Rare Element Resources
Bear Lodge Project
Canadian NI 43-101 Technical Report
October 9
th
, 2014
10135-200-46 - Rev. 0
5-3
•
Average annual air temperature is 43.6°F (6.4 °C).
•
Lowest recorded temperature (January) is 6°F (-14.4°C).
•
Highest recorded temperature (July/August) is 89°F (31.7°).
•
Average annual precipitation is 14.9 inches (37.8 centimeters).
•
Highest average seasonal snowfall is 9.2 inches (23.4 centimeters) in March.
5.3 Infrastructure and Local Resources
Motels, restaurants, gas stations, and other services are available at Sundance,
Upton, and other nearby towns, and a greater variety of accommodations are
available to the east in Spearfish, South Dakota. All necessary infrastructure, such as
housing, food, fuel, etc., would be available in these towns, or further to the west in
Gillette and southeast in Newcastle. Water rights at the mine site are available
through permitting by the Wyoming State Engineer’s Office. The water supply at the
Hydromet Plant is available from the City of Upton. Near the mine site, a power line,
which requires upgrading, runs to within a mile of the project area. Economical
electrical power would be supplied by the Powder River Energy Corporation. Power
for the Hydromet site will be fed from a sub-station at a nearby industrial park,
supplied by Powder River Energy Corporation.
Supplies can be trucked to the site 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Gillette, which is
located on both US Interstate Highway 90 and rail lines. A Burlington Northern rail
transport line is also located at Moorcroft, 34 miles (54 kilometers) west of Sundance,
and at Upton, 40 miles (64 kilometers) south. The Powder River Basin contains
multiple coal-fired power plants, and Gillette, the largest city in the basin, would be a
major logistics center for any development at the Bull Hill Mine. The current size of
the mine property, at approximately 15 square miles (39 square kilometers), is
sufficiently large to support a mining operation, with no foreseeable obstacles to
expansion. The Hydromet site is located on approximately 840 acres (340 hectares)
of private land, west of the city of Upton.
A description of the Waste Rock Facility can be found in Section 16.5 along with
figures that illustrate the growth of the facility over time. A description of the Talings
Storage Facility (TSF) can be found in Section 18.2.7 along with figures tha illustrate
the growth of the facility over time.
