Ashland Current On ORV Applicationhttps://ashlandcurrent.com/article/11/09/26/copper-mining-company-pursues-gogebic-range Copper Mining Company Pursues Gogebic RangeArticle | September 26, 2011 - 5:45pm | Claudia BromanAnother mining project is being pursued in the Gogebic Range, and rather than taconite the company is looking for copper.On Monday, a publicly traded company, Orvana Minerals Corp., through a subsidiary called Orvana Resources US Corp, submitted a mine permit application for what the company is referring to as "the Copperwood copper project" to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.The proposed project would be located in both Ironwood and Wakefield townships in Gogebic County of Michigan. According to a February press release from Orvana, the mineral makeup of the proposed project is like that of the White Pine mine, located 18 miles east, where nearly 2 million tons of copper was produced between 1953 and 1996.According to the requirements of the Michigan Nonferrous Metallic Mining regulation, the review of Orvana's application is likely to take about seven months, though it could take longer if the state finds modifications to be necessary.Orvana on Monday issued a news release saying the permit applied for Monday is one of 13 permits it will file with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources as part of operating a mine in Michigan. Within the next 90 days the company anticipates applying for a wetlands fill permit, a wastewater discharge permit, and a permit to install/air discharge."We look forward to this permit review process and are optimistic about a positive outcome," said Bill Williams, president of Orvana USA, and of no apparent connection to Bill Williams of Gogebic Taconite, LLC, a company pursuing a separate taconite mining project in the Gogebic-Penokee Range. "The effort exerted by Orvana's Copperwood team to compile all the data collected, integrate the contributions of the consultants and contractors involved, and organize this 6,000-page document was extraordinary. This effort will continue as we march forward towards an operating mine."The Copperwood project refers to a stratiform copper deposit in shales and siltstones of the lowermost Nonesuch Formation along a shallow-dipping southern limb of the westward-plunging Western Syncline in the Upper Peninsula.Within the deposit the company says copper occurs as very fine-grained chalcocite."Fully-diluted proven and probable reserves are 22.6 million tonnes of 1.37 percent copper and 4.2 grams per tonne silver and 4.6 million tonnes of 1.11 percent copper and 2.8 grams per tonne silver, respectively (total of 798 million pounds of contained copper and 3.5 million ounces of contained silver)," the company's release states.Orvana has plans to mine the deposit with underground room-and-pillar methods and process the ore using conventional flotation technology.Along with the current project proposal, Orvana has options to lease mineral rights on other copper deposits within the Western Syncline."We gratefully acknowledge the overwhelming support of the communities and their representatives and will continue our efforts to make a copper mine a reality in this part of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula,” Williams said in a June press release.Orvana is a multi-mine gold and copper producer, with its primary asset being the El Valle-Boinas/Carles gold-copper project in northern Spain. Orvana also operates the Don Mario Mine in Bolivia.