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Midwest Project
Environmental Impact Statement

The Midwest Project, which is majority owned by AREVA Resources Canada Inc., is located approximately 16 kilometres west of the McClean Lake Operation. Discovered in 1978 following 10 years of exploration activity, a number of concepts to develop the Midwest uranium deposit have been considered. An initial 1981 proposal to develop an open pit mine was abandoned when the economic viability of the project was undermined by falling uranium prices. A decade later, a section of Mink Arm on South McMahon Lake was drained to allow underground test mining, which led to a proposal for a conventional underground mine. Public review of the environmental assessment of the proposal raised a number of technical issues. The underground mining proposal was revised based on the jet boring mining method which addressed the initial concerns with the development. Economic and technical challenges have continued to impede project development until recently. Improved uranium prices and a re-evaluation of the means by which the Midwest ore deposit could be developed, have resulted in the submission of the Midwest project description to provincial and federal regulatory agencies in December 2005. The proposal to proceed with development was approved in Decemeber 2007.

The project description details the development of an open pit mine to access the Midwest ore deposit, and a utility and transportation corridor to transport ore and treated mine water for release into the Sink/Vulture Treated Effluent Management System at the nearby McClean Lake Operation. Relative to underground mining, open pit mining offers enhanced worker safety and will allow utilization of the experienced local workforce available at the McClean Lake Operation. The development of a dedicated haul road between the Midwest Project and the McClean Lake Operation will eliminate ore haulage on highway 905.

The Midwest Project is located at the junction of the Smith Creek, the Nicholson Creek and the Collins Creek watersheds. The surrounding waterways therefore exhibit low flows and limited assimilative capacity for the release of treated effluent. The treatment, transfer and discharge of mine water at the McClean Lake Operation will eliminate the need to discharge treated effluent locally, minimizing potential effects within the Smith Creek watershed.

The development of an open pit to extract the ore will once again require Mink Arm of South McMahon Lake to be drained. It is anticipated that the open pit, will encompass an area of approximately 45 hectares and attain a depth of approximately 215 meters. The mine will produce approximately 360,000 tonnes of ore averaging at 4 percent uranium resulting in the production of 37 million pounds of U₃O₈. Waste rock and potentially problematic waste rock will be handled at the Midwest site, with special waste segregated and ultimately stored in the Midwest pit. The project description also outlines a number of modifications which will be required to process ore from the Midwest project at the existing McClean Lake Operation JEB Mill and support facilities.

Subject to regulatory approvals, site construction including the haul road, water treatment plant and other facilities could begin in mid-2009. Stripping of the rock over the ore would start in early 2010 with ore removal from mid-2011 through to 2013. The project will employ about 150 people and will support the operation of McClean Lake, which presently employs about 330 staff and 110 long-term contractors.

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