Eldorado Resources was a Canadian

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the econom ...

company active between 1926 and 1988. The company was originally established by brothers Charles and

Gilbert LaBine Gilbert A. LaBine, (10 February 1890 – 8 June 1977) was a Canadian prospector who, in 1930, discovered radium and uranium deposits at Port Radium, Northwest Territories. He has become known as the father of Canada's uranium industry. ...

as a gold mining enterprise in 1926, but transitioned to focus on

radium Radium is a chemical element with the symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rat ...

in the 1930s and

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

beginning in the 1940s. The company was nationalized into a

Crown corporation A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the government ...

in 1943 when the Canadian federal government purchased share control. Eldorado Resources was merged with the

Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation The Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation (SMDC) was a provincial crown corporation established in 1974 by the Government of Saskatchewan to manage the government's interests in exploration and mining in the province. It was active in the ex ...

in 1988 and the resulting entity was privatized as Cameco Corporation. The remediation of some mining sites and low-level nuclear waste continue to be overseen by the Government of Canada through Canada Eldor Inc., a subsidiary of the Canada Development Investment Corporation.

History

Eldorado was originally established as Eldorado Gold Mines but, after finding

radioactive Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consi ...

deposits at Great Bear Lake,

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...

in 1930, the company transitioned to primarily mining radioactive materials. Gilbert LaBine directed the company's development of the Eldorado Mine at Port Radium, Northwest Territories and built a state-of-the-art

refinery in Port Hope,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

in 1933. In addition to radium, Eldorado also produced

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pink ...

, and

salts. Radium production halted 1940 when

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

closed European markets for radium material. Uranium was useless until scientists realized the enormous energy potential of the uranium atom. The company reopened the mine at Port Radium in 1942 to supply the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

military with uranium products. The

Government of Canada The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown-i ...

nationalized the company by purchasing share control in 1943. and in early 1944 the name was changed to Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited. In mid-1943 the District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District, Lt-Col Kenneth Nichols had several queries from Canada relating to contracts Canadian firms Eldorado Gold Mines and Consolidated Mining and Smelting (CMS) had for the secret atomic bomb project; CMS or Cominco was building a heavy water plant at

Trail, British Columbia Trail is a city in the West Kootenay region of the Interior of British Columbia, Canada. It was named after the Dewdney Trail, which passed through the area. The town was first called Trail Creek or Trail Creek Landing, and the name was short ...

and Eldorado was mining and processing uranium ore. He phoned C. D. Howe in Ottawa and arranged to travel on the overnight train to Ottawa and see Howe the next day (June 14). On arriving at the address given Nichols was surprised to find that Howe was the minister of munitions and supply, and found him ''most friendly''. Howe was told about the Manhattan Project, and Nichols was told that Eldorado was now a Crown company. The Crown corporation held a monopoly on uranium prospecting and development in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

until 1948. Together with a discovery of the Port Radium deposits, the Eldorado company opened the Beaverlodge Mine at Uranium City,

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

. It entered production in 1953. In the 1960s the nature of sales changed when the United States military ceased purchasing of Canadian uranium ores for the purpose of atomic weapons, and from then on uranium was produced for power plants. During this period the name of the company was changed to Eldorado Nuclear Limited, with Eldorado Aviation Limited operating flights to Port Radium. The Eldorado corporate records are housed in the National Archives of Canada.

Port Hope, Ontario

Port Hope has the largest volume of historic low-level

wastes in Canada, created by Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited and its private sector predecessors. By 2010 when it was projected that it would cost well over a billion dollars for the soil remediation project of the

brownfield In urban planning, brownfield land is any previously developed land that is not currently in use. It may be potentially contaminated, but this is not required for the area to be considered brownfield. The term is also used to describe land pre ...

, it was the largest such cleanup in Canadian history. The effort is projected to be complete in 2022. According to their 2014 report, the Canadian Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) noted that the liability for the Port Hope, Ontario contaminated site was $1 billion, whereas the Big Five other polluters (namely Faro mine, Colomac mine,

Giant mine The Giant Mine was a gold mine located on the Ingraham Trail, north of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Giant Mine was within the Kam Group, a part of the Yellowknife greenstone belt. Gold was discovered on the property and mineral claims sta ...

, Cape Dyer-DEW line, Goose Bay Air Base) had a combined liability of $1.8 billion.

Former mine sites (partial list)

* Eldorado Mine (Northwest Territories) *

Umisk Island Umisk Island is a small island in Beaverlodge Lake, Northern Saskatchewan, Canada. The island has a public picnic area. The west shore of the island was the site of exploratory uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and ...

References

{{Reflist Defunct mining companies of Canada Uranium mining companies of Canada Former Crown corporations of Canada Uranium City, Saskatchewan 1988 mergers and acquisitions Canadian companies established in 1926 Non-renewable resource companies disestablished in 1988 Non-renewable resource companies established in 1926 Canadian companies disestablished in 1988