As far as starting up operations.
In my opinion Galaxy should have had the mine open and possibly operating on a pilot plant scale months if not a year ago. The USFS is an issue as far as road use permits and the USFWS as far as threatened or endangered species at the wildlife preserve. However the preserve is a couple miles away and the ore could be trucked. Since the Yellow Jacket/Phoenix could be mined as an underground operation there is no reason I can see why Galaxy didn't get the shaft and drifts open a year ago. As for a pilot plant? I was told by a well known geologist out of Tucson that there is one mineralized zone (about 6 feet wide and several hundred feet long by 200 ft in depth) that he assayed in 1996 that ran 2 ounces of gold per ton and another about a foot wide that ran nearly 8 ounces gold per ton. All on the open 100 ft level. This is more than enough to run a pilot. When I took my trip down to Tucson/Nogales and then to the Yellow Jacket I saw a plant that was mostly still there. It included an ore bin, a small jaw crusher, a ball mill, several floatation cells and what was left of a concentration table. All appeared to be able to be made operable except possibly the table. A new table can be bought for 5000 bucks.
with possibly 25,000 to 35,000 dollars this could have been repaired or maintainenced and replacements purchased and put in operation. With an additional 25-30,000 dollars a small agitated leach with carbon or resin in pulp (gold/silver recovery system) could have been installed. Set it up on private land (about 30,000 dollars) out of the USFS and away from the wildlife refuge. Apply for a Aquifer Protection Permit for a tailings pond 20,000 dollars (about 6 months to get) Install the pond liner (30,000 dollars) and you are ready to process mined ore. Contract with someone to mine and stockpile the ore at the mine (25-50 tons per week). Set aside a contengency of 50,000 dollars for anything I missed and another 150,000 dollars for operations. Truck the ore to the mill and your pilot plant is running and producing gold to the tune of 25,000 to 50,000 dollars per week.
So for about 300,000 thousand dollars you are in production. Yea, if I were you I would demand an accounting.
The math speakes for itself
