Published: January 18, 2017 |

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The Bureau of Land Management is asking the public to comment on the proposed closure of Newmont Mining Corp.’s Rain Mine.
The BLM is in the process of preparing an environmental assessment on the project. Comments will be accepted until Feb. 11.

Newmont has submitted an amendment to the Rain Mine Plan of Operations for Final Closure and Alternatives. The Rain Mine is located in Elko County approximately 18 air miles southwest of Elko and 10 miles southeast of Carlin. It ceased operations in 2004 and reclamation and closure of minor mine facilities has continued since then. Approximately 183 acres of public land and 755 acres of private lands were disturbed during mine operations.

The proposed final closure plan amendment includes the culmination of extensive analyses of numerous alternatives to remediate acid rock drainage from the north waste rock disposal facility. This proposal also covers final reclamation of the heap leach pad and the tailing storage facility.

The north waste rock disposal facility and heap leach have been reclaimed, however depending on which alternative is chosen for final closure, some reworking of these reclaimed areas may be necessary.

The proposed action for reclamation of the waste rock facility would entail building a pipeline from it to the Emigrant Mine water treatment plan where acid drainage would be treated in and used at the Emigrant Mine. Additionally, the existing waste rock disposal facility would be re-worked and enhanced with targeted partial improvement on the cover surface which would include amending areas that have thin, bare or coarse vegetation cover, re-grading the surface to eliminate ponding and re-working drainage courses on the surface to increase run-off and reduce infiltration

The final closure plan would begin immediately upon approval of the amendment and continue until the acid rock drainage seepage from the waste rock disposal facility is non-existent or meets NDEP standards. This area does not include any wild horse herd management areas.

For more information regarding the proposed Rain Mine final closure plan amendment at: http://bit.ly/2iaqN9L.

Comments can be submitted to the BLM:
Contact: Tom Schmidt
Address: 3900 E. Idaho St., Elko, NV 89801.
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Source: (January 12, 2017) Elko Daily Press

To stop by Newmont’s website, CLICK HERE

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