GENERAL48430 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

III IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ~~~n~ GUDCV.pvr~ San Luis P~o~ect News Spring 1990 Informa[ton on the San Luis Project. Costilla County. Colorado SAN LUIS PROJECT UPDATE Plant Construction Preparations Are Under Way Battle :Mountain Guld is prepar- in~~ for construction of the processing plant for the San Luis Project. Battle Mountain hopes [he plan[ will be up and running in early 1991. The Industrial Company (TICI of Steamboat Springs. Colorado, has opened an office in San Luis and has bey:un interviewing local job pre- applicants. TIC is on line to build the processing plant. pendine finalization of the construction contract. Gary Dodson, San Luis Project acneral superintendent, said T1C's interviewing will help identify a potential construction work force. "Unfortunately we won't be able to hire even person in Costilla County who has applied for a job. There just aren't enoueh jobs. Bu[ we will try to hire has menu people as we know how," Dodson said. Since earlier this year, Battle Mountain Gold has taken several steps to pave the way for plant construction. Minproc Engineers of Denvercon- ducted detailed engineering work on the plant itself and has prepared the construe[ion drawings. Battle Moun- tain also has specified and is in the process of procuring equipment for the processing plant. Dodson said he is makine every effort to arrange for plant equipment to be delivered FOB the San Luis Project site in Costilla County. This will protect Battle Mountain's inter- ests during transportation of the equipment and allow the purchases to he taxed within the State of Colorado. PERMIT AMENDMENT APPROVED Progress on the San Luis Project in 1990 began wi[h the approval of the amendment to our existing permit by the Colorado Mined Land Reclama- tion Board (NLRB) at a hearing on Januarv'_5. The amended mining and reclamation permit for the San Luis Project was issued shortly after the hearing. There were no modifications to the amended plan as finally submitted by Bale !Mountain. Prior to the hearin_. [he plan was reviewed by the NLRB technical staff and recom- mended for approval. During the review of Battle Mountain's amendment proposal, the hiLRB technical staff recalculated our reclamation bond requirements on a somewhat more conserva[ive basis. As a result. we have now posted 53.345 million to insure our reclamation commitments. Battle Mountain also has made substantial progress on other parts of the San Luis Project. Here are more details. Construction. Major construc- tion on three "support" buildings at the plant site was completed February 22. 1990. The buildines are the combined maintenance shop and warehouse, the office and the lab. Power line. In early April. Public Service Company of Colorado began constructing the power line which will serve the San Luis Project. We expect the job to take a total of about four months. The power line will run fnm Fort Garland to the project situ. Substation upgrade. Public Service also will have to upgrade the substation at Fort Garland in order to serve the fan Luis Project. The time schedule for that job will depend on ordering it a new transfot~rter which could take 40 to 50 weeks. Hiring. We hired five equip- ment operators in April throagh the Colorado lob Service. All of these new employees arc Costilla Cuunn- residents. Microwave phones. We are installine a microwave phone system to serve the project site. It costs a little more but we can serve the plant and support buildines without disturbin_ the around to install land lines. Banking topsoil. We are con- tinuing to "bank" topsoil for eventual reclamatior work as we conduct ground preltara[ion at the plan[ site. Fencing. We will be building fences this summer to protect our ongoing reclamation work. The fences will be boil: according to Colorado Division of Wildlife standards so that elk. deer and antelope still will be able to mierate across our property. The fences will ~e 42 inches hieh. with 15 inches of cl~~arance at the bo[tom. This will le[ elk and deer go over them and antelope under them. There will be about 10 miles of fence, total, in- stalled by kcal fence builders. We also are eoin~ out [o bid on the ma[erials Irum local suppliers.