A word with Laurel Sayer, CEO of Midas Gold Corp.

Late last year, Laurel Sayer, who was already CEO of Midas Gold Idaho CEO, was promoted to CEO of Midas Gold Corp. and Midas Gold Idaho, becoming one of a few female mining CEOs nationwide.

The British Columbia, Canada-based company is seeking U.S. approval for three open-pit gold mines in central Idaho. Midas Gold’s proposed project includes about 500 acres (200 hectares) of patented mining claims and 2,900 acres (1,200 hectares) of unpatented claims on the Payette National Forest and Boise National Forest.

Mining in the area dates back more than a century and has resulted in two open pits, including one that has been blocking a salmon spawning stream since the 1930s. The site also has extensive tailings left from mining operations, waste rock dumps and open tunnels that are the source of elevated levels of arsenic, cyanide and mercury. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has spent about $4 million since the 1990s restoring habitat.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

What was it like to become a woman CEO of an American precious metals mining company?

My role as CEO reflects the modernization occurring in the mining industry in the United States. While long overdue, mining has gone through a reckoning. Our industry realized we need to make changes to mine responsibly here at home. Part of those changes include diversifying leadership across our industry. It also means prioritizing caring for the environment, collaborating with communities, and making sure projects are conducted in a transparent and inclusive manner. All of this is essential to how we do business and it starts at the top.

Midas Gold has understood this from the very beginning. Our approach to the environment, to communities and even to representation within our own workforce recognizes the shifts that must occur in domestic mining. Half of our senior leadership team is comprised of women and 38% of the company, compared to industry statistics of about 15% of the workforce and about 10% executive leadership being female.

I am proud to lead a company that is moving the industry in the right direction.

What is the relationship or history of Midas Gold with Midas in Nevada?

There is no connection between Midas Gold Idaho and the Midas Mine in Nevada, which is currently owned by Hecla.  Midas Gold Idaho is based out of Donnelly, Idaho. Right now, our sole focus is bringing the Stibnite Gold Project to life. Currently, our project is in the middle of permitting and we hope to have an official record of decision sometime in late 2021.

Like a lot of mining concerns in North American, Midas is traded on the Toronto exchange. What makes the Canada and the Toronto exchange so heavily favored by North American mining companies?

The Canadian exchanges have traditionally been large providers of capital for mining companies. Many junior mining companies start by seeking investment on one of the Canadian stock exchanges to gain access to North American capital markets. Canadian stock exchanges provide access points to the Canadian and U.S. markets for companies regardless of where they are based. The timing and costs of listing on Canadian stock exchanges are typically significantly lower than listing on a U.S. national exchange.  As a result, Canadian exchanges are a popular choice as a growth platform for junior mining companies in North America. In fact, the Toronto Stock Exchange is home to more mining companies than any other market in the world with over 47% of mining companies listed on the TSX and TSX Venture exchanges.

How will setting up a company in the USA affect your financing, your finances and your stockholders? 

A formal redomiciling will need to be approved by our Board of Directors and potentially its shareholders. If that happens, the Company will make an announcement.

When do you expect to go live as a traded stock in the USA? What exchange are you targeting to carry your shares?

No formal announcement has been made by the Company regarding a listing in the USA.  If one is made, we can share this information then.

An investment firm called Paulson & Co. is a 44% owner of Midas. What is Paulson & Co? Are they active or passive, and what role do they play with raising capital for developing the Stibnite project? 

Paulson & Co is the private investment vehicle that manages the wealth of John Paulson. They have provided Midas with over $66 million of capital since 2016 and have two seats on the Board. They are long-term, committed shareholders that are supportive of the development of the Stibnite Project.

How many direct and indirect jobs will the Stibnite project create? 

Our recently published feasibility study estimates 550 direct jobs will be created during operations. We are looking forward to bringing these family-wage jobs to people in Valley and across the region. We plan to provide onsite housing for our employees and we have intentionally designed our shifts to be two-weeks on, two-weeks off. These decisions will allow the opportunities at Stibnite to be accessible for families across our state.

What is the upfront multi-year capital investment needed to start actual production at Stibnite?

We anticipate that the pre-operational capital investment required to begin production at Stibnite will be approximately $1.3 billion.

What other strategic minerals with economically-viable mineralization, besides antimony and tungsten, are on the property?

The Stibnite Gold Project will produce gold, antimony and silver. Antimony is a federally designated critical mineral for its importance in the national defense, energy, aerospace and technology industries. Interestingly, as a metal strengthener and fire retardant, it also plays a role in key technologies — from the babbit bearings in wind and hydro turbines to helping military uniforms remain resistant to infrared detection.

The Stibnite Gold Project will be the only domestically mined source of antimony in the entire country.  Stibnite produced 40-50% of the tungsten and 90% of the antimony used during WWII. Production of these critical resources at Stibnite during the war efforts were credited with shortening WWII by a year and thus saving a million American lives. However, most of the available tungsten was mined during this era and a result, there is not enough tungsten remaining for production today.

Where does Midas stand within the NEPA process for permitting? When is the final EIS coming for the Stibnite project? What control and contamination mitigation measures are planned?

After six years of our own data gathering, analysis and engineering, the Stibnite Gold Project has undergone four years of public review, scientific and regulatory analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act review process. Our project is being reviewed by multiple state, federal and local agencies in a Joint Review Process. In August 2020, the U.S. Forest Service released the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for public review. During the 75-day comment period, over 9,800 individual comments were submitted on our project with 85% of the individually submitted letters in support.  Our work over the next year with our regulators will focus on listening to the comments received on the DEIS and doing what we can to improve outcomes even more.

