Buckhorn Mine moves forward

A new plan to mine gold at Buckhorn Mountain in north-central Washington is receiving its first public airing this week.

After scrapping plans for an open-pit mine and settling on a smaller, underground plan, mine proponents are hoping for favorable community reviews from a series of open houses held by the state Department of Ecology.

“We really feel that we’ve gone the extra mile to mitigate the impacts,” said Debra Struhsacker, vice president of government and regulatory affairs for Kinross Gold USA. “We worked hard with the community and even the detractors to come with a project that fit what the community wanted.”

Even U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a Seattle Democrat, backs the mine this time around, Struhsacker noted. Murray helped win a $2.5 million federal appropriation to improve the road leading to the mine. Kinross is also chipping in funds for the road improvements.

Building an open-pit mine would have torn up Buckhorn Mountain, generated 90 million tons of waste rock and created a pit lake that required perpetual water treatment. The underground mine model will leave the remote mountain near the Canadian border relatively undisturbed. Even the extraction of gold will take place offsite. Trucks will haul the ore 47 miles to Republic, where a cyanide solution will exact gold particles from the crushed rock.

When the mine closes in approximately eight years, the site will look similar to how it does today, said Clyde Gillespie, Buckhorn project manager.

Kinross Gold hopes to finish its permitting process in time to start construction in June. If the company can follow that time line, production should be in full swing by November, Gillespie said. About 120 people would work at the mine in Okanogan County, where wages will be in the $54,000 range. The mill in neighboring Ferry County would employ another 40 people.

The timing is critical, Gillespie said, because Kinross recently laid off 70 workers when its K2 mine near Curlew ran out of ore. He said he hopes to get the Buckhorn Mine operating before those skilled, underground miners leave the area for other jobs.

The Buckhorn Mine would extract approximately 1.2 million ounces of gold from the ground, worth about $570 million at today’s prices. Kinross is the third mining company to be involved in the project.

Buckhorn Mountain has a tumultuous history. A Denver company, Crown Resources, struck gold in the early 1990s at the site of an old mining camp. Crown Resources recruited a larger company – Battle Mountain Gold of Houston – to partner in Washington state’s first, large open-pit gold mine.

After spending $60 million on permitting and legal battles, Battle Mountain Gold was sold. The new owners abandoned the project in 2001.

Crown Resources retooled the proposed mine into a smaller, underground operation and looked for buyer. Kinross has an agreement to purchase the mine but is awaiting approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The sale should close early next year, Gillespie said.

Dave Kliegman, executive director of the Okanogan Highlands Alliance, has spent years monitoring the Buckhorn Mountain project. He said he still has concerns with the latest proposal.

Mining is expected to shift Buckhorn Mountain’s groundwater flows, according to government reviews. The change will impact a cattle rancher just over the border in Canada who has water rights dating from the 1880s to a creek flowing from the mountain, Kliegman said. Kinross officials said that they will augment creek flows to ensure that the rancher gets his water. But that could pose a problem in dry years, when water is limited, Kliegman said.

“That water is the lifeline of our ranch,” said Bill Harpur, who runs cattle on land adjacent to the U.S. border. “Every gallon counts.”

Neighbors along the Kettle River Road have also raised concerns about increases in truck traffic. Ore trucks would make 50 round trips to the mine per day. Diesel fumes already hang in the narrow canyon on hot summer days, they said in earlier interviews.

Some people put their life savings into having a nice retirement place on the Kettle River, Kliegman said. They shouldn’t have to bear the impacts of the mine, he said.