sudbury.com visited the south shore of Long Lake Road to speak with area residents earlier this week, and found 15-year area resident Brent Bostrom walking his dog.
“I’m very proud of the government for stepping up and getting it done,” he said, adding that the mining company should have left the landscape “pristine” when the mine shuttered almost a century ago, and that their failure to do so was “irresponsible.”
“It’s an unbelievable and huge undertaking to protect the environment," he said. “I’m very proud of how the Ministry of (Energy and) Mines has handled this.”
Bostrom serves on the Long Lake Roads Board, through which he helps advocate for area roads and works as an intermediary between provincial officials and area residents.
Between consultations and working to mitigate roadwork impacts to area residents, he said the province “did their due diligence,” and credits the road improvements the province has planned to complete as not only aiding in mine rehabilitation efforts, but also benefiting the broader community into the long-term.
The road work which began last month was initially anticipated to bring 70 trucks per day down area roads, which are a mix of pavement and gravel. However, Bostrom said, the government brought this number down to approximately 10 by establishing a quarry in the area.
The contaminated mine site is at the southwest of Long Lake and flows westward into Round Lake and eventually into Lake Panache. Although some residents around Long Lake might be affected by higher-than-acceptable arsenic levels, Bostrom said the greatest long-term concern is with residents of Atikameksheng Anishnawbek to the west.
Sudbury.com reached out to Atikameksheng spokespeople for comment but did not receive a response.
The Ontario Drinking Water Quality Standard for arsenic is 10 ug/L, which Nickel Belt NDP MPP France Gélinas said the area around the old mine site has exceeded by as much as 400 per cent.
The province’s Mine Rehabilitation Section did not respond to Sudbury.com’s inquiry requesting current arsenic levels.
“The drinking water standard is based on arsenic’s role as a carcinogen based on a lifetime’s or long-term exposure,” a Public Health Sudbury and Districts spokesperson told Sudbury.com. “The levels reported in the water in the southwest end of Long Lake were not high enough to cause short-term physical responses.”
(The Public Health Sudbury and Districts deferred to the province to share details on arsenic levels, as they’re not responsible for ongoing monitoring or rehabilitation efforts.)
Although she said it’s promising to see the province move the needle forward on the mine rehabilitation effort, Gélinas is not holding her breath.
After all, Gélinas said she has been drawing attention to the environmental hazard since 2009, and Public Health Sudbury and Districts has had a drinking water advisory in place since 2012.
“It is just awful,” Gélinas said.
“You don’t need to be a chemist to know what arsenic can do. It kills the vegetation, it kills the fish, the birds that eat the fish, the raccoons and the fox who eat the birds who eat the fish … you get the point.”
Flagged as a “top priority” in provincial mine rehabilitation efforts in 2012, Gélinas said that 13 years of relative inaction followed until road work commenced last month.
“They go at the rate of a sleepy turtle,” Gélinas said. “It is never a priority; it is always given to someone who either has a full case load of something else or is new to the government and has to learn and read the report and start all over.”
Although the province’s latest timeline includes a 2029 end date for site rehabilitation, Gélinas countered that this isn’t the first timeline the government has promoted, and that past pledges fell by the wayside.
“I have absolutely no faith in them,” she said. “I have zero faith in this government that they take mine rehabilitation seriously, although the damages done over a decade could have all been prevented.”
Located southwest of Sudbury, the Long Lake Gold Mine operated intermittently between 1908 and 1939. Some of its 200,000 tonnes of tailings have since eroded into the surrounding environment, causing the environmental hazard being dealt with today.
While preliminary work has taken place in years prior, including the development of a quarry, heavy equipment began rock drilling on Lakes End Road last week to commence a road safety improvements project anticipated to be completed by November 2026.
This work aims to “safely accommodate the temporary increase of traffic resulting from the mine site rehabilitation construction works,” which the province projects to take place from 2027 through 2029, according to the province.
This work will “consolidate, contain and isolate mine tailings, waste rock and contaminated soils while completing progressive rehabilitation to ensure site water discharge arsenic concentration is below the provincial drinking water quality guideline of 10 µg/l.”
Sudbury.com requested a phone interview through provincial spokespeople on Aug. 25 but was denied.
A written statement attributable to Minister of Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce was sent last Wednesday, which did not answer many of the questions Sudbury.com sent.
This approach is consistent with past correspondence with provincial ministries.
“Rehabilitating the Long Lake Gold Mine remains a priority for the Ministry of Energy and Mines to ensure safety in the region,” Lecce said. “We have made tangible progress on roadwork this summer, and the government will proceed once the rehabilitation design, regulatory approvals, and access road safety improvements are complete.”
Lecce’s statement went on to promote Bill 5, Protect Ontario by Unleashing Our Economy Act 2025, and criticize the NDP for voting against this and other legislation tabled by the Progressive Conservative government regarding Ontario’s resource economy.
In conversation with Sudbury.com, Gélinas said, “They passed Bill 5, which will pass the development of new mines, but developing isn’t enough. You have to have a closing plan.”
Unanswered questions which were sent to Lecce included, verbatim:
- Given that the province has known about high levels of arsenic since 2009, a drinking water advisory has been in place since 2012 and the province has had a rehabilitation plan in place since 2013, what has been the cause of the delay in the province proceeding with rehabilitation work?
- Is this decade-plus delay indicative of the province's commitment to mine rehabilitation?
- Nickel Belt NDP MPP France Gélinas is skeptical that the site will be rehabilitated by 2029, as planned. How certain is the province of this timeline, and what assurance would they offer area residents?
- What is the projected cost of the access road and rehabilitation work?
Regardless of her pessimism, Gélinas said she hopes the province follows through.
“Government, take your responsibility seriously,” she said. “We know what to do, we agree with the plan, get it done.”
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
