Former mining consultant and Constantine Metal Resources employee Liz Cornejo started work this week as the first local employee of the Japanese company that owns the majority share of an advanced mining exploration project northwest of Haines.

Cornejo now serves as vice president of Dowa Metals & Mining Alaska Ltd. (Dowa Alaska), a subsidiary of Dowa Metals & Mining Co., Ltd. (Dowa) — a company based in Japan, with offices around the world. The company first partnered on the Palmer Project in 2013 and formed a joint venture in 2017 with Constantine, the British Columbia-based junior mineral exploration company that serves as project operator. Last year Dowa assumed majority ownership of the Palmer Project.

“In this role, I will help Dowa support Constantine as it manages the day-to-day operations of the Palmer Project. I also expect to contribute to other aspects of Dowa’s business and new projects,” Cornejo said in an email to the CVN.

Dowa was founded more than 130 years ago in Kosaka, Japan, where the company mined kuroko ore — a mix of base and precious metals.

Today Dowa is based in Tokyo and its parent company, Dowa Group, owns and operates metal smelting and refining plants and recycling facilities. Dowa has partnerships with three operating mines — two in Mexico and one in British Columbia. Zinc and copper ore from those mines are processed at facilities in Japan.

Collectively, Dowa Group’s companies employ about 10,000 employees globally, including 128 in North America, Cornejo said. Dowa’s resource development team has offices in Vancouver and Mexico City and its metals recycling team has a plant in New Jersey.

The Vancouver office, which the company has maintained since 1969, oversees Dowa Alaska, but Cornejo said she will be based in Haines.

Cornejo called Dowa “leaders in technology and resource-recycling.” She said the company “not only produces and processes metals needed to build an electric car, for example, Dowa Group also has an Environmental Management & Recycling Business Unit to recycle spent lithium-ion batteries and other e-waste materials.”

Dowa owns 55% of the Palmer Project and committed to funding the project’s entire 2022 budget, $18 million, the biggest annual project budget to date. Constantine will have the option to contribute before the end of the calendar year to mitigate dilution, a company press release said. Constantine is the minority partner, with 45% ownership, but will remain the project operator.

Environmental groups in the past have criticized Dowa for lack of public relations and community engagement around the Palmer Project. Cornejo said even though she is Dowa’s first employee in the Chilkat Valley, residents employed at Constantine’s local office have for several years worked, in effect, for the Dowa-Constantine joint venture.

Employees at that office, which opened in 2015, technically work for Constantine North, an operating company that manages the day-to-day activities of the Palmer Project on behalf of the joint venture, which itself is called Constantine Mining. (Constantine Metal Resources, on the other hand, is the name of the Canadian company that owns 45% of the project.)

Cornejo, who worked for Constantine Metal Resources from 2009 to 2020, said her work after the joint venture formed in 2017 reflected input from both Constantine and Dowa.

Constantine plans to construct new infrastructure at the project site this summer in preparation for underground exploratory operations, which the company expects to begin in mid 2023.

The new infrastructure includes a year-round camp for 50 to 60 people, completion of an underground portal access road and facilities for an updated wastewater discharge system, pending state approval of an amended waste management permit application that the company submitted in April.