Nord Will Pump Gowganda's Old Mine Water Into Its Tailings Plant

Nord Precious Metals Mining Inc. (TSXV: NTH) said on September 22, 2026 that process water for a planned 1,000 tonne-per-day tailings reprocessing plant at Gowganda, Ontario will be drawn from dewatering its underground mines, requiring a Permit to Take Water and Environmental Compliance Approvals alongside its Mineral Recovery Permit application, following a Ministry of Mines site visit on September 15, 2026.

Nord Precious Metals Mining Inc. (TSXV: NTH), also quoted as OTCQB: NPMMF and FSE: QN3, has settled one of the least glamorous but most binding questions facing its silver tailings project at Gowganda, Ontario: where the water comes from. The company said on September 22, 2026 that process water for reprocessing the tailings will be drawn from dewatering its underground mines, and that the requirement has been sized against a plant running 1,000 tonnes per day.

The disclosure followed a site visit by Ontario's Ministry of Mines on September 15, 2026, part of the company's Gowganda recovery-permit program. Nord said its engineering team is supplying the project and operating detail regulators need to scope the work and run it in step with the recovery permit.

Why pumping out old workings changes the permitting file

Reprocessing historical tailings is, in principle, the simplest kind of mining: the rock has already been broken, hoisted and milled once. What is left is a metallurgical and a water problem. A mill needs a reliable volume of process water, and in a district like Cobalt–Gowganda, with decades of flooded underground workings, the cheapest reservoir is often sitting underground already.

Using it, though, moves Nord into a second regulatory lane. Dewatering at scale in Ontario requires a Permit to Take Water, the provincial authorisation governing how much water an operator may remove from surface or groundwater sources. Treating and discharging the resulting effluent requires Environmental Compliance Approvals. Both now sit alongside the Mineral Recovery Permit application rather than behind it.

That is not necessarily a delay. Permits filed in parallel, with a consistent engineering package behind them, can move faster than a sequential queue where each application waits on the last. But it does widen the surface area of the review: three authorisations, three sets of technical questions, and water chemistry from century-old workings that regulators will want characterised before any treated discharge is approved. The INN Battery Metals report of the company's update frames the dewatering work as coordinated with, not separate from, the recovery-permit program.

What 1,000 tonnes a day implies

The throughput figure is the anchor for everything else. At 1,000 tonnes per day, a plant running every day of a year would move roughly 365,000 tonnes of material — an illustrative annualisation of the stated rate, not a company production forecast, and one that assumes continuous operation no operator actually achieves. Real availability, seasonal constraints in northern Ontario and ramp-up all cut into it.

Still, the rate tells investors what scale of water take, effluent treatment capacity and tailings storage the engineering has to support, and therefore roughly what order of capital the company is designing toward. A 1,000 tonne-per-day circuit is a modest plant by base-metals standards but a meaningful one for a reprocessing project, where the feed is pre-mined and the economics hinge on recovery rates and unit costs rather than on mining a new orebody.

Chief Executive Frank J. Basa, P.Eng., tied the water work to the wider build-out. "We are driving Gowganda toward silver production and building for the opportunity beyond this first recovery project," he said, pointing to consolidated ground, an updated tailings silver inventory and engineering advancing alongside the permitting.

A sub-dime stock carrying a multi-permit program

The market is not yet pricing Gowganda as a producer. Nord's U.S. quote under the NPMMF symbol last traded at 0.12, up 0.51% on the day, as of 15:31 GMT on September 22, 2026, in a day range of 0.11 to 0.12. That is a stock trading in penny increments, where a single tick is a percentage move of consequence and where any capital raised to fund plant construction is likely to be dilutive on a per-share basis.

The broader tape offered little direction. The S&P 500, as tracked by SPY, was at $773.17, down 0.04%; the Dow 30 proxy DIA was at $517.08, off 0.52%; and the Nasdaq 100 proxy QQQ was at $744.83, up 0.45%, all as of the same timestamp. A quiet, mixed session means the day's move in Nord reflects company-specific flow rather than an index-driven wave.

