Demolition work continues on mills

Demolition work is continuing in the mill area at the Barrick Golden Sunlight mine in Whitehall.

At a Community Transition Advisory Committee meeting last week, Mine General Manager Chuck Buus reported a significant amount of demolition has taken place including the removal of the mills and cutting of concrete pedestals. The work is to ready the facility for the Tailings Reprocessing Project. Buus told committee members in his opinion the permitting is going well, and they should have a date for a public scoping meeting by the January CTAC meeting.

Buus had good news on the safety front with 1,357 days without a lost-time incident and 1,030 days without a reportable medical incident. He said he is very impressed with the amount of demolition and reclamation they have going on right now, adding the cutting the pedestals from the mill is a pretty significant job that could be pretty hazardous.

There are currently 17 full time and 20 contractors at the site.

As far as COVID-19, Buus reported they are doing daily temperature checks at the gate before employees or contractors come in and maintaining social distancing when needed. Officials are also trying to reinforce that employees need to be responsible when they are out of work and the repercussions that could happen if someone were to get sick. He said they would not be able to get a lot of work done with the tailings reprocessing project and it could push back their schedule.