Trading Symbols:
TSX: SEA
NYSE: SA
TORONTO, Jan. 26, 2015 /PRNewswire/ - Seabridge Gold
announced today that it has established an Independent Geotechnical
Review Board (IGRB) for its wholly owned KSM Project to review and
consider the Project's Tailings Management Facility (TMF) and Water
Storage Dam (WSD) with a focus on their structural stability and
integrity. The IGRB will provide independent, expert
oversight, opinion and advice to Seabridge on the design,
construction, operational management and ultimate closure of the
TMF and WSD. The IGRB will have unimpeded access to all technical
data necessary to enable them to assess KSM's TMF and WSD on an
ongoing basis to ensure that these structures meet internationally
accepted standards and practices which effectively minimize risks
to employees, lands and communities.
Seabridge Gold Chairman and CEO Rudi
Fronk stated that "the establishment of the IGRB is a
voluntary undertaking on our part to ensure that KSM's Tailings
Management Facility and Water Storage Dam are constructed, operated
and decommissioned in keeping with the best practices in the
industry. The team we have assembled includes some of the
leading experts globally in their field and we are honored that
they have agreed to serve in this important role for the KSM
Project".
Initially there will be four core members of the IGRB and four
support members whose expertise will be called upon as
needed. The IGRB will comprise the following world class
experts;
Dr. Andrew Robertson
(Chairman, Core Member) - has B.Sc. in Civil Engineering
and a Ph.D. in Rock Mechanics from the University of the
Witwatersrand and 45 years of experience in mining geotechnics, of
which 37 years were gained while practicing from his home base in
Vancouver, Canada. He was one of
the founders of SRK Consulting in 1974, and established the SRK
offices in Johannesburg, South
Africa; Vancouver, Canada;
and Denver, USA. He has been extensively involved in
numerous mine development, operation and closure studies in BC and
Alaska and has served as a project
reviewer for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources for
tailings dams design and mine waste management. He currently
serves on Independent Review Panels for the Canadian Federal
Government for abandoned mine closure projects in the Yukon and Northwest territories. He has
served on Tailings and Geotechnical Review Boards or Panels for
over 30 mining projects and mines. He currently serves on
Review Boards, or as a reviewer, of the world's four highest
permitted tailings dams, designed to exceed 300 m from downstream
toe to crest. His contribution to mining technology has been
recognized with several awards; the most recent of which is his
selection for induction to the 'International Mining Technology
Hall of Fame' for the category 'Environmental Management and
Stewardship', in February 2015, in
Denver.
Dr. Gabriel Fernandez (Core
Member) - has over 40 years' experience and the following
degrees; Civil Engineer 1970, M.S.-Soil 1972, Ph.D.-Geotechnical
Engineering 1976. He has written or co-authored 28 papers. His
awards include; U.S. National Committee for Rock Mechanics: Case
histories award for a significant, original contribution,
1987. Mexican Society of Civil Engineers: Presentation
of the Raul Marsal Lecture, September, 2000. Colombian
Society of Geotechnical Engineers Excellence Award for Significant
Contributions to Rock Mechanics, October
1999. Dr. Fernandez is the Co-chair of Third National
Conference of the Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil
Engineers, at the University of Illinois,
Urbana, June 1999.
Mr. Terry Eldridge
P.Eng., FEC (Core Member) - is a Principal of Golder
Associates with over 30 years of experience in the investigation,
design, construction and closure of mine waste management
facilities. He has worked on projects ranging from 300 tpd
underground gold operations to 240,000 tpd open pit copper mine
operations and in climatic conditions ranging from the Atacama
desert in Chile, to the
rainforests of Brazil and
Indonesia to the cold climate
regions of the Arctic in Canada
and Russia. He has been involved in the design and
construction of several tailings dams that have height in excess of
200 m. He is Golder's Mine Waste Management Practice Leader
for South America and now works as
a Project Director, and Senior Technical Reviewer for mine waste
management projects being developed by Golder Associates and as an
Independent Peer Reviewer for other
consultants and mining companies.
Mr. Anthony Rattue P.Eng
(Core Member) - has over 40 years experience in geotechnical
engineering. Beginning with the Churchill Falls Hydro-electric
project in Labrador, his career
stayed entirely within the sector of earth and rockfill dams. His
design, construction and performance monitoring activities have
spanned the globe with projects in Africa, Asia
and South America. He is the
Engineer of Record for the Diavik dikes in the NWT and is a member
of the geotechnical review board for the Meadowbank mine in
Nunavut. Project internal review work includes Muskrat Falls
in Labrador, Keeyask in
Manitoba and Site C in BC.
He is also a member of two currently inactive review boards
established for the Atbara hydro project in the Sudan and the Lihir Gold Mine in Papua New Guinea. He is the current
Director for Québec of the Canadian Dam Association and is a member
of the Dam Safety Committee of that organization.
