Troubles halt McClean Lake

The Atomic Energy Control Board’s decision to defer approval of a tailings management facility at the McClean Lake uranium project in northern Saskatchewan has caused project operator Cogema Resources to suspend some work at the site and lay off 120 employees.

Work at the project, just west of Wollaston Lake, will concentrate on bringing the tailings management facility at the JEB open pit into compliance with construction specifications. The mined-out JEB pit was intended to be the containment pit for tailings from the McClean mill, which will process ore from the JEB and Sue open pits, the McClean underground mine, and the Cigar Lake and Midwest Lake uranium mines.

The AECB announced in December that it was withholding final approval of licences for the mill and the tailings impoundment until it had further evidence that the design of the impoundment would meet environmental protection criteria (T.N.M., Dec. 28/98). Construction of the tailings impoundment had been suspended in October 1998 after inspections by the AECB showed that some of the rockfill in an underground filter drain did not meet specifications. Construction resumed in November when that drain was brought into compliance. Cogema now expects production from McClean to begin at the end of April.

Mining of the JEB pit has produced a stockpile that will last about six months, and stripping of the nearby Sue pit has reached the top of the ore zone. Mining is now suspended until the mill is licensed and in operation. Ownership of McClean Lake is divided between Cogema, with 70%, Denison Mines (den-t), with 22.5%, and OURD Canada, with 7.5%.