Hope Bay closer to expansion
NIRB to consult communities on mine sites
Beth Brown
Northern News Services
Monday, February 6, 2017
KITIKMEOT
Community consultations for the expansion of TMAC Resource's Kitikmeot gold mine will take place throughout the region from Feb. 27 to March 3.
The public meetings, led by the Nunavut Impact Review Board, come following the board's Jan. 18 approval of a draft environmental impact statement submitted by TMAC on Dec. 28.
The seven-volume statement covers two mine sites that will expand the company's existing gold mine along the greenstone belt at Doris North.
The expansion is known as the Phase 2 Hope Bay Project and is located east of Bathurst Inlet, about 150 kilometres southwest of Cambridge Bay. The two sites on the 80-kilometre Hope Bay belt are known as Madrid North and South, and Boston.
On Jan. 18 and 19, the NIRB released over 100 technical documents connected with its review of the environmental impact statement.
While these documents are available to be viewed by all members of the public, the community consultations will provide an opportunity for the NIRB to explain the project in more general terms, said the review board's executive director Ryan Barry.
"Throughout the region there is a lot of interest in the Doris North development," said Barry. "This is the next phase in proposed development down that Hope Bay belt."
Phase 2 will include construction of an all-weather road between the two mine sites, and the expansion of a 500-metre gravel airstrip to 2,000 metres at the Boston site.
The project expects to employ around 70 people in the first year of construction and increase employment to over 300 by the end of the third construction year.
"During the 14 years of mining operations, approximately 800 people will be employed," stated TMAC's draft environmental impact statement plain language summary.
The summary also noted that public support for the project was as high as 73 per cent during May 2016 community consultations in the Kitikmeot region.
The 30-page plain language summary of the project is accessible on the NIRB's website. For readers who want a better understanding of the project prior to the consultation meeting in their hamlet, the summary provides a good overview.
"We get a lot of feedback about wildlife in the area, the movement of water and local (weather) conditions, that sort of thing," said Barry.
"There are concerns, certainly from residents who have grown up in or still harvest around those areas."
He said the NIRB will conclude this portion of its review by spring.
"We continue to monitor the Doris North project and that helps to increase the amount of knowledge we (have) on the effect of operations in the Hope Bay area. That information is useful to inform our assessment of any further proposed developments."
The process also requires feedback from the Nunavut Water Board.
"Now we wait," said Ann Wilkinson, vice president of investor relations for TMAC Resources.
The regulatory process requires considerable back-and-forth between the review board and the proponent.
"We expect this will take two to three years," she said.
The life of the Phase 2 project from construction to closure is expected to be 17 years.
The company hopes to start work at Madrid by 2020 and at Boston by 2022, as Doris North is starting to wind down, said Wilkinson.
TMAC expects Doris North to come into full production within the first quarter of 2017, but the company has been successfully mining at the site for the past 15 months, she said.
A gold processing plant installed at Doris North after the fall sealift has the capacity to process 1,000 tonnes of material per day.
"We expect to sell somewhere between 130,000 and 140,000 ounces of gold in 2017," she said.
A second plant to be installed next year will double that capacity in 2018.
These processing plants will also be used during the life span of the Madrid and Boston sites.
