1995-08-11_REVISION - M1977493 (12)

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2 The mine and mill can operate only by having carryover storage to get through the winter. When the Company first constructed an operation at the headwaters of Ten Mile Creek in 1918, the mill was able to operate on the water flow in Ten Mile Creek. But by the 1920's, when expansions began, it was evident that Ten Mile Creek was not large enough to support the expanded milling capacity. Therefore Climax began reclaiming process water. In the early mill designs, water reclaim and reuse were a very significant part of the mill design. The mill expansion of 1929 had four tailing thickeners specifically for the purpose of reclaiming water prior to it reporting to the tailing ponds. Tailina Deposition Due to the topography at Climax, the mine has always striven to use gravity for transportation of tailing rather than pumping tails. This has led to numerous expansions of the tailing ponds over 75 years, along with reclamation of ponds as they were removed from service. Climax utilizes valley-fill upstream tailing dams. As the ponds increased in size and thereby received more runoff from the surrounding mountains, it became standard operating procedure in the springtime to relieve the ponds of as much process water as possible and bring in fresh water to replace it. This mode of springtime water regeneration was standard procedure from 1930's to 1960's. By that time, the expansion of tailing facilities and mounting social pressures led to a change in operating procedures. There remained a need to have all the ponds and reservoirs low enough to accept the smowmelt, but by the mid-1960's, the object of the spring discharge changed from releasing process water to that of simply bypassing the high water flow to ensure stability of the ponds. It should be noted that in 1958, a new tailing pond was begun. This pond increased the size of the tailing impoundments from 140 ha to more than 600 ha. It became evident by the early 1970's the Clean Water Act would significantly affect the operation. The first move therefore, was to prevent contamination of clean water to the greatest degree possible.