Casino project will be different than Yukon’s failed mines, CEO says

Proposed mine now undergoing largest review ever done by territory’s assessment board

The president of the company behind the proposed Casino mine in the Yukon says he believes the size of the project means it’s less likely to end in failure.

Western Copper and Gold is proposing to build a copper, gold, molybdenum and silver open pit mine west of Pelly Crossing, Yukon. Earlier this month, it submitted an environmental and socio-economic effects statement to the territory’s assessment board. The project is the first to be subject to a panel review, the highest level of assessment by the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board (YESAB).

The statement says that the mine would operate for 27 years, contributing $429 million to the territory’s annual GDP during construction, $1.3 billion annually during operation and create thousands of jobs.

Sandeep Singh, the CEO of Western Copper and Gold, touts it as “one of the most significant critical minerals projects in the country,” and says it could have an “incredible and long-lasting” impact on Yukon’s economy.

The territory has seen plenty of larger mine projects over the years end in failure — for example, the Faro, Mount Nansen, Wolverine or Eagle mines — with companies going bankrupt and leaving Yukon taxpayers with expensive messes to deal with.

Singh argues that the Casino project will be different.

“One of the issues, I believe, with past mines in the Yukon has been smaller, sometimes lesser-quality mines have attracted smaller miners to build and operate them,” he said.

“This is one scenario where this project can attract — already has, in some instances — but can attract some of the best mining groups to the Yukon to build that long-life mine sustainably, and back it financially.”

The project would include a heap leach facility, and Singh acknowledges that some may question heap leaching since the catastrophic Eagle Mine failure a year ago. However, he insists that there’s nothing wrong with the technology itself.

“I think it’s fair to say that that [the Eagle mine failure] was a specific issue with decisions made by that operator,” Singh said.

“Heap leaching is done all over the world … So I think the technology is certainly sound and can work — it’s a matter of who does it, and how.”

Caribou ‘cross all kinds of roads’

Singh also argues that the project is not likely to have any major impact on caribou herds in the area, despite the concerns of some environmental advocates who say the mine and its access road will cut through the middle of the Klaza caribou herd’s key habitat.

“Caribou readily cross all kinds of roads in the Yukon and elsewhere today,” Singh said.

“The project area has a small effect on the caribou habitat due to the way we’ve designed it, largely overlapping on existing disturbances as much as possible.”

Singh is also arguing that the project could serve as a “catalyst for some positive change,” when it comes to Yukon’s beleaguered power grid. The Casino mine is proposing to generate its own power on site with LNG generators, but Singh suggests that having a major operating mine could make the proposed B.C.-Yukon grid connection more of a possibility.