According to the latest schedule published by the U.S. Forest Service, we anticipate a Record of Decision on the Stibnite Gold Project in late 2021. Once the project is approved, we will need several additional permits and approvals from state and federal regulators and will go through a process with regulators to determine our financial assurance obligations and ensure the funding is provided before any work begins.

From the very beginning of this project, we have been committed to restoring the site. As we have developed our plans, we have done so through the lens of identifying ways to leave the area better than we found it. We are proud to say our project will meet or exceeds the required mitigation measures.

Federal law has evolved since the Surface Mining Act of 1977. To what level must you restore the property and how long will Midas be obliged to provide long-term stewardship?

The plan we submitted to the U.S. Forest Service in 2016 details our commitment to seeing Stibnite restored. Today, many legacy environmental conditions remain from over 100 years of mining activity at Stibnite. The East Fork South Fork of the Salmon River flows into the abandoned Yellow Pine mining pit, blocking fish migration to the headwaters. There are also millions of tons of legacy waste rock and tailings lining the valley floor, which pose risk to water quality. Our plan is to address many of these in the early years of our project.

During construction we propose to fix the largest source of sedimentation occurring in the watershed at Blowout Creek. In the first years of mining we propose to pick up, reprocess and safely store millions of tons of legacy tailings that are lying on the valley floor today, removing a possible source of water degradation. The U.S. Forest Service concluded in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement that this approach will improve water quality conditions at Stibnite.

During construction we will also build a passageway specifically designed to help chinook, steelhead and bull trout migrate around the Yellow Pine pit, a current barrier to their migration. This is a temporary solution until we fully restore the East Fork South Fork Salmon River, which will begin in year 12 of the project. The U.S. Forest Service concluded in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement that removing historical barriers to fish migration will assist the population.

We have also detailed an extensive restoration plan that goes far beyond required reclamation standards to see natural fish migration return to the East Fork South Fork of the Salmon River, water quality improved and habitat left better than it is today. Our plan also includes concurrent restoration and reclamation, whereby we address our own disturbances as we go, rather than waiting until the end.

Before the project is approved, we must have detailed mitigation and restoration plans approved by the regulatory agencies and we will be obligated to conduct the restoration and mitigation detailed in the final approved plan. Throughout the entire life of the project and final closure activities, Midas Gold will be under strict oversight to ensure that all voluntary and required restoration and mitigation work occurs.

The U.S. Forest Service concluded in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement that:

• Proposed mitigation will provide 1:1 replacement of wetlands acres.
• Mitigation plan offers a net gain of 346.5 wetland functional units represents a 40% increase.
• Restoration plans will provide a net gain of 21,941 stream functional units, a 23% increase.

Modern financial assurance requirements are another tool to guarantee that the agreed upon reclamation and restoration work is completed.  In fact, our team was among one of the mining companies that recently helped to strengthen Idaho’s financial assurance laws to protect taxpayers and the environment. Now, companies are required to set aside the actual cost to reclaim the land and not the old, flat fee per acre. Additionally, at least every five years mining companies are required to renew their financial assurance packages to ensure the amount site aside is still adequate to cover the costs of reclamation. We are still working on the final details of our project, so we do not know how much financial assurance we will be required to provide before mining can begin, however, we know it is safe to say it will be over 100 million dollars.

Mining in the U.S. today is regulated by some of the most stringent requirements in the world There are dozens of other acts and regulatory requirements covering surface mining. Currently, the project is being analyzed under the National Environmental Policy Act which includes review under other environmental laws. Under the Clean Air Act, we will be required to obtain an air permit to construct. Our Project will be required to be permitted under the IPDES program administered by the State of Idaho who will also provide certification under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act. We will also be required to account for wetland sustainability under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The State of Idaho will issue a cyanidation permit and there will be additional reclamation plan and other approvals from the State. Finally, the project will be reviewed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service under the Endangered Species Act.

What is the status of the legal efforts by the Nez Perce tribe and their environmental representation as well as other activist groups to prevent the Stibnite project from going forward?

In August of 2019, the Nez Perce Tribe filed a lawsuit claiming we are violating the Clean Water Act, despite the fact we have never operated at the site and that some of the claims are located on lands owned by the Federal government. We agree with the Tribe that the site needs help and, while we have different approaches to solve the problem, we remain committed to being part of the solution.

For the past several years, Midas Gold has been working closely with government regulators to gain approval to undertake immediate response actions to improve water quality on the Stibnite site. We want nothing more than to be a part of a long-awaited solution and recognize that it will take industrial scale resources to finally provide solutions to water quality in the historical mining district. We have specifically offered to conduct clean-up activities before we are permitted to conduct our planned restoration and project operations at Stibnite. We are eagerly awaiting regulators’ approval so voluntary cleanup efforts can move forward.

If an agreement is reached, the lawsuit may no longer be necessary. However, at this point, the lawsuit is continuing.

We understand that some environmental groups have concerns with our project. We believe their opinions and feedback are valuable. Many groups submitted letters during the comment period on our Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Our team is currently reviewing all of the feedback that was submitted and seeing if there are ways we can incorporate these suggestions into our plans to improve our project.

The Associated Press also contributed to this article.