Dr. Leslie Smith
(Support Member) - is a professor in the Department of
Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia, where he holds the
Cominco Chair in Minerals and the Environment. He has 40
years of experience in hydrogeology in the topic areas of
groundwater flow and contaminant transport, numerical modeling,
groundwater – surface water interactions, and applications of
hydrogeology in mining. Dr. Smith has also served for many
years as a review consultant for corporations and government
involving projects related to peer review of project work at mine
sites and hazardous waste sites, reviews of work plans in site
assessment, seepage analysis for dams and tailings impoundments,
inflows to tunnels and open pits, seepage interception, groundwater
resource development, contaminant transport, flow and solute
transport in fractured rocks, acid rock drainage, and mine
closure. Dr. Smith currently serves on ten Geotechnical and
Tailings Review Boards, for metal mines and oil sands operations
located in North and South
America.
Dr. Ian Hutchison
(Support Member) - has over 40 years of experience in the
planning design and construction of mining and heavy civil
engineering facilities in North and South
America and Southern Africa. He has a Ph.D. in Civil
Engineering, and his degrees with majors in hydrology, hydraulics,
as well as geotechnical and structural engineering. He has
been responsible for the design and construction quality assurance
of tailings embankments for mining projects in Washington State and California in the
United States and in Ontario and Québec, Canada, and the conceptual design of surface
water ditch and tunnel diversion systems for a large mine in
northern British Columbia,
Canada. He has provided expert review of the design of
tailings and waste rock facilities containing wastes with arid rock
drainage potential for mines in northern Ontario, British Columbia, California, Brazil, and Peru. He has also been
responsible for hydraulic design aspects of hydropower plants in
Sault St. Marie and other hydroelectric projects in Newfoundland, Ontario, northern Maine, Vermont, and Alaska and three river ports on the Amazon
River. He has provided written and expert testimony in over a
dozen litigation cases involving mine waste management, surface and
groundwater contamination and environmental remediation and
currently serves on Independent Peer Review Panels for Aboriginal
Affairs and Northern Development Canada on two large mine closures
in the Yukon and North West
Territories.
Mr. Jim Obermeyer (Support
Member) - is a Principal and Senior Vice President with
MWH and is based in their Denver,
Colorado Office. He holds a Master of Science degree
in Civil Engineering from Columbia
University with a specialty in Geotechnical Engineering and
is a licensed professional engineer in Colorado, Arizona, New
Mexico, Montana and
Wyoming. Mr. Obermeyer has 40 years of experience in Civil
and Geotechnical Engineering managing and coordinating
multidisciplinary projects. His technical focus has been on
engineering, design, construction, operation, and closure of
tailing dams and on design and construction of water supply
dams. Mr. Obermeyer has worked in the United States and internationally on over
500 dam projects. He serves as MWH Energy and Industry's
Global Practice Leader for Tailing Dams and Water Storage
Dams. In this role he provides technical review and quality
assurance / quality control for all tailing dam planning, design
and construction projects for MWH's global mining sector. Mr.
Obermeyer also serves on Boards of Consultants for dams and other
geotechnical projects for mining companies, other engineering
companies and governmental entities responsible for dam design.
Dr. Jean Pierre Tournier
(Support Member) - has 35 years of experience in the design
and construction of hydroelectric developments. He has a Ph.D. in
Civil Engineering- Soil Mechanics. He is the author or co-author of
more than fifty technical publications. Since 1998, he is the
Canadian Representative and a Member of the Committee on "Materials
for the Fill Dams" for the International Commission on Large Dams
and he is the Chairman since 2010 (renamed Embankment Dams
Committee). Dr. Tournier was nominated Fellow of the
Engineering Institute of Canada in
2007 and received the prestigious Inge-Anderson Award from the
Canadian Dam Association in 2014.
The IGRB will meet at least once per calendar year during the
life of the project, with the first meeting planned to occur in
March 2015, in Vancouver BC.
The results of the IGRB's meetings will be shared with the
Government, aboriginal groups and other stakeholders who
participated in the environmental assessment of the project.
Seabridge holds a 100% interest in several North American gold
resource projects. The Company's principal assets are the KSM
property located near Stewart, British
Columbia, Canada and the Courageous Lake gold project
located in Canada's Northwest Territories. For a breakdown of
Seabridge's mineral reserves and resources by project and category
please visit the Company's website at
http://www.seabridgegold.net/resources.php.
All reserve and resource estimates reported by the
Corporation were calculated in accordance with the Canadian
National Instrument 43-101 and the Canadian Institute of Mining and
Metallurgy Classification system. These standards differ
significantly from the requirements of the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission. Mineral resources which are not mineral
reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.
This news release includes certain forward-looking statements
or information. All statements other than statements of historical
fact included in this release, including, without limitation,
statements regarding mineral reserves and resources of the Company
and the potential economic benefits of the Project are
forward-looking statements that involve various risks and
uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will
prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could
differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.
Important factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from the Company's plans or expectations include
regulatory issues, market prices, availability of capital and
financing, general economic, market or business conditions,
timeliness of government or regulatory approvals and other risks
detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by the
Company with securities regulators. The Company disclaims any
intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking
statements whether as a result of new information, future events or
otherwise except as otherwise required by applicable securities
legislation.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
"Rudi Fronk"
Chairman & CEO
SOURCE Seabridge Gold Inc.