This is part of Kirkland Lake Gold's solution to its plans to re-open a closed mine near Pine Creek for a two-year underground operations to drill and blast for gold.

The company has provided a further environmental assessment after the NT EPA identified four key environmental factors with the proposal, the key one being the potential impact on Ghost bats.

The Ghost bat is listed as 'vulnerable' by the Commonwealth and 'near threatened' under the Territory laws.

Ghost bats are decreasing in number with scientists estimating there are less than 10,000 remaining in the wild.

Existing data estimates a regional Ghost bat population centred on Pine Creek and including Spring Hill to the north and Claravale Station to the south at between 570 and 1132 individuals.

This potentially represents about 10 per cent of the known Ghost bat population.

Ghost bats often reside in disused mine workings (called adits) because the adits provide the ideal temperature and humidity conditions that Ghost bats require to roost.

Kirkland Lake Gold (NT Mining Operations Pty Ltd) wants to open a new underground gold mine on the existing Union Reefs mine site 20km north of the historic gold town.

Rather than the open cut mining of the past, the company wants to follow the ore body several hundred metres underground and pump water out of the way to get there.

Its workforce of the existing 130 employees and contractors is anticipated to increase to 300 during processing and mining operations.

The company plans to use the existing Union Reefs plant to process the ore from the once flooded areas over two years and maybe even beyond.

Kirkland Lake Gold is an Australian and Canadian-listed gold mining and exploration company trading on both the Australian and the Toronto Stock Exchanges.

Gold has been mined at Pine Creek since 1878 and the town, home to just over 300 people today, has seen many booms and busts over the years.

Kirkland Lake Gold wants to spend at least two years going underground to extra more gold from the existing Prospect Pit accessed via a portal and decline.

The ore reserve is said to be 276,089 tonnes containing 39,232 ounces of gold. In today's gold prices, the haul would be worth about about $60 million.

There are plans for an underground access portal, underground mining, and processing of approximately 280,000 tonnes of ore (existing processing plant) progressively returning most waste rock to fill the underground void.

The population of ghost bats in the Territory is estimated to be 2500-3500 individuals with many of them holed up in the Pine Creek mine workings, the biggest single population in the NT.

Cane toads have been blamed for a 90 per cent drop on ghost bat numbers in Kakadu since 2001.

The gold company says it has spent about $36 million over the past decade on products and services provided by local companies based in Katherine, Pine Creek and Adelaide River.

It says since the Union Reefs project's processing plant was commissioned in 1993, it has operated for 23 out of 27 years.

A total 30.3 million tonnes of ore has been processed at an average grade of 1.7 grams a tonne, producing more than 1.5 million ounces of gold.

The company said given the population of ghost bats in the Prospect Pit, it did consider other alternatives including:

Both of these alternative locations were tested and then abandoned for geotechnical, economic, safety and/or other reasons.

The NT EPA identified four key environmental factors with the proposal, the key one being the potential impact on Ghost bats.

The activities throughout mine development and operation, which could directly impact the Union Reefs Ghost bat colony include:

The company has recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Charles Darwin University that allocates funding over three years to a post-doctoral research program for Ghost bat conservation.

"There remains a residual risk of unknown, unpredictable or irreversible impacts," the draft EIS states.

"For this reason it is considered very unlikely that the closure of the OK adit would lead to the total loss of the Union Reefs colony, estimated at up to 30 individuals. However, in the event that this was to occur, the region would have lost less than three per cent of the known regional population (at least 1100 individuals), and less than 0.3 per cent of the global population (less than 10,000)."

The company said total colony loss was unlikely to occur considering the mitigation and management strategies detailed but remains possible.

in addition to opening new adits within the area during and post mining and improving the quality of Pine Creek roosting sites, are expected to provide a net benefit to the regional population by increasing the quantity and quality of diurnal roosting habitat available to Ghost bats in the long term.

"Investment in mining is very likely to bring a net improvement in the situation of Ghost bats in the Union Reefs area, and the region generally."

Comments on Kirkland Lake Gold's new plans contained in its draft Environment Impact Statement close on January 17.

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