Toronto-based Madeleine Mines (TSE) has agreed to prepare applications needed to obtain an operating permit for its Lac des Iles palladium/platinum project near Thunder Bay, Ont., within the next six months.
Madeleine says the settlement was reached after a court dismissed the Ontario Environment Ministry’s request for an injunction preventing Madeleine from operating until it has complied with provincial environment rules. The Ontario Court has ordered Madeleine’s former president Patrick Sheridan to pay $3,000 to cover litigation fees after he failed to properly inform the Attorney General’s office of his recent decision to resign.
The injunction request was dismissed after Madeleine’s new controlling shareholder, Kaiser-Francis Oil of Oklahoma, agreed not to resume operations until it has made various modifications to the project’s tailings area. In a recent interview with The Northern Miner, Dale McDoulett, Madeleine’s new president, said he couldn’t see why the injunction was necessary because Lac des Iles is now shut down completely.
He also hopes that if the company complies with the court order, the courts will recognize that there is no basis for charges launched by the ministry after Sheridan began operating the mill last December. Madeleine is scheduled to answer those charges at a hearing in Thunder Bay next February. However, McDoulett said the new agreement was “a step in the right direction toward establishing a good working relationship with the ministry in Thunder Bay.” Under the order, Madeleine is prevented from restarting the mill until it has completed structural modifications to the tailings impoundment as required by the ministry.
The company must also lower effluent levels within the tailings dam and hire an engineering consultant to prepare a properly supported application for sewage discharge approval, rock-crushing equipment and diesel generators. Although the court has given Madeleine six months to comply, McDoulett expects the applications to be submitted well within the allotted time frame. If management co-operates, the company may be able to obtain interim approval to resume milling on a limited basis before all the applications are in, says Linda McCaffrey, a civil lawyer at the Attorney General’s office in Toronto. Had Madeleine come forward with a proposal immediately after the ministry applied for the injunction in July, McCaffrey says the company could have been in a position to operate by now.
“For the moment, things look good for both Madeleine and the ministry,” she said.
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