Faro Mine: Monthly Archives - October 2007
Elders tour to learn more about mine remediation
October 22, 2007
Elders from Pelly Crossing and Ross River, along with a few other
members from their communities, took advantage of a unique opportunity
to learn more about the proposed closure alternatives for the Faro Mine
complex.
In early October, fifteen people from the communities travelled to
northern BC, accompanied by Bill Slater, who is the technical manager on
the Faro Mine Closure project. Bill Price, who is part of the expert
technical review group for the Faro Mine Closure Project, led the tour.
Participants visited one mine that is currently in operation and two
closed mines. The three-mine, three-day field tour took them to
Goldcorp's Equity Silver mine, Northgate's Kemess Mine and Xstrata's
Bell mine, all near Smithers BC.
Each of these mines has something in common with Faro and showed
examples of features like tailings storage dams, groundwater collection,
and soil covers. For instance, Equity Silver produced about the same
amount of ore as Faro and has been closed since 1994. The closure plan
at Equity Silver has been completed. One of the most important parts of
the closure plan was building soil covers on the waste rock dumps.
Ongoing activities at Equity Silver include maintaining covers,
collecting groundwater, monitoring the environment, and treating water.
These components and activities are all similar to what will be done at
Faro.
For more information on the specific details of the tour sites and the
highlights for the partipants, look for our November Faro Mine Closure
UPDATE newsletter that will soon be available in communities to every
mailbox and on our website.