Canadians to search for gold at abandoned SC mine. It’s also a Superfund cleanup site
A Canadian company plans to explore an abandoned South Carolina gold mine that also is a federal Superfund cleanup site to see if more gold can be dug from the ground.
Pancontinental Resources Corp. has won a bid to begin looking for gold at the old Brewer mine, a Chesterfield County site that shut down after contaminating the landscape while mining from 1987-1995. In 2005, the federal government declared it a Superfund site, making it a priority for cleanup because of its threat to the environment.
If the company finds substantial gold deposits at the mine, it would need approval from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control to begin excavating gold, the department said Thursday. Mining is several years away, if that occurs, an official familiar with the plan said.
In a news release this week, Pancontinental president Layton Croft said the company was eager to look for gold at the Brewer property in the next two years.
The company thinks there may be substantial gold deposits still left at the 1,000-acre mining site near Jefferson, a small town in east central South Carolina.
“We are ready to quickly investigate this under-explored project,’’ Croft said in the release. His company, headquartered in Toronto, describes itself as a growing gold and battery metals explorer and developer. Pancontinental’s plans for the Superfund site are part of a larger effort to find gold on about 1,800 acres surrounding the property.
The prospect of reopening the old mine, however, raised concerns Thursday, a day after Pancontinental made the announcement about its exploration plans. The Brewer mine cleanup is not complete and the property remains contaminated.
State Sen. Vincent Sheheen, D-Kershaw, said he’s worried that more mining would worsen pollution left by the original mine.
“It would have to be done very very carefully,’’ Sheheen said. “There should be an extreme review of what’s going on to make sure it’s not a threat.’’
Sheheen, who represents the area, called the Brewer Gold Mine “already a disaster.’’ The site has polluted groundwater with toxic materials, including selenium, cyanide and lead, all of which could be harmful to people who drink from wells.
The Brewer site is one of two abandoned gold mines in South Carolina designated as Superfund cleanup sites. The other is the Barite Hill mine in McCormick County. In each case, companies that ran the mines shut them down without cleaning up the mess, leaving taxpayers on the hook.
Collectively the two mines had cost the public $27.4 million to clean up, as of 2014, but the public was expected to pay millions of dollars more to complete the cleanup, The State newspaper reported that year.
During the 1990s, miners at Brewer dug up 178,000 ounces of gold, a modest amount compared to the world’s largest mines.
The operation involved dousing huge piles of crushed gold-bearing rocks, excavated from open pits, with a sodium cyanide solution. The toxic solution trickled through the rock piles to release the gold but also contaminated the area, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In 1990, an accident caused 10 million gallons of cyanide-laced liquid to flow into a nearby creek, the EPA says.
Some progress has been made to clean up the site, but plenty of issues remain. Acid mine drainage, a common problem at gold mines, has caused enough groundwater pollution that the EPA has had to manage a treatment plant to keep the contaminated water from flowing off site — and DHEC says the treatment could last “in perpetuity.’’
If enough gold is found to restart mining, the excavation and pollution could be on a larger scale than seen before, said Columbia environmental lawyer Bob Guild.
Because it would take more effort to obtain gold not recovered from previous mining, the company might have to dig wider and deeper pits, and that could deplete groundwater and wetlands, he said. A new mine might also require a bigger tailings pond, a waste disposal area, he said.
“There is a high level of concern,’’ Guild said.
Regardless, the company would have to locate large gold deposits suspected to exist on the Brewer property before any mining would occur. The gold also would have to be reachable to make the operation worthwhile. The company already is exploring the area outside of the mine’s boundaries for gold deposits.
Kelly Lowry, a Spartanburg lawyer who heads a receivership appointed by a court to oversee the abandoned site, said a new mine on the Brewer property might provide an opportunity to make the site cleaner and save taxpayers money.
The treatment plant that contains the polluted groundwater costs the taxpayers about $1 million a year to operate, he said. The EPA now pays for the treatment but is working to construct a new treatment plant that DHEC would later operate.
Lowry also said Pancontinental’s operation might lower groundwater levels enough to reduce the pollution threat. The company also could be required to conduct more cleanup and environmental restoration on the property, he said.
“It is certainly possible that re-opening the mine could change the hydrology of the site in such a way that eliminates the acidic drainage from the historical pit,’’ Lowry said in an email. “Even if that does not happen, the mine operator would still be responsible for preventing the acidic drainage from causing a threat to human health or the environment. Under either scenario, the taxpayers of South Carolina benefit by avoiding a cost of about a million dollars per year, every year, indefinitely.’’
The receivership Lowry manages picked Pancontinental over a handful of companies to look for gold at the Superfund site. He said he is not allowed to disclose the other bidders. The receiver has the right to “lease, sell or enable other uses of the abandoned property, including mining exploration and development,’’ DHEC’s Laura Renwick said in an email.
The company’s plan to explore the mine is part of a renewed interest in gold in South Carolina. The region of South Carolina where Pancontinental is working is part of a slate belt that has historically contained significant gold deposits. Some mining in the area, which extends into North Carolina, dates to the 1800s. The Brewer mine itself was worked at times long before the 1980s.
While much of the easier-to-reach gold was dug up decades ago, companies in recent years have been trying to locate the deeper and harder-to-access gold. High gold prices have made mining for tougher-to-get deposits worth the effort, mining companies have said. Gold is selling for about $1,500 an ounce.
The Haile Gold Mine near the town of Kershaw reopened several years ago after an exploration effort located deposits that modern mining now can reach. The Haile mine is operated by OceanaGold, a leading worldwide company. The Haile mine is not a Superfund site.
This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 9:47 AM.
