A new lease on Crown land in Guysborough County is expected to be the location for a gold mine that should generate hundreds of jobs.
The province says the Department of Natural Resources is granting Goldboro Gold Mine Inc. a lease for 779 hectares near Goldboro – an area previously mined for gold.
The company has signed “community benefit agreements” with the municipality as well as the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs.
“Gold is a strategic mineral with great potential to attract investors and be an economic driver for Nova Scotia,” said Tory Rushton, Minister of Natural Resources in a news release.
“We added gold to a new strategic minerals list, and we are pleased to announce a Crown land lease to support this development that will create more than 700 jobs and add $2.1 billion to Nova Scotia’s economy over its lifetime.”
They get the “strategic” designation for a variety of reasons, including how much the province relies on imports, the concentration of the minerals in the region, the geopolitical significance, and whether there are any substitutes for those minerals.
The lease, along with approvals and permits, allows the mine to be an open pit, with a processing facility as well as on-site storage of things like organic material.
The new mine has environmental approval but is waiting on industrial approval and will have a lifetime of 15 years, with 11 years of operation.
At least 2,500 jobs in Nova Scotia are in the mining industry that pay about $100,000 with wages and benefits.
-with files from Jacob Moore
