The Yukon Water Board this morning began its second day of hearings into the application for a water licence to begin reprocessing tailings at the old Whitehorse Copper Mine.

The Yukon government has already approved the project, following a positive recommendation from the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board (YESAB).

Eagle Whitehorse is applying for a 15-year water licence to reprocess the tailings over a five- or six-year-period, with room to spare for reclamation in the post-production years and ongoing monitoring of water quality leaving the site.

The company, a subsidiary of California-based Eagle Industrial Minerals, is estimating 20 to 25 full-time jobs at the site, for up to nine months a year.

It's also estimating a significant injection to the local service and supply industry, including an annual $9.5-million trucking contract to ship the recovered magnetite concentrate to Skagway for transportation overseas.

All in all, Eagle Whitehorse estimates an annual economic stimulus package of $19 million.

Eagle Whitehorse owner Chuck Eaton and his team of consultants is suggesting to the water board there's little to no risk associated with the project.

Any increase in the levels of undesirable substances occurring as a result of the reprocessing process will be quickly identified and adequately managed, they assured the board in the first day and a half of hearings.

Eagle Whitehorse, the company's team insisted, has no interest in stirring up a hornets' nest of environmental liability, and is convinced it won't.

Eaton and his team have submitted both historical data and research over the last two years to support their belief they'll leave the site in much better shape than it is now while creating jobs.

But the board's technical advisor, Cord Hamilton, suggested in his questioning late Wednesday afternoon and again this morning the information submitted by Eagle Whitehorse may not be as rock-solid as the company thinks.

Hamilton asked for clarification regarding how long it would take for groundwater to travel from the site to the nearest water wells on Canyon Crescent, 570 metres away.

The company, said the technical expert, appeared to use a general downhill slope calculation, and not a specific one.

He challenged the company's position that storing new tailings in an old pond on site wouldn't increase the level of arsenic leaving the site.

Water seeping down to the groundwater table below from tailings in the the old pond now is still showing evidence of arsenic leaving the site, and it's been 40 years, he pointed out.

Is Eagle Whitehorse not worried, he asked, that reprocessing the tailings could unlock even more arsenic that would seep out after being placed back in the old pond?

Company consultant Scott Davidson of Access Consulting Group in Whitehorse said the company does not anticipate a spike in arsenic levels.

Most of the reprocessed tailings would be placed in the Pit Lake, where no seepage of arsenic is detected. Once the tailings are placed in the Old Pond, the surface would be contoured to shed water, he pointed out.

"I do not expect to see changes in current conditions.”

Mining co-ordinator Lewis Rifkind of the Yukon Conservation Society also questioned the possibility that reprocessing the tailings to get at the magnetite – iron ore – could unleash the unknown.

Perhaps, he suggested, it may result in higher levels of uranium in the water, or xanthate, a salt compound used as a floatation material to capture copper.

Davidson said xanthate, and any material like it, that may have been used by Whitehorse Copper has a very short life, and there's nothing so far to indicate the company would run into any unknowns.

"We do not anticipate there are any lingering smoking guns, for lack of a better description, based on water sampling on site,” Davidson said.

The hearings opened Wednesday morning, with Eagle Whitehorse presenting its project description.

They continued in the afternoon with questions from the Yukon government, Rifkind, board members and Hamilton, who had the floor again this morning.

The territorial government and Yukon Conservation Society are also scheduled to present their positions to the board, followed by questioning from all the parties. The hearing is scheduled to wrap up Friday.

Whitehorse Copper operated from 1967 to 1982.

It left behind an estimated 10.1 million tonnes of tailings, placed at several areas on the 68-hectare site.

Eagle Whitehorse is proposing to reprocess all the tailings, and remove approximately 1.8 million tonnes of iron ore for resale.

It's been Eaton's contention since he first secured the lease for the Whitehorse Copper mine site that he can make money, create economic stimulus and turn the site from an unusable site, to a safer site suitable for light industrial use.

During the initial environmental screening, nearby residents expressed concern about the water table, noise and more traffic.

The recommendation from YESAB to the Yukon government included provisions to address those concerns.