Court approves plan for bankrupt Yukon mine

The abandoned Mount Nansen mine is one step closer to being cleaned up after the courts approved a proposal to develop an abandonment plan and sell the assets.

Theopen pit gold and silver mine was abandoned in 1999 after its owners, BYG Resources, went into receivership.

This week, Yukon Supreme Court Justice Ron Veale approved the sale of assets, clearing the way for the government to makeplans to clean up the environmental mess left behind.

Yukon government project manager Hugh Copeland said it will takebetween $10 million and $20 million to clean up the site.

"It should take two to three years to do that work,"Copeland said.

"Hopefully, on this site, it may be one we can walk away from.That there won't be perpetual water treatment going on forever. That we can walk away and then look at the possibility of selling off those claims or other assets in that core area."

The government will co-ordinate the cleanup with the area's Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation, he said.

It is costing the federal government about $1 million annually to look after the site.

The defunct Mount Nansen mine is about 60 kilometres west of Carmacks in the central Yukon.