Anaconda Mining got its marching orders from the provincial Department of Environment on Monday.
The company behind a proposed gold mine in Goldboro was given a list of what information the regulator will require in a Focus Report on the potential environmental impact of a mine before deciding on whether to give it a green light.
Last month, the department found there was insufficient detail in the company’s environmental assessment application.
The letter calls for Anaconda to provide a more detailed description of the preparation, layout, operation and eventual remediation of the proposed mine.
As well, details on how various flora and fauna would be affected, what mitigation measures would be taken and whether contaminated tailing from former mines operated on the same site would be dealt with.
Anaconda president Dustin Angelo was waiting to see the letter on Monday afternoon.
“It’s still yet to be determined,” said Angelo, when asked whether the need for expansion on the environmental assessment would impact the company’s time line.
Anaconda is in the process of collecting a 10,000-tonne bulk sample of rock from the Goldboro site that will be barged to its processing facility in Newfoundland, later this fall, for processing.
The results of that sample will help fill in the blanks in the feasibility study the company plans to complete before making a final decision on whether to go ahead with the mine.
“What we’ve seen thus far (from drilling) is very encouraging about putting a mine in,” said Angelo.
“Ideally we’ve be looking to get a mine in by the latter part of 2021.”
That, he said, remains contingent on passing an environmental assessment and raising the capital.
The company already operates a gold mine on Newfoundland’s Baie Verte Peninsula.
A number of public groups expressed concern that old contamination, from former mine tailings, would be disturbed by the new operation and released into the environment, in response to Anaconda’s environmental assessment application.
The company has an indemnity letter from the province that makes it not responsible for contaminants left from former mines that operated through the late 19th century and early 20th century on the site.
Anaconda states in documents filed as part of its environmental assessment, former contaminated sites disturbed as part of it’s mining operations, will under go remediation to a condition that is better than when the sites were found.
