Jason Unrau
Northern News Services
Wednesday, March 05, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - A proposal by Tamerlane Ventures Inc. to extract lead and zinc at the old Pine Point Mine site provided Michael Miltenberger, former environment minister, the opportunity to regale the legislative assembly with a brief history lesson last week.

"It was interesting to note that Tamerlane, when you look it up on Google or in the dictionary, under one of the most notorious despots in the world that looted, pillaged, murdered and raped his way from India through Asia and died on his way to China, is the name of this company," Miltenberger said.

This paved the way for further history musings from Miltenberger; this time beginning a little bit closer to home.

"I understand the principal from Giant Mine, who also left us with what Giant Mine is today, is the principal of this company," he went on. "They want to go back into a mine site that has never been remediated... So we'll have Giant Mine with 300,000 tonnes of arsenic trioxide and on the other side, we have the old Pine Point mine site with an enormous tailings pond."

Despite Miltenberger's dire predictions, Hay River South MLA Jane Groenewegen was bullish in her support of potentially reopening Pine Point for business, using her member's statement to talk of the economic spinoff for her region.

"Hay River was seriously and severely impacted when the Pine Point Mine closed down," she said. "That was a community of almost 2,000 people that did a lot of business in Hay River and supported a lot economic activity in our community."

Groenewegen noted that with a "significantly modernized" environmental review process she was confident any new mining activity, "will benefit the North and also respect our environment."

On Jan. 16, approximately 40 people attended a Hay River meeting to hear about plans Tamerlane Ventures Inc. have to reopen the mine site, first with a test mine.

This test would mean mining a one-million-tonne lead and zinc sample on the west side of Buffalo River approximately 100-kilometres west of Fort Resolution. It would involve transporting half-a-million tonnes of material to the railroad at Hay River. If the test is successful, Tamerlane is looking to mine a further 70 million tonnes in 34 known deposits on the Pine Point property, east and west of Buffalo River. According to Tamerlane, the project would employ 250 to 400 people over 20 years.

- with files from Paul Bickford