Northwest B.C. Mine Project Changes Access Plan

Monday, March 02, 2009 03:55 AM

Victoria, B.C.- Redfern Resources Ltd. has received an amendment to its environmental assessment (EA) certificate allowing it to barge materials on the Taku River instead of building a 160 km access road to the Tulsequah Chief Mine project.

The project is a copper, gold, zinc, lead and silver underground mine located 120 km southwest of Atlin. Redfern has approval to construct the access road from Atlin to the mine site, but has proposed barging materials and equipment on the Taku River.

The certificate amendment includes the construction of a barge landing facility, upgrade of a haul road of approximately eight km from the barge landing site to the mine site, and the operation of air cushion barges and towing vessels from the mine site to Juneau, Alaska.

The EAO concluded there will not likely be any significant adverse effects if the amendment is carried out according to the commitments and mitigation measures set out in the certificate amendment.

The amendment to the provincial EA certificate contains 12 commitments that Redfern must implement throughout various stages of the project including:

implement aquatic and wildlife effects monitoring and management plan to identify and address any unforeseen effects during the commissioning and operation of the barge on the Taku River.
Develop and implement a comprehensive spill prevention and contingency plan before starting operations and must provide daily notification of the timing of barge activities on the Taku River to allow those fishing on the Taku to avoid impacts from the passing of the barge.

Use of the barges has yet to be approved by Fisheries and Oceans.

The proposed project is in the traditional territory of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, who have fully participated throughout the review.

The capital cost of the barging proposal is estimated at $50 million and is expected to create 20 jobs. The mine itself has an estimated capital cost of $450 million and is expected to create about 400 construction jobs, as well as about 210 operations jobs during the anticipated eight-year life of the mine.

Previous Story - Next Story

Email |

Print |

Facebook |

Twitter |

Digg |

Del.icio.us

Posted on Monday, March 02, 2009 03:55 AM in News by 250 News

Return to Home

Comments

Posted by: giterdun on March 2 2009 7:56 AM

Sounds to me that there will be a lot of jobs shift from B.C. to Alaska. Not good!
B.C. MLA's should be very vocal on this. You should fight this one PAT.

Posted by: giterdun on March 2 2009 8:01 AM

160 KM of road will employ a lot of people and keep jobs in B.C. You can bet that if a Barge is coming from Alaska then most of the supplies will also come from Alaska.This is not good for Northern B.C.

Posted by: Andyfreeze on March 2 2009 8:22 AM

I don't like this plan at all!
Build a road!
And I agree...B.C.MLA's should be all over this one,but I bet they are not!
The B.C. Liberals do not seem to want anything to do with mining if they can avoid it.
$450 million for an 8 year mine life expectancy seems like a lot?
Must be one heck of a payback!

Posted by: metalman on March 2 2009 8:33 AM

This outfit is planning a start up in Q3, 2010, and to me their proposed set up is very expensive (they make some grandiose statements about the quality of accomodations) I wonder why they don't start right away, as the price of gold is still pretty strong isn't it? Maybe they see gold weakening in the near future.
Check out the website:
redcorp-ventures.com
metalman.

Posted by: DPJ on March 2 2009 9:10 AM

takes time to construct a mine and go into production. By the time its up and running, the metal price will be higher than today (hopefully).

Posted by: woodchipper on March 2 2009 5:24 PM

Build the road and keep going all the way to Juneau.

The US could chip in on the infrastructure costs of what has been planned and surveyed many years ago.

Spend those bucks Obama, and I will go catch your halibut.

This would be a win-win.