Atna Completes Leach Pad Expansion at Briggs 

GOLDEN, CO -  Atna Resources Ltd. reported that it has completed its planned leach pad and carbon tower construction projects at the Briggs Mine in California. These projects include a doubling of available capacity in the carbon tower and leach irrigation systems and a major expansion to the leach pad area. Besides ongoing development drilling, these projects were the major capital expenditures planned for Briggs in 2011 and represent the final phase of capital infrastructure investment for the currently engineered mine-life.

The ore stacking system has been moved to the new leach pad area and fresh ore is being placed on the first lift. This will reduce the time required to see initial gold recovery from new ores placed on the pad over the next nine months. Leach pad irrigation rates on the existing pad area have already increased by over 25 percent and are targeted to increase by up to 35 percent to allow the simultaneous irrigation of a larger leach pad area. Early results indicate that additional solution flow is increasing the rate at which gold is being recovered from gold ore inventory on the leach pad. "These projects were designed to meet the currently planned life-of-mine leach pad capacity requirements while removing restrictions that had become evident in our gold recovery system. We expect to see an increase in the rate of gold recovery from existing gold ore inventory on the pads and from new ores placed beginning in third and fourth quarters of 2011, which should result in improved economic performance and reduced unit production costs at Briggs," said James Hesketh, President & CEO. The company's address is 14142 Denver West Parkway, Suite 250, Golden, CO 80401, (303) 278-8464, fax: (303) 279-3772.