The Stibnite Advisory Council’s Independent Water Monitoring Program reported consistent results between its ground and surface water data and that of Perpetua Resources in its fourth year of testing.
This infographic presents the results from an interlaboratory comparison between two analytic laboratories (SVL Analytical Inc., Kellogg, Idaho and Anatek Labs, Inc., Moscow, Idaho) that tested concentrations of water quality analytes from waters collected at the Stibnite Gold Project Site in 2024.
Methods: Collection of ground and surface water for laboratory analysis occurred via split sampling, that is the separation of a water sample into two parts such that each part was representative of the original sample. Water was taken from a single source (e.g., a groundwater well or stream) then divided in two, with each sample analyzed by Anatek Labs (Moscow, ID) and SVL Analytical (Kellogg, ID).
Results: Results of the 225 surface water analyte comparisons indicated that 99% (n=222) were acceptable and 1% (n=3) were flagged (Figure 1). Results of the 275 ground water analyte comparisons indicated that 94% (n=259) were acceptable and 6% (n=16) were flagged. The majority of flagged analyses were for very low concentrations of dissolved chromium close to analytical detection limits.
Conclusions: Based on the results of surface and groundwater quality comparisons in 2024, two primary conclusions can be drawn: 1) there was strong agreement between surface and groundwater analyses performed by Anatek and SVL laboratories; 2) there was no consistent site-specific bias between laboratories relative to any specific analyte. For more information, please contact Dr. Timothy Link (tlink@uidaho.edu) with the University of Idaho’s College of Natural Resources.
