New Jersey Mining Co. has been recognized as a Pollution Prevention Champion by Idaho’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for successful pollution reduction at its New Jersey Mill in Kellogg. The DEQ made the announcement in a press release last week.
The DEQ defines pollution prevention as “any technique to reduce or eliminate pollution generated — in contrast to most pollution control strategies that manage a pollutant’s effect on the environment after it has been generated, pollution prevention seeks to eliminate or minimize the toxicity of wastes before they are generated.”
DEQ pollution prevention coordinator Ben Jarvis said that New Jersey “has optimized its processing operation through paste tailings, which allowed the company to curtail water use where water is especially precious;” accordingly, NJMC can recycle all process water, preventing discharge of process water to surface waters; altogether, this method saves more than 50 million gallons of water annually.
New Jersey is located in North Idaho’s Silver Valley where it built and is the majority-owner and operator of a fully permitted 360-metric-tons-per-day flotation mill and concentrate leach plant. The company also owns a 47.88% interest in the Golden Chest LLC, which controls the Golden Chest mine, a former gold producer with more than 12,000 ft of underground workings. Golden Chest LLC has leased a portion of the Golden Chest mine to Juniper Resources, with gold production expected to commence later this year.
