Bye, bye BIPR: Nunavut port-road scheme still frozen – by Jim Bell (Nunatsiaq News – January 9, 2017)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Two Kitikmeot road projects remain stuck in the ditch

The two mining companies that own the Bathurst Inlet Port Road project will keep their once highly-touted proposal in the deep freeze for at least one more year, if not longer, the proponents told regulators Jan. 4.

First conceived in the late 1990s under different proponents, the BIPR has long been touted as a way to supply mines in the interior of the western Kitikimeot and ship base metal ore to market.

But the current BIPR proponents, Sabina Gold and Silver Corp. and Glencore Corp., say they have no plans this year to submit a draft environmental impact statement to the Nunavut Impact Review Board.

The proposed transportation system involves a deep water port at Bathurst Inlet and a 211-km road running from the port past properties controlled by Sabina and Glencore.Glencore is the owner of the Hackett River zinc-silver-copper property. If that project is ever developed, it would need the BIPR to ship base metal ore out of Nunavut.

Sabina, former owner of the property, filed a project description in 2008 for Hackett River, but the property’s new owner, Glencore, has never filed a draft environmental impact statement.

At the same time, Sabina’s Back River gold project is now languishing in limbo following the NIRB’s ruling in June 2016 that recommended the project not go ahead.

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