Victoria Gold Corp. and various Yukon officials are continuing to stymie media efforts to learn more about Monday’s serious environmental incident at the Eagle Mine near Mayo.

A landslide has impacted the pad for the heap leaching process, which involves the use of cyanide to extract the gold.

No new information has been released since Monday through official channels.

The Yukon government has not provided any interview opportunities nor even new prepared statements since noon Monday.

Early this afternoon a government representative said, “government staff were on the ground at the Eagle Gold Mine shortly after the failure of the heap-leach facility on Monday to assess and monitor the situation.”

The company is pumping contaminated water into storage ponds.

Trevor Ellis, the mayor of Mayo, did not wish to speak about the situation Tuesday morning when contacted at his day job by The Yukon Star. Efforts to speak to him at a pre-arranged time that afternoon also failed.

The First Nation of Nacho Nyäk Dun has also not responded to efforts to contact them. That government issued a statement on Facebook on Monday.

Both the Yukon Chamber of Mines and the Yukon Conservation Society also have not offered any comments.

The conservation society promised The Yukon Star a statement by mid-afternoon Tuesday, but that failed to materialize.

The Yukon Party issued a statement today after being contacted by the Star.

“The Yukon Party caucus is relieved to hear that no one was injured during the reported heap leach pad failure at Victoria Gold Corp.’s Eagle Gold Mine,” the official Opposition said.

“Like all Yukoners, we are concerned about any potential environmental consequences from the failure. At this time, the public information available makes it difficult to assess and comment on any potential current and future environmental risks, what remediation may be required, or the future of the mine.

“We are also concerned about the impact on the thousands of Yukoners that depend on the mine, either as employees, contractors, or suppliers.”

The party added that it’s waiting for “updates from the Government of Yukon, Victoria Gold Corp. and the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun so that the next steps can be planned, and Yukoners can better understand what has occurred and the consequences.”

The mine employs approximately 500 people, and it’s believed layoffs have already begun.

A story in The Globe and Mail newspaper suggests the company had $176 million of “in-process inventory,” meaning gold within the leach pad. 

Much of that gold “may now not be recoverable.”

That story added, “Investors are now concerned that Victoria Gold won’t be able to generate enough cash to service its debt load. The company’s shares lost 81 per cent of their value on Tuesday.

A Yukon cabinet spokesperson said this morning plans are in the works to make Energy, Mines and Resources Minister John Streicker available to media representatives, and to provide a technical briefing on the situation for reporters.