In British Columbia, a small award ceremony was held to commend mine operators who continue to monitor and spend on mine reclamation, years after the pickaxes are hung up.
Mining has long been the backbone of Canada’s economy, and BC was the first province to mandate by law that mine plans could only be approved if they had a reclamation operation laid out and budgeted from the start. Reclamation is the industry term for the process of returning brownfield land to productive use, either for farming or forestry, or even for rewilding.
This year, the BC Technical Research Committee on Reclamation (TRCR) presented its Annual Reclamation Award to BHP, the world’s largest mining company, for its work on the former Island Copper Mine near Port Hardy in the north of Vancouver Island.
At one time, the main pit spiraled down over 1,320 feet into the ground—the deepest point touched by the Sun anywhere on Earth. The resource mined there measured over 1 billion tons, with the primary mineral being copper, yet also containing ample tonnage of silver, gold, molybdenum, and rhenium. It was in operation between 1971 and 1995.
At its peak, it employed 900 local residents, and the jobs turned Port Hardy from a Podunk nothing-ville into a flourishing town of 5,000 people. When the orebody was exhausted, BHP conducted extensive environmental studies and assessments for a sophisticated reclamation plan for the gaping hole the company had dug into the ground.
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BHP flooded the mining pit with seawater, which formed a stratified lake with oxygen-depleted bottom waters into which the acid rock drainage generated from the chemical and biological oxidation of reactive sulfide minerals in waste rock could be injected and neutralized. This was a novel system at the time.
Since May 2001, BHP modified its approach to increase the oxygen depletion and heavy metal absorption by fertilizing the surface waters of the lake every 7–10 days to stimulate plankton blooms that absorb contaminant heavy metals and oxygen, before sinking to the bottom layer. The removal of oxygen is vital to prevent minerals oxidizing.
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“BHP has continued to support its reclamation through ongoing monitoring, adaptive management, and improvements to the site’s water management infrastructure,” the TRCR wrote in a statement.
“These efforts have strengthened environmental protection, enhanced the long-term reliability of the Pit Lake treatment system, improved operational flexibility through remote capabilities, reduced worker safety risks, and increased resilience to extreme weather and power outages.”
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