OTTAWA – The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) is has started the process of deciding whether a federal environmental assessment should be required for the Foxtrot rare earth element mine project in Labrador.
Search Minerals Inc. is proposing the construction, operation, decommissioning and abandonment of a new rare earth element mine located approximately 36 kilometres southeast of Port Hope Simpson.
The CEAA is inviting the public and Indigenous groups to comment on the project and its potential effects on the environment.
The proposed mine would have an estimated mine life of 14 years, split between open pit mining for the first eight years and underground mining for the last six.
During the open-pit phase, mining will be carried out from May to October at a rate of 2,000 tonnes per day. The underground phase of the mining project will run 12 months of the year at a rate of 1,000 tonnes per day.
The project would include an open pit, a waste dump, a low-grade stockpile, a dry stack tailings facility, a polishing pond, sedimentation pond, an access road, a central ore processing plant, and a variety of administrative and accommodative buildings.
Written comments in either official language must be submitted by Dec. 21, 2017.
More information is available by calling 902-426-0564 or emailing [email protected].
The CEAA will post a decision on its website stating whether an environmental assessment is required. If so, the public will have three more opportunities to comment on the environmental assessment of the project.
