Summary of Mining Co.’s Remarks
On the Proposed Copper Mine near Mt. St. Helens

By Charlotte Persons

On February 6, 2006, WHAS sponsored a presentation at Lower Columbia College on the proposed copper mine twelve miles north of Mount St. Helens crater. Ryan Hunter of the Gifford Pinchot Task Force described environmentalists’ concerns about this mine location. His article summarizes his position and can be found in the March/April 2006 issue of the WHAS newsletter, the Whistler, on this WHAS web site.

Matt Russell, Vice President of Operations of Idaho General Mines, Inc., presented information about the company’s proposal for mineral exploration and mining; he included many details that were not previously made public. His remarks were not included in the March/April 2006 issue of the Whistler because of lack of space.

I am unconvinced by Matt Russell’s arguments that mining at Mt. St. Helen’s can be environmentally safe. For me, Mt. St. Helens should not be the location of any mine, whether it uses conventional mining methods or Russell’s proposed untested innovations. However, I wrote the summary below of Matt Russell’s remarks because knowing the details of his company’s plans will help us all participate intelligently in the debate over this controversial mine. Both Hunter’s and Russell’s remarks in the February 6 presentation were reported by a number of newspapers and radio stations. However, these reports were more general than the following summary from the LCC videotape of Russell’s formal presentation and question period in the afternoon session on February 6.

Idaho General Mines, Inc.
First Russell explained the qualifications and history of IGMI. Three major figures are his father Robert Russell, the president of the company; James J. Moore, Manager of Metallurgy; and himself, a civil engineer. All have extensive experience managing and engineering smelters and open pit and block cave mines overseas and in the United States. The company, formed in the early 2000’s, has a few hundred investors and assets of about $6 million. It is growing but not yet big enough to be listed on the stock exchange. It is a “shell company” whose purpose is to attract investors for different projects, such as its current management of a molybdenum mine in Nevada.

Mineral Exploration Lease
Russell next discussed the company’s proposal made on March 24, 2005, to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service for a “consignment lease” to do exploratory drilling at the Margaret site, the 900 acres for which IGMI has 50% ownership of mineral rights. While the proposal is for drilling on this site, the BLM can issue fringe acreage leases on other mineral rights parcels adjacent to it. In fact, IGMI wants approval for the Margaret site and its parcels north of the Margaret site since only a large-scale mine can economically process the low-grade ore. (This is the 3,000 acre mine mentioned by the IGMI president in articles in The Columbian.)

Approval of the consignment lease will allow IGMI to find investment funds for the other half of the mineral rights for the Margaret site and for other parcels. The exploration at the Margaret site will involve re-drilling a core that was discarded by a previous company in the early 1990’s. Re-drilling will use existing drilling roads and will cost less than drilling from scratch—Russell’s estimate was from $5 to $15 million. The discovery drilling will allow assays to confirm the ore’s quality, which is about .4 to .8 % sulfide copper. The deposits are part of a large ore “pluton” which stretches from Spirit Lake to Glacier Peak on Highway 2, one of the largest deposits of copper in the world, maybe more than in all of Chile and Peru. The results of the exploratory drilling will allow IGMI to create a $1 million feasibility study.

Feasibility Study of Three Types of Mines
The feasibility study will assess three different types of mines—open pit, underground “block cave,” and a new type of large-scale underground mine proposed by IGMI.

According to Russell, an open pit mine would provide the quickest and most economical mining of low-grade ore. However, he admitted that a pit mine could have the negative impacts on the environment summarized in Ryan Hunt’s article, especially since seismic activity near Mt. St. Helen’s might cause soil permeability and cave-ins. In addition, a pit mine would only be able to reach the top of the 3,000-feet deep ore deposits. Russell repeatedly said that he did not want to create an open pit mine that would destroy the mountain.

Russell admitted that a conventional “block cave” underground mine might also have environmental problems such as surface subsidence or acidic mine drainage from tailings “if it was designed wrong.” However, this is not because of seismic activity; he stated that the safest place to be in an earthquake is underground! He also asserted that the kind of deeply located, “up and down” seismic activity in the Cascades is not a problem for underground mining.

IGMI’s Timetable
If the consignment lease is approved, based on the resulting feasibility study the government and the mining company investors would choose between a pit, block cave, or “new technology” mine. Development of actual plans for the mine would be a partnership of the mining company and the government. The proposed time table Russell displayed was: 2006/7--discovery drilling; 2008--feasibility study; 2009/11—planning (and getting more investors); and 2011--building the mine.

