Good morning my suspender wearing friend Larry: A excellent post. The tailings pond (pad) while a large project, is just one of the many problems in getting a mill on line, but it does represent the many uncontrollable and unforseen factors which must be addressed as they come on line...

There is a famous line that is elegantly simple, mispronounced, misconstructed but covers the situation nicely --- "The best laid plans of men and mice often go astray".

As for pouring dore' bars, shipping the concentrate only out, is far safer than sending Dore' bars. The roads are too long, lonely, and of low speed which is too conductive for a 'share the wealth group' to help themselves, I. E. being hijacked.

Also, Concentrates are harder to dispose of, while a nice Dore' bar is simple. This is why I always insisted on strictly concentrates only. I did experiment with melting, but after having a Synthetic shirt melted to my sensitive tummy, I dropped that as another unneccesary problem.

One of the problems to be solved is just what mesh does the materiel need to be ground for max economical recovery. Each deposit is different. Some ores are more porous than others, allowing the Cn solution better internal access, so it doesn' t need to be ground finer, less added expense.

Also each run must be tailored to the physical and chemical constituents of the ore, which can vary meter by meter.

Mnay of the preliminary tests and procedures can be carried out simultaneously prior to the first run, but invariably, there will be many factors which will have to be overcome.

It isn't quite like useing a pre packaged cake mix.

Relax, we have a top team working for us, give them time, and as they say, "wriggle room". I have faith, so should you !

Don Jose de La Mancha