Fred Brackebusch ‘Paste Backfill’ Knowledge Keeps Him Too Busy To Mine For Gold

Fred Brackebusch belongs to an exclusive club that keeps him globe-hopping to mining operations on every continent.

Life as a consulting engineering expert has excitement, but what Brackebusch really wants to do is settle down and run a gold mine in the heart of the Silver Valley.

As a specialist in the applications of “paste technology” for mine backfilling and tailings disposal, Brackebusch includes industry giants like Kennecott, Newmont Gold and Placer Dome on his client list.

When he leaves his home office in Kellogg for a day in the field, his destination could be almost anyplace in the world.

“It’s kind of worrisome sometimes, because somebody will want you to go to South America and somebody else will want you in Europe at the same time,” Brackebusch said from his daylight basement headquarters of Mine Systems Design, a business he opened in 1987.

“I’ve been to Australia and the Philippines twice this year. I’ve got jobs in Russia, Peru and Ireland, and I just started a project in Turkey.”

When he started his consulting business, Brackebusch figured his expert status would be a “temporary assignment.”

After 10 years of temporary duty, he said demand for his services “doesn’t seem to be letting up.”

What he brings to the mining companies is a technological niche - and a patent he holds on the process - which combines mine tailings and cement to put waste products to work.

“Paste backfill is used primarily for ground support, so the mine doesn’t collapse on you,” Brackebusch said. “It’s also important for environmental reasons, because it puts half of the tailings back underground.”

He would like the technique to become an industry standard for above-ground tailings disposal, as well, even if that means his patent is pirated by competitors.

“It’s more something to put on my resume than to make a lot of money from,” Brackebusch said. “Besides, there aren’t more than two or three experts in the field, so they’ll be calling me anyway.”

The consultant’s work load is represented by neat stacks of paper awaiting attention on three desks in his office.

His dreams, meanwhile, are piling up in a cardboard box on the floor, where several envelopes are addressed to the New Jersey Mining Co. They contain responses from shareholders of the Plainview Mining Co. who have been offered a 2-for-1 stock trade as part of a merger designed to boost production at the New Jersey gold mine in Kellogg.

The stock offer expires Dec. 31, and Brackebusch expects to call a meeting of Plainview shareholders in January.

“I’ve always been a prospector, but this is the first time I’ve been president of a mining company,” he said.

The prospector-turned-president made the transition during an outing into the mountains around Kellogg.

“I like to hike around in the hills and I just happened to walk up there one day and noticed a large quartz outcrop,” he said. “I took a sample, ran it, and found there was gold in the rock.”

Folks around Kellogg have their doubts about the possibility of any sizeable gold finds nearby. It is, after all, called the Silver Valley. But Brackebusch said the old mine he rediscovered is in the middle of a gold region Noah Kellogg himself once set out to explore.

A wrong turn and a surprise discovery distracted Kellogg.

“He was on his way to the area around the New Jersey mine when he stumbled on the Bunker Hill,” Brackebusch said. “He got lost and ended up two gulches to the west.”

The New Jersey operated from 1903 to 1907, then closed due to low gold prices - about $20 an ounce at the time. New Jersey Gold Mining & Milling lost $1 million in present-day dollars on the venture.

In 1987, Brackebusch and his partners got copies of the original claim patents from the National Archives. They located caved-in tunnel openings and used an excavator to dig them out.

“They’re beautiful little tunnels - five feet wide and seven feet high and just as straight as they can be,” the engineer said.

A total of 2,500 linear feet were driven into the hillside by miners using sheer brawn and dynamite. Deep inside the mine, the tools they left behind made it look like a ghostly work shift would show up to start another day’s digging.

“At the end of the tunnel, the pieces of drill steel and the hammers were still sitting there,” Brackebusch said. “There were still wheelbarrows down there. The wood had rotted away, but the metal was intact.”

Nostalgia aside, this is no underground hobby and Brackebusch is not planning retirement as a gentleman miner. The five officers and directors of the New Jersey Mining Co. have every intention of making money on the 350 acres they now lease.

“We’re serious about trying to make an economic enterprise out of it,” Brackebusch said, “but it is fun along the way.

“Forming my consulting business has been very rewarding,” he continued. “Hopefully, this mine will be the same.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo