Unidentified Analyst: Thank you for taking my call. I’ve got a question. The EPA court ruling or the Supreme Court, I should say, it was reading the permit application and there was only 11.2 acres identified as judge and fill aspect to the mine according to the last permit application. In the scope of this mine site and being as large as it is, why is that a significant ruling? And I’ll put myself on mute and listen.
Allen Palmiere: Sure. No, I’m happy to address that, Bradley. The fact that there was dredge and fill inherent with the original mine plan necessitated the wet lands permit. Any time there is compromised to the preexisting wetlands, we had to have the permit. And that was driven by the interpretation by the EPA of contiguous wetlands. And they had interpreted the necessity for those permits to be anything that is contiguous, not necessarily part of but contiguous to any major waterway. What the ruling determined was that any wetlands captured by the EPA’s regulations had to be part of or immediately adjoining identified drainage areas. The fact that they were in the general area no longer triggers the wetlands analysis. None of the wetlands in our mine site drained directly into the river.
They are stand-alone wetlands without any direct relationship to the river. And as such, it’s our view and the view of our consultants that we no longer are captured by the requirement for the wetlands permit. I’ll go one step further. You alluded to the 11 acres that were going to be dredged and filled in the original permit application. We have gone to great lengths in our current mine planning exercise to minimize the impact on wetlands to the greatest extent possible. So much so that under the current plan, I’m going to be approximate here, but the total amount of wetlands impacted by our current plan, it’s less than one-quarter of one acre. I want to say it’s one-tenth of one acre, which is the size of the city — a loss in the city. So we’ve managed to the greatest extent possible, eliminate any direct impact on wetlands completely.
That in conjunction with the Supreme Court ruling in our mind, eliminates the necessity for the wetlands permit. This is yet to be confirmed. I will tell you that, but we’re very confident in our interpretation. Does that address your question, Bradley?
Unidentified Analyst: Yes. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Mr. Palmiere, there are no further questions at this time. Please proceed.
Allen Palmiere: Thank you, operator. Number one, I would like to thank everybody for taking the time to join us today. And number two, the message I would like to leave you with is, while the financial results are not what we would hope them to be, [indiscernible] zinc for most of the quarter did hit us hard. And the low grade that, unfortunately, we had anticipated and was included in the mine plan hit us hard. Depreciation of the Peso is something that we couldn’t anticipate. And I’m very happy that the efforts at the mine have compensated in large part for the Peso and inflationary impacts on our operating costs. Profitability isn’t where we want it to be, but we are doing everything in accordance with our plans. And hopefully, we will see some recovery in terms of base metal prices in the near-term.
Zinc is up $0.07 over below already. So hopefully, we’re seeing a bit of a turnaround. And I look forward to being able to speak with all of you again on our Q3 conference call, if not before. Thank you all very much, and I hope you all have a great afternoon. Thanks, operator.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude our conference for today.
