TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Vancouver-based Kootenay Silver this week said it was making progress with the hydrologic work and environmental baseline studies required to advance its flagship Promontorio project, in Mexico’s Sonora state.

Kootenay said three monitoring wells had been installed along the main corridor of mineralisation stretching from the north-east zone, through the pit onto the south-west zone. The wells were installed to characterise the groundwater levels to be used to develop a conceptual hydrogeological model and to determine additional information that would be valuable at this stage of project development.

Thus far, the work had helped the company to understand the groundwater characteristics on the property in terms of an initial evaluation of pit dewatering requirements, while also evaluating the potential for groundwater as a source of supply for the project’s future operations.

The company said the initial baseline groundwater characterisation would be used to support the case for acquiring regulatory permits and to assess potential environmental impacts.

Kootenay also said environmental baseline work to analyse the characteristics of the surrounding environment over a 12-month period was now complete and would provide baseline data needed to assess the potential environmental impacts of a future potential mining operation.

The most recent mineral estimate on Promontorio contained a combined National Instrument 43-101-compliant measured and indicated silver resource of 92.42-million silver-equivalent ounces comprising 39.9-million ounces of silver, 508 000 oz of gold, 394.8-million pounds of lead and 462.2-million pounds of zinc.

The project also has 26.81-million silver-equivalent ounces in the inferred category, comprising 12.8-million ounces of silver, 147 oz of gold, 99.5-million pounds of lead and 109.1-million pounds of zinc.

In April, Canadian precious metals producer Agnico-Eagle Mines agreed to buy a 9.96% interest in Kootenay, through a $4.75-million investment in a private placement.