Merritt City Council has the back of Bayshore Minerals.
A letter of approval was passed unanimously at the Jan. 28 council meeting, to provide support in the development of the Elk Gold Mine, located approximately 45 km southeast of Merritt.
The operation will have an office in Merritt.
“There is some employment that will be generated, which is good for the City of Merritt,” said Director of Corporate Services Sean Smith.
Founder Grant Carlson and his team met with members of the public at an open house at the Best Western on Dec. 12, to discuss the upcoming application for the permit for an eleven-year mining plan.
Bayshore Minerals purchased the property in May of this year from Equinox Gold Corporation for a sum of $10 million. Carlson said the permit would allow the company to mine up to 70,000 tons a year, with the ore sent off to be processed offsite.
“It’s a fairly small mine,” said Carlson. “With everything processed offsite, we’re not going to build a mill or anything like that. We’re basically going to have an open pit.”
Councillors at the meeting threw their support behind the project, including Councillor Melvina White, who said the project will have a “positive impact” on the city.
Councillor Tony Luck echoed Councillor White’s sentiments.
“A number of people who are employed (at the local office) will propably reside in the community,” said Luck. “Even though it is outside of the community, they would be providing those jobs for the community as well.”
Councillor Adam Etchart also threw in his support of the project.
“I think that even though it’s outside the boundaries of Merritt, a lot of the benefits and spinoffs from it will benefit the town. I think we need to consider what benefits we can have locally for our residents and other businesses.”
The site already consists of a pair of smaller pits, though Bayshore’s main renovation plans include connecting the two to create one large pit, as well as expanding the current dimensions.
Through this past summer, Carlson said Bayshore has been completing environmental baseline work, including water samplings, in order to get the ball rolling on the permit application.
“It’s quite a process,” said Carlson, “in order to submit that permit to the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Mines in Q1 of next year.”
Bayshore is also engaging with, or planning to engage with, the local First Nations groups in the area.
In terms of job creation, Carlson said they are planning on taking on fifteen employees onsite, though the concept of hauling the ore offsite for processing opens up the possibilities to more work for the community.
“It will be more work for the trucking contractors to haul the ore off to wherever it ends up going, as well as whatever mill ends up taking it, that mill will have to employ more people. And then there is always the trickle-down effect from that, the secondary jobs, like maintenance, tires, fuel…all the things that you need to support the operation.”
With Carlson proposing that only just over a handful of trucks would be passing through Merritt with the mined material each day, no concerns were brought up in terms of traffic.
