RE: RE: Water board's Carmacks copper ruling uphelWhat this means is Western Copper has to go back to the drawing board and find alternatives that are acceptable to the water board.
The proposed sulfuric acid heap leach process is proven and enviromentally safe despite what the water board and opponents say. The process is already safely in use in many locations. It is a closed loop process that keeps everything contained within the operation. Here is a link to Wikipedia that describes the process:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_leaching
Because they had received the enviromental impact approval Western Copper likely took to much for granted when they applied for the water licience and failed to prove to the water board that the process is safe, which they could have done. When they did not get the licence they then stubbornly carried to challenge the water board's jurisdiction to over ride the enviromental assessment approval. Bad move. Western's lawyers should have known better.
Quite clearly this is a managment failing not to have made sure to have addressed all the concerns prior to submitting their application. They were aware there was opposition from interested native and conservationist interests. It appears they failed to educate and provide the interested parties and the water board with all the technical and scientific evidence proving the safety of the process.
There are other milling and recovery methods but the engineers likely recommended this method as the most economical.
This by no means kills Carmacks but it does represent a delay that could have been avoided. Luckily this is not their prime project and Western does not have to start from scratch again. They just have to return to the water board and overcome the objections.
The exact same thing happened with Taseko when they pushed on ahead with their Prosperity project in the face of strong opposition to their proposal to dump tailings into Fish Lake. Taseko had received provincial enviromental approval but the Federal government did not approve their proposal. After being refused Taseko's share price fell back but since has recovered. Taseko still had its Gibralter mine operation that was doing well and Taseko is now presenting an alternative plan for Prosperity that does not include destroying Fish Lake. Here also they do not have to start from scratch but just have to return and address the objections with their alternative plan.