Pelly Construction Ltd. could be hiring back scores of heavy equipment operators any day now to begin stripping a new open pit at the Minto Mine.

Mine manager Ron Light said Monday the amended water licence Capstone Mining requires to begin stripping was signed yesterday by Premier Darrell Pasloski.

Light said if the company receives the water licence Wednesday morning, Pelly would be stripping tomorrow afternoon using a modest crew already at the mine site conducting reclamation and other heavy equipment work.

Capstone has a letter ready to go informing Pelly Construction the Minto Mine is resuming stripping, and that it needs Pelly to mobilize at least as many operators as it had before the first major layoff in January 2014, said Light.

The mine manager said Pelly will need to bring back the full complement of employees and maybe more.

With the recent shutdown of the Wolverine Mine and the slowdown at the Cantung Mine, he said, Capstone will be emphasizing local hire where possible.

“I have a letter drafted to Pelly to resume mining,” Light said. “I just have to fill in the date.

“And they are prepared to start immediately.”

Pelly was initially forced to lay off 44 of its 116 employees at the mine site in January 2014 when Capstone reduced daily production at the open pit it was mining from 10,000 cubic metres per day to 5,000 because of dwindling ore resources.

The second layoff of another 50 or so employees occurred last September, when the resources in the pit ran out and Capstone didn’t have a new water licence to begin stripping the Minto North pit.

The Minto Mine has been using its stockpile of ore and a bit of ore from its underground operation to maintain mill production.

Light said timing is critical, particularly with the downturn in the mineral markets.

The Minto Mine needs to open up Minto North as quickly as possible if it wants to maintain operations, he said.

Pelly vice-president Jennifer Byram said this morning she won’t know just how large of a workforce they’ll need until they receive final instructions from Light and and Capstone Mining. She suspects, however, that it will be at least the same size as the crew Pelly had prior to the initial layoff.

Byram said they’ll be able to staff up fairly quickly, as they’re hearing daily from former employees and new people who’ve expressed a desire to work at the Minto Mine.

Pelly has been preparing for the recall of employees in anticipation of the new water licence, she said.

Light said they do have enough of a stockpile and ore coming from the underground to sustain the mill until Minto North is ready, but they need to get going.

With the water licence having been signed by the premier, all it needs now is the signature of Ron Johnson, chair of the water board, he pointed out.

Light said it’s expected it will take until mid- to late December to reach the ore in Minto North but they won’t hit the bulk of the ore body until next spring.

The pit has a life expectancy of 15 months, though there is another potential open pit along with more underground reserves, he said.

Light was somewhat critical of the time it’s taken to receive the new water licence, suggesting it wouldn’t have taken that long anywhere else in Canada.

“They did a good review, although the process was very long and tedious,” he said.

Light pointed out it’s been five months since the board held the public hearings on the licence application.

A drawn-out regulatory process can be a deterrent to investment in the Yukon, he said.

Light said he’s hopeful some of the new changes to environmental review legislation and the government’s current review of the process to license mines will help streamline matters.

A streamlined process may not help the Minto Mine now, but it could assist other junior mining companies that come along in the future, he said.

The Minto North stripping project highlighted a division between the territorial government and the Yukon Water Board, an independent and quasi-judicial authority.

The government maintained Capstone did not need a new water licence to strip the ore body, that the authority to strip fell under the company’s Quartz Mining Licence.

The water board insisted stripping Minto North did require a new water licence.

Capstone chose not to proceed with the stripping until it had a new licence because it didn’t want to wade into the uncertainty, the company explained at the time.