ASX-listed Silver Mines confirmed on Friday that the environmental impact statement (EIS) for its Bowdens silver project, in New South Wales, was in the final stages before being submitted for development consent to the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment.
The EIS affirms favourable outcomes including minimal impacts on surface water and groundwater and local economic benefits within the high unemployment jurisdiction that the project is in, while air quality and health parameters show no exceedances and was negligible during the 17-year life of the mine.
Further, the EIS shows that a new water pipeline will be built to provide water for processing sourced from nearby coalfields and that the project has a progressive rehabilitation plan in place for the life of the mine.
Silver Mines will also advance Aboriginal Cultural Heritage management programmes.
The Bowdens project comprises an opencut mine feeding a new processing plant, which, in turn, comprises a conventional milling circuit and differential flotation to produce two concentrates that will be sold for smelting off site.
The plant’s capacity was designed for two-million tonnes a year. Life-of-mine production is planned of about 53-million ounces of silver, 116 000 t of zinc and 83 000 t of lead.
Silver Mines will lodge a mining lease application in conjunction with submitting its EIS.