Environmental groups say they will oppose a mining company's plans to open a zinc mine near the Nahanni National Park Reserve in the Northwest Territories.

Canadian Zinc Corp. plans to make a formal application for a water licence that would bring the dormant Prairie Creek mine into operation.

Officials with the Vancouver- and Toronto-based junior exploration company say they want to see the mine running within the next two or three years.

But if a proposal to expand the nearby Nahanni park reserve goes ahead, Prairie Creek would be put within the protected area.

"We'd be more or less encapsulated by that expansion," Canadian Zinc chief operating officer Alan Taylor told CBC News.

"Up to this time, we have been reassured that third-party rights of mining exist and rights of access, and we just have to clarify that a bit further."

The zinc, lead and silver mine site is located about 25 kilometres north of the park's current boundaries. It sits on the banks of a tributary of the South Nahanni River.

The mine has yet to go into production since it was built in the early 1980s, about a decade after then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau established the park reserve in 1972. The mine's original owners ran into financial problems and were never able to open the facility.

A number of organizations, including the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, say they will oppose plans to open the mine.

The wilderness society says while industrial development does exist in and around other parks across Canada, the Prairie Creek mine is not a good fit with the Nahanni ecosystem.

"With this particular site and this particular park and this particular watershed, there is [a need for] extreme caution," said Jen Morin, interim executive director of the society's N.W.T. chapter.

"Right now, I just don't see that they're really ultimately compatible."

But Taylor said Dehcho aboriginal communities have voiced support for the company's efforts to open the mine.

However, that support has not yet translated into any formal co-operation agreements.