TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – TSX-listed project developer Romarco Minerals late on Wednesday said it had received, from the US Army Corps of Engineers, a schedule for completing the environmental-impact statement (EIS) required for the federal 404 wetlands permit for the Haile gold project, in Kershaw, South Carolina, after having encountered successive delays in moving forward with the process from 2011.

The company said the schedule included a timeline for the remaining critical milestones for the EIS process, including the publication of the draft EIS and the final EIS.

"The Corps' schedule provides clarity for our planning and will allow all stakeholders to closely follow the remainder of the EIS process step-by-step and monitor the progress being made on the permitting front.

“We are solely focusing on permitting and diligently managing our cash to ensure we are funded through to final permits,” Romarco president and CEO Diane Garrett said.

Romarco also said the Corps had indicated that the draft alternatives analysis, which was described as "the heart of the EIS" under the National Environmental Policy Act, was in the final review stage and would be published in August – ahead of the publication of the draft EIS in March 2014.

After the filing of the alternatives analysis, a public meeting would be held in Kershaw, on August 20, where the public would have the opportunity to discuss the alternatives analysis with the Corps.

The draft EIS public hearing is expected to take place in April 2014, after which the final EIS would be published in July 2014.

The 404 wetlands permit is the only federal permit needed by Romarco for the Haile project and the Corps is the only federal agency regulating 404 permits.

The company had filed applications for its state mine operating permit, national pollutant discharge elimination system permit, 401 water quality certification, air quality permit, and dam safety permit for the proposed tailings storage facility, for which the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) was the regulatory agency.

Romarco said it was informed that once the draft EIS was publicly filed, the SCDHEC could then start holding public meetings and processing the state permits.

The company expected its cash balance to be about $40-million at June 30.

All exploration drilling on the project was suspended during the second quarter, and the company had implemented other cash conservation measures to reduce its average net quarterly cash spend to between $6-million and $7-million over the next 18 months to ensure a positive cash balance at the end of 2014.

Romarco had hoped to break ground on the Haile project at the end of 2011, but this was halted when the Corps decided to request an EIS process, rather than the simpler environmental assessment the company was hoping for.

Over the past three years, the company had spent more than $4.5-million on environmental studies. In February, the company said it would undertake further hydrology testing to supplement existing data previously submitted in the permit application.

The company said it had modified its mine layout to reduce direct impacts on wetlands by 25% and impacts on streams by 32%. Detailed project engineering was about 76% complete at December 31.

The Haile project was expected to cost $275-million to construct and production would average 155 000 oz/y in the first five years, at average cash costs, during the same period, of $379/oz.

The Haile project has a National Instrument 43-101-compliant proven and probable gold reserve estimate of 30.5-million tonnes grading 2.06 g/t for two-million ounces of gold, and a resource estimate for 71.2-million tonnes grading 1.77 g/t, containing about four-million ounces of gold in the measured and indicated categories, and an additional 20.1-million tonnes grading 1.24 g/t containing about 800 000 oz of gold in the inferred category.