Nova ScotiaSt Barbara says an ‘improved permitting environment’ in Nova Scotia and ‘renewed support’ for natural resource development prompted the company’s return.Company says province’s ‘improved permitting environment’ for mining prompted rebootFrances Willick · CBC News · Posted: Dec 11, 2025 11:47 AM EST | Last Updated: 10 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 3 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.A drone image of the open pit at Atlantic Gold’s Touquoy gold mine in Moose River, N.S. (Steve Lawrence/CBC)An Australian company that operated a gold mine in Nova Scotia for five years is hoping to restart processing at the site.Atlantic Mining NS, a subsidiary of Australia-based St Barbara, ran the Touquoy gold mine from 2017 until 2023.The mine is located about 25 kilometres southeast of Middle Musquodoboit, in the rural community of Moose River on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore. The mine ceased operating in 2023 — earlier than it had planned — because it could not get approval from the province for certain permits.Now, the company says “the renewed support for natural resource development in Nova Scotia with the improved permitting environment gives St Barbara a clear pathway back into operations in the province.” St Barbara says increased gold prices have also been a factor in its decision to try to reopen the project.Earlier this year, the provincial government began signalling its hopes to ramp up natural resource development in preparation for potential economic impacts from U.S. tariffs.The government added gold to a new list of “strategic minerals” in May, and the following month changed the regulatory requirements for metal mining industrial approvals, with a goal of speeding the process up.Previous permitting problemsThe company doesn’t plan to mine new areas at the site. It wants to use its existing processing facility to extract any remaining gold from stockpiled ore. A news release from the company says the facility has been in a state of “hot” care and maintenance and can readily be returned to production.However, St Barbara plans to store tailings — the remaining material after ore processing has taken place — in the open pit. This plan was the sticking point in the company’s previous permitting problems with the province.In 2021, the company asked the Environment Department for permission to store tailings in the open pit once the gold there was exhausted, but Environment Minister Tim Halman said at the time he needed more studies to be done.The company conducted that work and submitted further information in 2022, but Halman once again requested more information.In 2023, after receiving even more information, Halman for a third time requested more studies on the impacts of the in-pit tailings proposal and gave the company one year to submit them. That prompted St Barbara to wrap up operations sooner than expected, and processing stopped in September 2023.Future plansThe company has not yet submitted a permit request for the project, but says if the proposal to resume processing is eventually approved, operations would start within eight months of approval and would continue for 13 months.St Barbara anticipates the project would be subject to provincial permitting and would not trigger new federal requirements.Karen McKendry, the senior wilderness outreach co-ordinator with the Ecology Action Centre, said she is concerned about the plan to add tailings to the open pit, because it wasn’t originally designed for that.”There are risks around that. There are mining sites all over the world that breach or leak every year,” McKendry said. “So I hope that they and Nova Scotia Environment put all of the rules in place to try to reduce the risk of it being a long-term impact.”MORE TOP STORIESABOUT THE AUTHORFrances Willick is a journalist with CBC Nova Scotia. Please contact her with feedback, story ideas or tips at frances.willick@cbc.ca
2 years after ceasing operations, Eastern Shore gold mine aims to restart processing
