John Paglio - Recovery of minerals permit

The Ministry has received an application for a new recovery permit MRA-25-04706, to SAVANT LAKE PARTNERS (“the Applicant”) for the recovery of minerals and mineral bearing substances from tailings and other mine waste materials resulting from mining. The proposed recovery permit activities would occur at St. Anthony Historic Mine Site.

John Paglio (the “Applicant”) has submitted an application for a new recovery of minerals permit # MRA-25-04706 to the Ministry under Part VII of the Mining Act (the “Act”).

If issued, a recovery permit authorizes a permit holder to recover minerals or mineral bearing substances from tailings and/or other mine waste materials resulting from mining without first obtaining an exploration permit or filing a closure plan. If the tailings or other mine waste materials are located on Crown land, the permit holder may also recover minerals and exploit them commercially without a mining claim or lease.

The Applicant has applied for a recovery permit that would allow it to undertake the following recovery and remediation activities in accordance with the Recovery and Remediation Plan which forms part of the permit:

SLP (Savant Lake Partners) are proposing to excavate and process a bulk sample consisting of 15,000 tonnes of tailings, 4,000 tonnes of waste rock and 1,000 tonnes of unprocessed ore stockpiled on surface when the mine was operational. The bulk sample investigation is designed to provide data to further refine the processing system operation and further evaluate the economic feasibility for proceeding to a full-scale mineral recovery project.

Processing of tailings, waste rock and unprocessed ore will be via gravity separation at a plant process rate of 25 tonnes per hour. There will be no chemical additions for gold recovery. The process plant has already been manufactured and consists of a feed bin, a vibrating screen, a 400 millimetres by 600 millimetres jaw crusher feeding to a transfer conveyor that will feed to a roller crusher, then to a double deck screen, and then conveyed transfer to two attrition mills with mill output to a sieve and finally to two Falcon centrifugal concentrators. (Savant Lake Minerals Recovery Technical Study: Baseline Conditions and Potential Impacts to the Environment. Section 4.0, pg. 9-10)

Rehabilitation

No rehabilitation measures are proposed at the end of the bulk sample for the tailings area that will be disturbed during the bulk sampling because rehabilitation of the entire tailings area will be conducted at the end of full-scale operations. A detailed rehabilitation plan will be developed for permit application for the full-scale operation that will show the footprint and final contour of the residual tailings. The tailings are non-acidic, so a cap is not required; however, topsoil will be placed over the tailings, and it will be seeded with a mixture of local vegetation at the end of full-scale operation.

Waste Rock

No rehabilitation measures are proposed at the end of the bulk sample for the waste rock area that will be disturbed during the bulk sampling because rehabilitation of the waste area will be conducted at the end of full-scale operations. Full-scale operation will remove the waste rock; therefore, there will not be a need to conduct capping. The area previously covered by waste rock will be scarified and seeded.

Unprocessed Ore

No rehabilitation measures are proposed at the end of the bulk sample for the unprocessed or area because rehabilitation of the ore area will be conducted at the end of full-scale operations. Full scale operation will remove the unprocessed ore; therefore, there will not be a need to conduct capping. The area previously covered by unprocessed ore will be scarified and seeded. (Recovery Permit and Rehabilitation Plan. Section 4.0, pg. 14-15)

Potential disturbances from the proposed activities are described as:

Potential for Groundwater Contamination During Production

The proposed project relies on the use of fuel storage tanks, diesel generators and heavy machinery. This equipment all poses the risk of a fuel release onto the ground surface. To mitigate this risk, fuel handling and storage mitigations will be put in place to reduce the potential for uncontrolled fuel releases. During mineral recovery operations, there will be one 1000 imperial gallon diesel AST and one 250 imperial gallon gasoline AST on site for equipment refueling. These tanks will be located within containment berms.

Tailings and Waste Rock

Historic tailings deposition has resulted in existing impacts to the local groundwater and is previously described in section 7.1 and 7.2.

The proposed scope of work for this project included the excavation and milling of 15,000 tonnes of gold bearing tailings, 4,000 tonnes of gold bearing waste rock and 1,000 tonnes of ore stockpiled on surface that was not processed when the mine was operational. This process is not anticipated to further degrade local groundwater quality for the following reasons:

1. ABA and SFE analysis of the tailings and waste rock indicated that the material is considered to be not potentially acid generating; and therefore, the results from the SFE, which evaluates parameters that may leach under acidic conditions, are not applicable in assessing potential impacts from the rock. Meaning that metals leaching of the material under acidified conditions is not to be expected.
2. Excavated tailings are proposed to be backfilled into the open excavations. Since the milling process does not include any chemicals, the material placed back in the tailings area would be chemically the same as the material existing there presently. (Savant Lake Minerals Recovery Technical Study: Baseline Conditions and Potential Impacts to the Environment. Section 7.5, pg. 27).

A recovery permit does not relieve the Applicant from compliance with any other requirements that are set out under the Mining Act, its regulations, or any other Act.