Weight of traditional knowledge discussed at public hearing for Diavik's water licence

Liny Lamberink · CBC

· Posted: Jun 12, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 5 minutes ago

A fistful of Indigenous governments privation to spot much criteria enshrined successful the conditions of Diavik diamond mine's caller h2o licence, to determine that h2o volition beryllium harmless for taste uses.

The Wek'èezhìi Land and Water Board (WLWB) is holding a nationalist proceeding astir the company's exertion for a 10-year h2o licence renewal, astatine the taste centre successful Behchokǫ, N.W.T.,̀ this week. 

The Tłı̨chǫ government, the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, the Łutsel K'e Dene First Nation and the Deninu Kųę́ First Nation are each participating successful the hearing, on with representatives of the national and territorial governments and an biology monitoring board. 

Violet Camsell-Blondin, who presented Wednesday greeting connected behalf of the Tłı̨chǫ government, told the proceeding that some Western subject and Indigenous accepted cognition should beryllium utilized to measure the h2o of Lac de Gras, the tundra water successful which Diavik operates, astir 300 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife.

"Cultural usage criteria should not person a little presumption oregon little clout successful measuring palmy closure and influencing the instrumentality of information deposits," she said.

The WLWB has already required Diavik to incorporated accepted cognition and taste usage criteria successful its plans – but the Tłı̨chǫ, the Łutsel K'e Dene and the Yellowknives Dene want it to person the aforesaid value arsenic technological monitoring and for it to beryllium tied to the instrumentality of information deposits. 

What are taste usage criteria? 

An amendment to Diavik's existent h2o licence required that taste usage criteria beryllium developed for dumping processed kimberlite backmost into the unfastened pits which volition eventually, arsenic portion of closure, beryllium filled with h2o and reconnected to Lac de Gras.

A letter from the Tłı̨chǫ authorities to the committee during that amendment process a fewer years agone describes taste usage criteria arsenic the clarity, temperature, colour, odor and sensation of the water, arsenic good arsenic immoderate unnatural worldly mightiness beryllium successful it.

Diavik held workshops with Indigenous partners to found that criteria and summarized successful a report afterwards that steadfast h2o would look clear, consciousness cold, odor clean, sensation caller and dependable alive. 

"A batch of times subject volition accidental the h2o is good, you could portion it, but they won't portion it," said Patrick Simon, a Deninu Kųę́ First Nation councillor participating successful the hearing, adding that scientists besides usage numbers that are hard to recognize to pass that h2o is safe.

"If I told you, arsenic an Indigenous person, the h2o is good, you tin portion it, I volition not lone portion it but I'll amusement you the freshness of the h2o and the vibrancy, the clarity and adjacent the feeling …. When we're astir atrocious h2o it don't consciousness good. When we're astir bully steadfast water, we consciousness alive, we consciousness connected. It's portion of us."

Simon said taste usage criteria volition assistance Indigenous radical determine whether they privation to portion the h2o and harvest the animals successful and astir Lac de Gras erstwhile Diavik has closed. 

'Flexibility should beryllium maintained,' Diavik says

A determination for the WLWB to make, erstwhile the proceeding is over, is whether accepted cognition and much taste usage criteria should beryllium enshrined successful the conditions of the licence – oregon whether those will be discussed further arsenic portion of the mine's closure plan. 

Diavik has expressed penchant for the latter, stating successful its presumption this week that it "strongly recommends that flexibility should beryllium maintained" by discussing taste usage criteria through the last closure and reclamation program and not establishing "fixed" licence conditions. 

Diavik is already successful the process of creating a accepted cognition monitoring programme with its Indigenous partners that'll beryllium submitted to the onshore and h2o committee for approval. 

"Adding licence conditions mightiness restrict the programme that's successful development. [The program] that really, astatine the extremity of the day, communities are processing for us," said Sean Sinclair, Diavik's manager of closure. "Potentially putting that successful a container done licence conditions … we don't deliberation it would needfully beryllium adjuvant and that it could beryllium much flexibly managed done the closure plan." 

In a letter to the committee up of the hearing, Diavik besides said that there's uncertainty astir however taste usage criteria would beryllium evaluated for regulatory compliance. 

Diavik is trying to acceptable itself isolated from a past of abandoned mines successful the N.W.T by closing responsibly. Its existing h2o licence expires astatine the extremity of the year, and it needs different 1 to wrapper up accumulation successful March 2026, transportation retired closure, and commencement archetypal post-closure monitoring up until 2035. 

The proceeding wraps up successful Behchokǫ̀ connected Wednesday. 

The WLWB is expected to denote its determination astir the h2o licence renewal successful September.