Base metal producer Curragh (TSE) is facing charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act after officials from the Yukon Workers’ Compensation Board paid a routine visit to the company’s Faro zinc mine last January.
Robert McClure, acting manager at the compensation board’s Health and Safety Branch in Whitehorse, Yukon, said the charges were laid because oxygen tanks in two ambulances and a first-aid station didn’t contain the required amount of oxygen.
Yukon subcontractor Northland Fleet Services has also been charged with having an unqualified person operating equipment at the Faro mine site and with failing to ensure that the equipment is operated under general safety regulations.
Curragh chief financial officer Adrian White called the charges “a knee jerk reaction to everything that has been happening at the company.” He was referring to publicity relating to the methane explosion at Curragh’s Westray coal mine in Nova Scotia which killed 26 miners.
But McClure said it is up to mining companies to comply with health and safety standards set out by the government. “Not having enough oxygen is a pretty serious situation,” he said.
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