Need for New Mining Technology
IGMI envisions a new kind of copper mine that would blaze the way for more economical and more environmentally safe mining technology for the low concentrate copper ores that are what principally remain in the world. Because copper mining can barely meet demand right now, the market price in the last four years had gone from $.65 to $2.30 per pound on February 6. A National Academy of Science study shows that world demand for copper will continue to rise, especially as China and India become consumer nations. More mines will have to be added each year to meet this demand; despite this, a huge gap between supply and demand will exist by 2016.

Russell repeatedly called for government funding for mining research and development to create environmentally safe mining technology. “Copper mining is the most destructive thing that man does to the crust of the earth, and the government does not support R&D for this most basic industry.” He stated that this investment will not come from private capital; mining investors are accustomed to taking on the risk of exploring for ore sites but resist assuming the additional risks of creating and testing new technology.

Possible IGMI Innovations for Margaret Mine
However, since the costs of ore discovery at the Margaret site will be lower than at other sites and market prices for metals are so high, it might be an opportunity to try out some new large-scale technologies for the low-grade copper ore that is found throughout the Cascades. This would essentially be an underground mine on the scale of open pit mines.
The proposed “new technology” mine would move 80,000 tons of material per day while an open pit mine moves 200,000 tons per day. To help the audience envision this amount of material, Russell said that would be the equivalent of 4,000 20-ton trucks passing by each day. Russell believes that the mine would exist for more than 10 years and possibly for 30 years.

Russell revealed four innovations that IGMI envisions for the Margaret mine. Some were tried in “futuristic” mines in the 80’s without success, but advancements in technology now permit “the right kind of drilling and right kind of equipment.”

(1) The mine would be developed through “directional drilling” methods created in the oil industry—this would allow immediate ore processing instead of the 3 to 4 years usually needed to develop a conventional block cave mine. The mine would be “drilled” with blasting from below that would push ore up to higher levels to be removed.

(2) Huge conveyance “trucks” many times bigger than those used in current underground mines would need to be developed and built to take the ore to huge conveyance belts (not hoists) that would lift the ore to the surface. Fluidized ore would be piped to a process mill about 7 miles away on private land or possibly on site underground.

(3) Instead of using ore crushed to sand-sized particles like processes used in conventional Pyro smelters which heat the ore, a nitric acid leaching process (Hydromet) would use .5 inch and smaller particles. A similar process was tried by another company, R.A. Hanson, in Nevada without complete success in the late 90’s because it could not control all the variables. However, IGMI has patents pending on a process, using different reactants, that in the lab allows 70—85% copper extraction. Deleterious gases are mainly nitrogen, which can be recycled back into the process. Nitrogen and other toxic metal concentrations in depleted ore would not exceed government standards. After copper and other metal extraction, the rocks would be “washed” under pressure with different solutions to remove surface contaminants and would be centrifuged to remove moisture. This would be a gravity leach process where material is moved through enormous silos. Water use in this process would be reduced by a factor of 10 from the 10,000 gallons per minute in a conventional flotation processor. A lot of water would be re-used to reduce the amount needed from the environment. Sulfuric acid, a by-product of processing all sulfide copper ores, would be concentrated and sold to industry. The larger-sized ore particles also mean less production of polluting dust.

(4) The larger surface area of each piece of depleted ore would allow “normal” oxidation so contaminants like sulfuric acid, cadmium, arsenic, etc., would be released at the rate of the surrounding mine rock. Also, the surface of each piece of ore would be clean. This means that 70% of the depleted ore could be “mixed with a little cement” and put back into the mine to prevent surface subsidence, a big problem in block cave underground mines. The risk of acid mine drainage would also be reduced. Some larger particles would be sold as gravel. The rest would be put into a waste pile somewhere, but a smaller one than those produced by other large-volume ore mines.

Russell’s Conclusions
According to Russell, these techniques will meet the technological challenges of mining large volume lower grade deposits, developing environmentally acceptable mines, improving metal recoveries from ores, producing less mining waste, and using more environmentally friendly processing techniques.

Russell concluded his prepared remarks by saying that the proposed Margaret site mine offers the solution to a number of challenges: finding an ore body to demonstrate new mining techniques; government and industry jointly creating new mining laws; producing high-paying jobs in Washington State; increasing state and federal tax and royalty revenue; becoming enviro-technologists; making a chance for Washington State to make a difference.

Aside from the author: A little math leads to the conclusion that the proposed “new technology” underground mine and processing plant would produce at a minimum copper worth $980,000 per day. This is based on processing 80,000 tons per day, copper ores of .5% purity, a 70% extraction rate, and an estimated 2006 price of $1.75 per pound. This would be $357.7 million per year.