A Vancouver-based mining company is considering the viability of processing the large quantities of waste rock on Mount Sicker, left over from mining operations that occurred on the mountain mainly from 1895 to 1905, for valuable minerals.
There are massive piles of waste rock on the mountain left from the Tyee, Lenora and Richard III mines, in places as much as 50-feet high, and Sasquatch Resources Corp. believes it’s a good bet that any waste rock and/or tailings associated with the mining operations might have decently high grades of remaining gold, silver, copper and zinc.
Pete Smith, Sasquatch Resources’ CEO, said that’s because the older mining methods that were used at the time were not anywhere near as efficient as they are today.
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He said mineral extraction from the processed ore was lower, and miners were less concerned about ensuring that all the higher-grade ore ultimately made it to the processing facility.
“The idea for us, from an exploration perspective, would be to first get a better idea of exactly how much waste rock there is and then try to determine what the average grades are for all that waste rock,” Smith said.
“We’ve taken samples from each waste pile and as expected, we have found high grades for gold, silver, copper and zinc in many of those samples. However, we now need to take more and larger samples so we can get a more representative idea of what the grades are for the whole pile.”
Smith said that once the company has determined the grades and volumes of the minerals present in the piles more definitively, Sasquatch will put all the information into a financial model and try to determine if processing the waste rock piles is financially viable.
To this end, Smith said Sasquatch has secured the services of Vancouver-based Tetra-tech, which has already had a team visit the site.
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“We are expecting an early report from them soon, but we don’t expect to have definitive answers to these questions for at least several months,” he said.
“I’ll stress that we are in the very early stages to assessing the waste rock potential, and it’s certainly possible that the numbers ultimately won’t work and there’ll be no need to consider the waste rock potential any further. Also, any extraction and/or processing of the waste rock is probably several years and many permits away from taking place.”
Smith pointed out that because the waste rock is rather unsightly and does not appear to have been properly remediated at the time, it presents an opportunity to “turn back the clock” and finally deal with the old mining operation leftovers properly.
He said the waste piles cover many acres and they stand out as an eyesore in an otherwise pristine environment.
“Any plan to process the old waste rock would need to be accompanied by a remediation plan that would almost certainly leave Mount Sicker in a better state than it is now,” he said.
“As well, any processing operation focusing on the waste rock at Mount Sicker would be a far less intrusive operation than a more traditional, full-scale mine. It would have lighter and more mobile equipment, leave less of a footprint, and will likely be in operation for a far shorter period of time [possibly around five years].”
Smith said the other ongoing focus of Sasquatch on Mount Sicker is to evaluate all the historical data and determine if there is any significant value of the minerals left in the underground systems that were previously mined there.
“To this end, we have employed a local geologist from Duncan who is taking hundreds of historical drill holes and creating a 3-D model so we can try and ascertain if there are sections below the ground that were either not fully mined or were overlooked,” he said.
“As with our consideration of the waste rock, we are in the early stages on this front as well and we are likely years away from any mining, which would of course be subject to stringent permitting. We have started creating models of various specific areas, but are nowhere near finishing our analysis of all the old drill holes and historical mining areas, nor are we near making any definitive determinations about whether an economic opportunity exists in the [underground systems].”
robert.barron@cowichanvalleycitizen.com
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