The Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce is calling for support of the proposal to reclaim tailings at the former site of the Whitehorse Copper Mine.

If Eagle Industrial Minerals doesn't get going this year, chamber president Rick Karp said this week, there is a real threat it won't get going at all. The jobs the company is promising over the next six or seven years could be lost, he warned.

The chamber, said Karp, is concerned the Yukon Water Board may make the pending licence requirements too restrictive, unnecessarily.

In the draft licence circulated to the interested parties in late March for a technical edit, he pointed out, the board was seeking financial security in an amount far above what the parties had discussed at the public hearings in January.

There is also concern the board may elevate the water quality standards higher than they are now, or need to be, he said.

With a downturn in the mineral exploration industry washing over the Yukon, Karp said, opportunities for job creation and economic stimulation should be cherished.

"It's jobs, jobs, jobs,” he said.

"And it is reclaiming an area that could be used for a light industrial park, and there are interests out there in developing it as such.”

Karp acknowledged the chamber of commerce isn't used to sticking its nose in the affairs of a quasi-judicial regulatory body.

But it decided to issue a public statement Tuesday calling on support for the proposal because it didn't want the significance of project to be lost, he said.

"We see this project as something that is really positive,” Karp said.

"This is not a project that is going to destroy an area; it's a project that is going to make an area useable.”

Eagle Industrial Minerals is proposing to recover 1.8 million tonnes of magnetite or iron-ore from the 10 million tonnes of old tailings at the former mine site.

The company is proposing a full-time seasonal staff of 25 to 30 for nine months a year, from about March through to November.

Fleet trucks and drivers would be required to haul the ore to Skagway, averaging 30 trips a day, according to the company's proposal.

Eagle Industrial maintains the project is not overtly complicated.

It involves the use of industrial magnets to extract the iron-ore while the tailings are moved through a relatively unsophisticated plant.

The project received the green light from the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board last June. It was subsequently approved by the Yukon government last July.

A hearing into the company's application for a water licence was held in January.

The draft licence was issued for review in late March.

Carola Scheu, the water board's administrative director, said this week the licence should be in the hands of Premier Darrell Pasloski for approval by early next week.

Because it is a Type A licence, it requires the premier's approval, she explained.

The water board did issue a preliminary notice last week indicating it had reviewed the comments received on the draft licence regarding the security amount, and has since reduced the amount to what was previously discussed.

In its comments on the draft licence, the government had also questioned the board's wisdom regarding the increase in the security amount. It also expressed some concerns with the water discharge standards.

Karp said Eagle Industrial is three years into the project proposal, and time is of the essence.

The company has indicated if it can get started this year while the iron is hot, and the price for magnetite is still quite attractive, it can begin recovering its investment costs and be in a position for a solid start next year, Karp said.

He said if the licence doesn't come soon enough or is too restrictive, it could push the startup to next year.

That could create an entirely different investment picture, depending on the price for iron ore.

Chuck Eaton, the owner of Eagle Industrial, said in a brief interview this week timing is critical.

While there is no drop dead date per se, it's probably within the next few weeks, he said.

Eaton said most people expect the price of iron ore to fall so if the company has to wait another year to get started, there's no telling what the project proposal will look like.

During the public hearings in January, Eaton and his team of local consultants emphasized the quality of water leaving the site would be just as good or better than now.

The company also maintains when it's done, the site – which is unusable in its current state – would be suitable for a light industrial park.

Areas where the ground is unstable or has caved in would be stabilized.

Two dams holding back tailings in two separate valleys would be removed and the valleys would be returned to their natural state as wildlife corridors, the company promises.