Environmental permitting

The environmental permit for Silver Mine operations was granted in April 2013. Some permit regulations were amended and the permit became legally valid in 2014. The production was started in March 2019 in accordance to the permit granted in 2013.

The permit amendment application

Sotkamo Silver has submitted permit application for higher production volume in December 2018. The permit application was supplemented in 2019 autumn. The permit application is about implementation of the ore sorter, higher annual mining tonnage and higher annual processed ore capacity. The current environmental permit is valid until the decision on the permit amendment application is received. 

The Environmental Impact Assessment procedure 

Prior to submitting the permit applicationin 2018, the environmental impacts of the Silver Mine project were studied in Environmental Impact Assessment procedure (EIA-procedure) in 2017-2018. During the EIA-procedure, environmental impacts, including the social impacts were studied thoroughly. The permit application in 2018 was based on the results of the EIA-process. The EIA-procedure is based on Finnish legislation and is applied for industrial projects.