Different Story Emerges Regarding Cigar Lake Flood

Different Story Emerges Regarding Cigar Lake Flood

Friday, December 01, 2006 at 15:58

A contractor is disputing Cameco’s version of how a recent flooding of the Cigar Lake mine site unfolded.

Michael Pacquette tells the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix that he was one of the last workers to come to the surface after the flooding began on October 22nd.

Pacquette says his life and the lives of some of his colleagues were put at risk during the evacuation — a far cry from Cameco CEO Jerry Grandey’s assessment of that day.

Grandey told the media that all of the underground workers were evacuated in an “orderly” fashion.

Pacquette says workers overloaded the only elevator to the surface, and weren’t even sure it was going to work.

He also says, at one point, he had to be pulled from the water by some co-workers — one of whom suffered rib and jaw injuries.

Those incidents happened after they had been told to try to fix a bulkhead door that was failing to stop the flooding from spreading.