Alaskan permits stalled for Echo Bay

A report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is stalling the permitting process required to reopen the historic Alaska-Juneau gold mine.

The project is owned by Echo Bay Mines (TSE). A Technical Assistance Report (TAR) was prepared by EPA at the request of the Army Corps of Engineers, which wanted to know whether the mining operation would meet federal requirements for water quality under Section 402 of the Clean Water Act.

The TAR conclusions reaffirmed a Bureau of Land Management environmental impact statement (EIS) in 1992, which concluded that discharges from the proposed tailings pond would violate effluent limits for suspended solids and that any discharge into the Gastineau Channel would likely violate Alaska’s water-quality standards for cyanide, arsenic and copper.

Echo Bay strongly disagrees with the TAR conclusions, which it says are based on old data and the examination of worst-case situations which could arise during and after operation of the mine. Since 1992, the company has collected additional technical data and analyses and has proposed alternative procedures, such as the elimination of the cyanide process; spokesmen for Echo Bay say this new information was not adequately addressed in TAR. The company will not, however, challenge TAR’s findings; rather, it is willing to work with the Corps of Engineers and EPA to reconsider technical alternatives.

It is also up to the Corps of Engineers to issue a federal permit under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act because the proposed tailings pond would be constructed in a wetlands area.

Echo Bay wishes to emphasize that the project is “by no means dead,” although it concedes there may be a delay of some length. It says a further EPA review, together with some sort of amendment to EIS, may be necessary. Total historic lode production from the Alaska-Juneau system is 3.5 million oz. gold, 1.9 million oz. silver and 40.2 million lb. lead. The underground operation was one of the largest gold mines in North America during the early part of the century. Mining ceased in 1944.

Echo Bay, which acquired the property in the mid-1980s, has delineated 67.1 million tons grading 0.051 oz. gold per ton.

Meanwhile, the company has received another TAR, for the Kensington gold project 45 miles north of Juneau.

The report asked that six conditions be met, after which the project would be able to proceed within acceptable quality standards. The company will comply with the EPA recommendations and hopes to obtain the permits in 1995. Echo Bay owns half of the property and will act as operator; the other half is owned by Coeur d’Alene Mines (NYSE).