BacTech ENVIRONMENTAL Corporation CNSX: BAC Contact: Ross Orr, President & CEO 50 Richmond St. East, Ste. 300 Toronto, ON M5C 1N7, Canada Phone: 416-813-0303, x 222 Fax: 416-596-9840 E-Mail: info@bactechgreen.com Website: www.bactechgreen.com Shares Outstanding: 38.1 million 52 Week Trading Range: Canada: Hi: C$0.29 • Low: C$0.05

        In late December, BacTech signed a definitive agreement to clean up the stockpile from the former Nor Acme Mine in Snow Lake, Manitoba. The former gold mine operated for nine years from 1949 to 1958, mostly producing “free” gold that did not need the application of any liberation technology. About 15% of the mined gold was in the form of arsenopyrite that included very high levels of arsenic, which precluded using conventional technology at the time. The miners produced a float concentrate and stockpiled it on the site for later processing once a suitable technology could be identified that could deal with the high levels of arsenic.
        The stockpile containing about 20% arsenic – and over 85,000 ounces of gold – is still there, slowly oxidizing and discharging acidic water contaminated with soluble arsenic into the local environment. The stockpile contains about 300,000 tonnes of concentrate with an average grade of about 9.7 gpt gold.
        BacTech’s bioleaching technology is ideally suited to freeing the gold while oxidizing the sulfides to eliminate acid discharges and stabilizing the arsenic as the more benign ferric arsenate. The project has the added attraction of not requiring construction of a flotation plant or facilities for crushing or grinding. Most other projects considered by BacTech involve tailings where the sulfides need to be separated from the waste rock to produce a concentrate for bioleaching. At Snow Lake the stockpiled ore is already in a concentrated form and ready for the bacteria.

        “This is an ideal project for us to build our first bioleaching plant in North America,” says Orr. “This is a pile that is already in concentrate form, and therefore needs less capital to build out. Snow Lake is a great place for BacTech to start.”
        Newalta’s participation in the Snow Lake project engineering studies provides BacTech with needed capital while it proves up the validity of the project. Under the terms of the agreement, Newalta will provide two engineers to join in the engineering study. If the study is positive, BacTech will negotiate for up to three months regarding Newalta’s further participating in the project. If the study is not positive, or if the negotiations are unsuccessful, BacTech is under no obligation to repay Newalta its $300,000 cash infusion.
        The study, which will determine the economic viability of the project is scheduled to be conducted by Micon Engineering beginning in January. If successful, Orr said the ideal arrangement for BacTech would be to enter a 50-50 partnership with Newalta to become the operator. Newalta currently operates over 85 plants in Canada and the U.S. The plant also will be capable of treating other refractory-type gold values and waste in the region once it completes the stockpile and could become a regional bioleaching facility for years to come.
        Best of all, under its agreement with Manitoba, BacTech can keep all the gold freed from the stockpiled ore in exchange for building the plant and treating the contained arsenic. BacTech will also pay the government a 2% NSR.
        “This will be the first commercial bioleach facility in North America,” says Orr. “This is a major step forward for BacTech as we position ourselves as a leader in the field of tailings reclamation. It is a highly visible project whose success could lead to bioleaching playing a prominent role in future cleanups in North and South America.”

        BacTech Environmental holds the sole and perpetual rights to the original company’s patented BACOX bioleaching technology for anything related to mine tailings– a process that uses bacteria to remove toxic chemicals from mining wastes while liberating gold and other metals, both base and precious, for sale on the open market.
        Serendipitously, there is a huge worldwide market for cleaning up former and existing mine sites laden with arsenic and other heavy metal toxic compounds.
        The company’s business plan is to secure an equity position in each project, augmented by additional cash flow related to metal recovery. Where possible, the company would partner with national and local governments, and/or private companies, to fund portions of the projects.
        BacTech’s completely modular bioleaching technology has been successfully used in the gold industry for a number of years. It utilizes naturally occurring bacteria that are harmless to both humans and the environment. The bacteria literally eat the rocks, breaking down sulfides in 5-6 days that normally would take over 20 years to occur naturally. The bioleaching process neutralizes the sulfide source of acid and stabilizes hazardous metals, including arsenic into benign compounds. The bacteria effectively eliminate acid mine drainage at the source while liberating valuable metals, such as gold, silver, copper and other base metals. BacTech’s strategy is to retain those metals to fund its reclamation projects.

        2011 was BacTech’s inaugural year as an independent company and 2012 promises to be a year of major milestones. One hoped-for milestone in 2012 will be the ability to trade on a U.S. stock exchange, making it easier for existing and potential U.S. investors to become shareholders in this environmentally-focused company.
        BacTech’s management team is focused on creating substantial cash flow by year-end. Orr’s team of professionals have extensive experience in mining company management, metallurgy, and materials science, as well as minerals, biochemical and chemical engineering. If the team is successful in reaching its goal, the company will no longer be dependent on equity markets, according to Orr.
        BacTech is one of only two companies in the world with a proprietary commercial technology suitable for oxidizing sulphides. As BacTech Mining, BacTech helped to build several commercial bioleaching plants, one in China and 2 in Australia. Currently, there are about 20 facilities worldwide that treat arsenic-bearing gold ore, but BacTech is the only company that has identified environmental reclamation as a new market for bioleaching. 
        With its Snow Lake contract in hand, BacTech is now being approached with other reclamation projects amenable to its BACOX technology. Snow Lake, however, remains the company’s main focus.
        BacTech hopes to begin building a $22 million bioleaching processing plant at Snow Lake by fall and be in actual production by the end of this year. The anticipated life of the project is about seven years with an additional 15 years for other feeds.
        “We have done a lot in the past 13 months,” says Orr. “In our first year as a stand-alone environmental reclamation company, we have managed to identify, negotiate and sign our first project that will use bioleaching as a means to reclaim an historic problem.”