Mt. Polley is in the process of submitting an application for an early restart, although the results of an investigation into what caused the mine’s tailings pond to breach have yet to be released.
Steve Robertson, Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Imperial Metals, says the sooner the company submits their application to the provincial government the better.
“The potential is there to wait until we have the results of the geotechnical investigation and the report from the panel, but we see the timelines as being fairly long to able to go through that process.”
“This temporary restart proposal is to be able to keep our workforce fully employed so we don’t lose our skilled workers who have contributed so much to the operation.”
Robertson says he does not believe the results of the investigation, will impact the application.
“We’d actually be taking the tailings from the plant and putting it down into one of the old pits, the Springer Pit, and that would be our temporary tailings impoundment just to bridge the gap between that and a potentially more permanent restart.”
“We’re putting forward an application that should allow the government to see clear, to be able to approve a restart, without having the geotechnical investigation results in hand.”
Robertson, says the company which has already been in talks with First Nations, is working to put the finishing touches on the application which will be submitted before the end of the year.
The geotechnical results from an independent investigation on what caused the breach are not expected to be released until January 31st.