Casino Mining Corp. has responded publicly to the Little Salmon-Carmacks First Nation's (LSCFN's) legal action against it, claiming the corporation has more than fulfilled its requirement to consult the community.

The rebuttal addresses the legal barricade thrown up against Casino and the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board (YESAB) by the LSCFN.

The First Nation has filed a petition in Yukon Supreme Court that seeks to put at least a temporary hold on the largest potential mining project in the territory's history.

In a proceeding for judicial review, the LSCFN asked the court to quash or set aside last month's decision by the YESAB executive committee which stated Casino "had complied with its obligation to consult.”

That obligation concerned its proposal to build an access road that would cut through settlement land and traditional territory on its way to a future open-pit copper, gold and molybdenum (used in the making of steel) mine in central Yukon.

Paul West-Sells, the president of Casino — a subsidiary of the Vancouver-based Western Copper and Gold Corp. — dismissed the petition's allegations.

"Casino Mining believes it met and exceeded the level of consultation required for submission of its application to YESAB. We believe LSCFN's chances of success with this petition are very limited,” he said in a statement.

"We do not expect this petition to have any significant effect on the timing of the assessment of the Casino Mining project.”

Casino has spent $18 million over five years preparing the application for YESAB "and is fully confident that this project will go ahead as planned,” he added.

Construction of the mine and contentious access road is projected at $2.6 billion. The lifespan of the mine is expected to be 30 years.

The petition in question states that Casino gave the LSCFN "inadequate notice” of the access road project before submitting the proposal, leaving community members insufficient time "to prepare its views with the assistance of experts.”

The First Nation had six weeks between Nov. 21, 2013 and Jan. 3, 2014 to review Casino's report for the proposed road before the mining company filed its project proposal with YESAB.

"This time frame completely failed to provide LSCFN with adequate time to prepare its views, or the opportunity to present its views to CMC, or even to ask questions or seek information, on the road proposal,” wrote Chief Eric Fairclough in a letter to YESAB executive committee chair Stephen Mills last month.

West-Sells told the Star in an interview that "there is certainly ample opportunity throughout the process for additional comment to be made.”

He pointed to the various hoops in YESAB's approval process, from the "adequacy review” to the "final screening report.”

The petition also states that the executive committee sought additional information from Casino to see whether it had fulfilled its duty to consult, but that it "sought input on consultation from CMC only.”

The committee sent documents "totalling hundreds of pages and submissions ... and significant correspondence took place between CMC and the executive committee….

"LSCFN was not copied on this correspondence and not given an opportunity to reply.”

West-Sells, however, said that all communication between Casino and YESAB has been posted on YESAB's website and is publicly available.

He said the petition "came as a real surprise to us, because we'd been having discussions with Little Salmon-Carmacks towards a beneficial agreement.

They were going fairly well, in my opinion.

"Hopefully we can get this ... resolved fairly quickly because ... this could be a project that could be very beneficial to Little Salmon-Carmacks,” he added.

Casino is looking to upgrade and extend the existing Freegold Road — an old mining route — and carve a gravel path that cuts across roughly 20 kilometres of

LSCFN settlement land, as well as swaths of its traditional territory, the petition states.

The road, which would start just south of Carmacks and shear 150 kilometres northwest over undeveloped land to terminate at the mine site, would see "substantial ... traffic volumes,” according to the lawsuit.

The 640-member First Nation is worried that road construction and operation could have a major impact on its settlement lands and traditional territory.

The petition cites the potential impact on land, soil, water and air quality, fisheries and wildlife resources and community health.

It also notes the possible repercussions arising from the inevitable influx of people to the area.

The petition comes in the wake of three other legal actions in the past 2 1/2 months by First Nations concerned about consultation and staking issues in their traditional territory.

West-Sells said he will be speaking with Casino's lawyers regarding a formal legal response to the petition.