The sequence that decides the timeline

For anyone tracking this name, the calendar that matters is regulatory, not operational. Three things determine whether "toward silver production" becomes a dated event:

• The Permit to Take Water. Volume approved, source conditions and monitoring obligations set the ceiling on plant throughput.
• The Environmental Compliance Approvals. Effluent treatment standards for water that has sat in historical workings will drive both capital cost and operating cost of the treatment circuit.
• The Mineral Recovery Permit. The authorisation that actually allows the tailings to be reprocessed.

Any of the three can become the critical path. The September 15 site visit is a positive procedural marker — regulators engaging on the ground rather than through paper — but a visit is not an approval, and Nord has not attached dates to the applications.

The wider reprocessing trade

Gowganda sits inside a trend that has strengthened as precious and battery metals prices have drawn attention back to historical camps: reworking waste from earlier mining eras, where modern recovery methods can pull metal that 20th-century mills left behind. The appeal is a shorter path to output than greenfield development and far less earth to move. The catch is that the permitting burden has grown precisely because the material is legacy waste with legacy water attached.

Nord's update is a reminder that in reprocessing, the engineering question and the environmental question are the same question. The company has now answered where the water comes from. The regulators will decide how much of it it can have.

Key facts

• Stock: NPMMF last traded at 0.12, +0.51%, as of 15:31 GMT Sept 22, 2026 (day range 0.11–0.12)
• Listings: TSXV: NTH; OTC/OTCQB: NPMMF; FSE: QN3
• Plant scale: Water requirement calculated for a 1,000 tonne-per-day tailings reprocessing plant
• Permits required: Permit to Take Water and Environmental Compliance Approvals, alongside the Mineral Recovery Permit application

Frequently asked questions

What did Nord Precious Metals announce?

On September 22, 2026, Nord Precious Metals Mining Inc. said process water for reprocessing tailings at its Gowganda project in Ontario will be drawn from dewatering its underground mines. The water requirement has been calculated for a plant processing 1,000 tonnes per day. The update followed a Ministry of Mines site visit on September 15, 2026.

Why does dewatering require extra permits?

Removing water at scale from underground workings in Ontario requires a Permit to Take Water, which governs how much water an operator may draw. Discharging the treated effluent requires Environmental Compliance Approvals. Nord must obtain both alongside its Mineral Recovery Permit application, widening the technical review regulators will conduct before the plant can operate.

Where does Nord's stock trade and at what price?

Nord Precious Metals is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under NTH, on the OTC and OTCQB markets under NPMMF, and on the Frankfurt exchange under QN3. The NPMMF quote last traded at 0.12, up 0.51% on the day, within a range of 0.11 to 0.12, as of 15:31 GMT on September 22, 2026.

What is tailings reprocessing?

Tailings reprocessing means running the waste material left over from earlier mining and milling back through a modern plant to recover metal that older methods missed. The rock has already been mined and crushed, so there is no new excavation, but the project still needs water, a treatment circuit and full environmental permitting.

Has Nord set a date for silver production at Gowganda?

No production date has been disclosed. CEO Frank J. Basa said the company is driving Gowganda toward silver production and building for opportunities beyond the first recovery project, citing consolidated ground, an updated tailings silver inventory and advancing engineering. The timeline depends on the Permit to Take Water, the Environmental Compliance Approvals and the Mineral Recovery Permit.

What should investors watch next?

The three regulatory approvals are the critical path: the Permit to Take Water, which caps how much water can be drawn and therefore plant throughput; the Environmental Compliance Approvals covering effluent treatment, which shape capital and operating costs; and the Mineral Recovery Permit itself. Any financing announcement would also matter given the stock trades in pennies.

Sources

• Dewatering of the Underground Mines to be used for Nord Tailing Reprocessing — INN Battery Metals