The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor Snow Lake's planned bioleach plant could have a new source of feed. BacTech Environmental Corp. has signed a memorandum of understanding with Hudbay relative to the Anderson Lake mine waste site in Snow Lake. Anderson Lake hosts mine waste _ known as tailings _ from 10 defunct mines in the Snow Lake area. BacTech plans to begin construction this spring on a bioleach plant that will purify _ and extract gold from within _ Snow Lake area tailings. Pursuant to its memorandum with Hudbay, BacTech will drill to obtain samples from the Anderson Lake tailings. BacTech said both it and Hudbay are interested in evaluating the amount of precious metals in the tailings. More specifically, both companies would like to determine the ratio of oxide gold ounces to sulphide ounces in the Anderson tailings. BacTech said it is interested in the identification of sulphide ounces as possible feed for its bioleach plant. BacTech will conduct the drilling program and, if the results show merit, conduct an internal economic study to determine the viability of processing the tailings. The company already has a deal in place to process tailings from the long-idle New Britannia Mine, now known as the Snow Lake Mine. BacTech plans to start construction on the new-to-North America bioleach plant this spring or early summer.
