South Carolina gold project EIS to miss December target

TORONTO (miningweekly.com – TSX-listed Romarco Minerals, which is developing the Haile gold mine, in South Carolina, in the US, on Thursday said the US Army Corps of Engineers, the lead agency responsible for the project’s environmental-impact statement (EIS, had indicated that the scheduled date of December 14 for publishing the draft EIS would not be met.

The project developer said the main reasons given for the delay were the need to edit previously drafted chapters of the EIS to reflect Romarco's changed mine layout and the need to accurately characterise the potential effect mining would have on the property's surface and groundwater.

Romarco said this was a normal part of the process for developing an EIS.

The Haile project had already suffered a number of schedule setbacks. In May, the company said it would now only receive a decision on its Federal 404 Wetlands permit on August 16, 2013.

The Federal 404 Wetlands permit was the only federal permit Romarco required for the Haile project and the Corps is the federal agency regulating 404 permits.

However, other pending permits included the State 401 Water Quality Certification and the State Mine Operating permit, which had to be obtained from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC.

Romarco said the South Carolina DHEC had indicated that it would schedule its public hearing for the State permits following the filing of the draft EIS by the Corps.

Currently, the Romarco's hydrogeology consultant, AMEC, and the Corps’ third-party contractor were reviewing the hydrological model and the data on which the model was based.

"The Corps had requested that, as cooperating agencies for development of the EIS, the Environmental Protection Agency and DHEC also review the hydrology model and data, and once the discussions had been concluded, the Corps would make adjustments to the permitting schedule.

Romarco said the new mine layout had resulted in a 25% reduction in the impact on wetlands and a 32% reduction of the project's impact streams.

The company’s original 4 231 acre permit area and mine layout submitted to the Corps in its Federal 404 Wetlands permit application showed direct impacts to approximately 161 acres of wetlands and 38 775 linear feet of streams. Romarco had, through the acquisition of additional lands and increasing its permit area to about 4 552 acres, been able to redesign several of its overburden stockpiles and facilities and shift the proposed mill layout slightly to avoid direct impacts to about 40 acres of wetlands and 12 314 linear feet of streams.

«We continue to work closely with the Corps, the third party contractor, cooperating agencies, and interested parties with the goal of moving through the EIS process as quickly as possible without compromising the accuracy and thoroughness of the analysis and documentation required by NEPA [the US National Environmental Policy Act].

"With a third-quarter cash burn of less than $10-million and a current cash position of $71-million, we continue to conserve cash and to take the actions necessary to advance through the permitting process and position the company to finance, build and operate the Haile gold mine," Romarco CEO Diane Garrett said in a statement.

The company's stock traded at 97 Canadian cents apiece on the Toronto bourse on Thursday.

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