I think this is the direct connection to Cardinal to which you refer..
The only reason that Owens would pay anybody (a consultant, a water treatment company) to do anything with his worthless tailings piles is to lay the groundwork for a "story".
It is important to note that in the historic tail - ings there are the roasted tailings which are the tailings that were sam - pled by Cardinal and un-roasted or white tailings. The roasted tailings are lower grade due to the improved mill recovery. In addition to the roasted tailings, there are an es - timated 300,000 tons of higher grade (0.062 oz./ton) tailings that are from the oldest milling operation. These higher grade tailings, which are found on the surface and underlying the current inactive tailings pond have an approxi - mate contained value of $11,680,800 in gold. Assuming that the ore gold to silver ratio is carried over to the tailings the contained value of the silver is $268,017. The combined contained precious metal value of the roasted and un-roasted tailings is $38,307,063. This does not include the value of the silica that may be realized by use as smelter flux http://usarmininggoldscam.com/VastMountainDevIncProspectusCongressMineTails2011.pdf