RE: Vale targets pristine lake for tailingsI believe that Marathon was thinking of doing the same thing with their Marathon Project near Thunder Bay until the locals started attending meetings and generally fighting this option. Last I heard they had changed that but it will be interesting to see if Stillwater follows suit.
I watched the video presetation by Clifton Star Resources (CFO - Do a Google search) and they are proposing draining an entire lake. It's a prior mine that's flooded over the years but there's no mistaking that body of water as a lake, though I guess it makes a difference if it's a natural body of water versus an old mine that's just been left to flood. Either way that's one Hell of a dewatering project just to get that mine back to it's once dry state.
I'd be hazarding a guess here but I don't think this kind of issue would fly in the US (rightly or wrongly) and the majority of miners would choose to avoid such a scenario here. Water issues have killed more than one mining proposal. And living here in the Pacific Northwest, they've killed a lot of logging jobs too by using the same strategy. (Here's how they decided to do something about that.
https://www.forestsandfish.com/ )
Anyway, these kinds of issues can be painfully interesting to watch, especially if you are one of the stockholders waiting for the project to progress. Otherwise and no matter which side of the border your project is on, these kinds of issues can also be known as the kiss of death. I'd simply recommend avoiding these dangers at all costs....