March 17, 2011

Lobby group gets federal funding to participate in environmental assessment of Copper Fox mine

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency Thursday announced it will provide $8,000 to support the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition's participation in an environmental assessment of a proposed open pit mine.

Copper Fox Metals Inc. (TSX-V: CUU.V) is conducting a feasibility study on digging an open-pit mine, dubbed the Schaft Creek deposit, in northwest British Columbia, with a projected ore production capacity of up to 150,000 tonnes per day over 15 years. If it proceeds, Copper Fox would mine copper, gold, molybdenum and silver from a site 60 kilometres south of Telegraph Creek.

The Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition is based in Hazelton, located about 250 km inland from Prince Rupert. There are several provincial parks in the area. The coalition aims to develop environmental stewardship plans for the Skeena River watershed and organize meetings among developers, government agencies and residents.

As a corporation, Copper Fox is focussed on completing a feasibility study of developing the Schaft Creek deposit. In its most recent financial statements, released last month, Copper Fox said it completed six holes with a diamond drill over an area of 600 by 200 metres to outline a starter pit.

"The drilling intersected an intrusive breccia of unknown thickness and strike length at depth that contains significantly higher grades of copper-gold-molybdenum-silver," Copper Fox stated. "This higher-grade zone is open at depth and to the east under Mount LaCasse." The firm stated that a chargeability anomaly discovered by surveys last year suggest the mineral deposit extends a significant distance north and east of the area where diamond drilling took place.

"Environmental baseline studies show that the Schaft Creek deposit contains a very low amount (estimated five per cent) of potential acid generating rock and that the streams in the immediate vicinity of the proposed open pit mine, waste rock storage areas and tailings areas are non fish bearing," the company stated at the time.

DCN DIGITAL MEDIA

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