Hope for Lynn Lake

When we visited the tailings site at Lynn Lake, Audie Dulewich did show us several small plots of hope. Here, in a series of test plots, some people from a University in Olds Alberta came to try a recipe for growing grass on the tailings site. They apparently applied fertilizer and other ingredients and then planted the grass. It is still growing there several years later. It is clear there are ways to start restoring plant life on top of the tailings pile to cover it over and reduce the continued acid leaching which is occurring now.

While the recovery of land which has been badly contaminated by acid mine tailings is complex, it has been done elsewhere and it is time for action to do it at Lynn Lake and at other contaminated sites in Manitoba.

The last three decades of Tory and NDP governments in Manitoba have failed the people of Lynn Lake. The tailings were supposed to be contained by a dyke, but a large amount of tailings were deposited outside the dyke. The result is that the tailings have washed from the pile and contaminated huge areas south of the tailings in the East Tailings Management Area (ETMA). When Audie Dulewich was younger the area shown in the photo above was green boreal forest. Today, it is a wasteland - and in the distance you can see the tailings continue to move south and cause continued die-off of trees.Major action is clearly needed for the people of Lynn Lake. Major action is clearly needed to contain and clear up this situation for the people of Lynn Lake.