I think processing the old stock pile had to be completed anyway for a few reasons. 1 - It's was taking up a big stockpile area at the mill.....need to make room for the good stuff (pay gravels). 2 - I believe per the NDEP if the didn't process it, they would have to stabilize it and protect it from erosion i.e. spray it with hydro-seed or mulch, build berms around it.....waste of money. 3 - Probably the most important, it appears that thos gravels are the most challenging to process (high sand content), when comissioning a new process system it should be commissioned using the "worst case" scenario.....now that they know they can process the garbage material efficiently and still recover gold, they can move onto the pay gravels. Also, if the new systems weren't working properly and they were running pay gravels they would have been missing gold.
