The quarry and lime plant proposed for Giscome has hit a delay.
The company behind the project, Graymont Limited, has decided to suspend the environmental assessment process while they scale back plans to deal with falling demand. Graymont made the request on March 4th and was granted a suspension on the 9th.
“We sell lime to the mining industry, to pulp and paper and to other industries. So our forecast has come down and bit and that’s caused up to look at the extent of what we were initially proposing to build.” Project Manager David Chamberlain said
The long term plans for the plant remain unchanged, however changes to the initial build out will see the plant rely on trucks to transport the lime as opposed to trains and conveyor belts.
The facility will be built with just one kiln instead of two and lime will be trucked from the quarry to the plant via Batemen Forest Service Road. The constriction on the rail load out at the plant site will also be deferred until a second kiln in constructed.
“The mining sector is a little bit soft right now, it goes through cycles, it was strong a few years ago and soft now. It will be strong again. So this project is a good project to us, so all this is doing is determining what we might do initially versus a little bit later on.” Chamberlain said
The change of plans will require new work from the Environmental Assessment Office, to make sure input is received from the stakeholders and Lheidli T’enneh First Nation. Once the environmental assessment process is restarted the public will be able to submit comments on the changes.
“My guess is a 6-9 month delay, because whenever you suspend something like this and go back to consultants to redo some of the impact studies it always takes a lot longer than we would like.” Chamberlain said “But that’s just kind of the way it is and we are working hard to get back on track here and keep this thing moving forward.”
As a result of the delay, Graymont says construction on the facility has been pushed well into 2017.
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