Yukon's Keno Hill Silver District now owned by U.S.-based company

Yukon's Keno Hill Silver District has a new owner.

Hecla Mining Company, of Idaho, completed its purchase of Alexco Resource Corp. last week. Alexco was developing Keno Hill, which was an active mine for 75 years extracting silver, lead and zinc. According to Alexco in 2020, the mine employed about150 people,with the majority of them from Yukon and B.C.

The mine site lies about 50 kilometres northeast of Mayo and three kilometres east of Keno.

CEO Phil Baker said Hecla takes over a project that has at least eight years of production, and said the mine could operate even longer, depending on the result of planned exploration work.

"Because of the environmental liabilities, nobody did any exploration on it for the better part of 30 years," he said.

"With the expiration techniques and building off of what Alexco's already done, we think that we'll expand well beyond what's been identified."

Baker spoke to reporters in a news conference on Tuesday.

The company has three other mines a gold mine in Quebec, one in Juneau, Alaska, that primarily mines silver, and the other in Idaho, which also mines silver among other minerals.

Baker said silver is a big component in the production of solar panels.

Alexco used federal funds, Baker said, to nearly eliminate metals contamination of nearby water.

He said Hecla plans to build a water treatment plant at the site, and eventually it hopes to produce up to five million ounces of gold per year at Keno Hill.

Baker said the company pledges to maintain good standing in the territory.

"At the end of the day, we're going to care for the environment, we're going to care for the local communities that we work with," he said.