BHP wins top BC reclamation award for Island Copper

BHP (ASX, LSE, NYSE: BHP) won British Columbia’s top mine reclamation award for work continuing more than three decades after its Island Copper mine closed on northern Vancouver Island.

The miner received the Jake McDonald Annual Reclamation Award for its work near Port Hardy, while Glencore’s (LSE: GLEN) Elk Valley Resources and Ktunaxa-owned Nupqu Resource Limited Partnership won the Steelmaking Coal Mine Reclamation Award for restoring mine land with native plants.

The awards were presented Wednesday at the 49th annual BC Mine Reclamation Symposium in Fort St. John. The four-day gathering included mine tours and technical presentations on restoring land disturbed by mining.

B.C. has required reclamation plans since 1969 and was among the first Canadian jurisdictions to regulate mine reclamation, according to the Technical and Research Committee on Reclamation. Mining companies must also provide the province with reclamation security that can be held until their obligations are completed.

Island Copper

Island Copper operated from 1971 until 1995, producing copper and molybdenum concentrates as well as gold, silver and rhenium byproducts. BHP remains responsible for long-term reclamation, including treatment of the former open pit and water management.

The mine’s closure plan flooded the pit with seawater and capped it with fresh water, forming separate layers that are used to treat metal-bearing acid rock drainage. Phytoplankton grown in the upper layer bind with metals before sinking deeper into the lake, while an engineered system helps maintain separation between the layers.

More recent work recognized by the reclamation committee includes continued monitoring and adaptive management, improvements to water infrastructure and greater use of remote operating capabilities. The changes have improved the reliability of the pit-lake treatment system, reduced worker-safety risks and increased resilience to power outages and extreme weather.

Native seed partnership

Elk Valley Resources and Nupqu won their award for a native-plant program using seed collected in the Elk Valley to restore disturbed mine sites.

Nupqu collects wild seed and builds inventories that allow individual plant species to be matched with reclamation sites. More than 60 species are collected annually and more than eight million seedlings have been planted since 2022.

The program has also created economic opportunities for the Ktunaxa Nation and led to new approaches to seed collection, propagation and planting, the reclamation committee said.

Glencore owns 77% of Elk Valley Resources (EVR), which operates four steelmaking coal mines in southeastern B.C. EVR says its broader reclamation program increasingly uses locally sourced native species and incorporates Indigenous knowledge into reclamation design.

EVR also took the top Jake McDonald award last year for reclamation of the Swift project at its Fording River operations. Amrize (NYSE: AMRZ), formerly Lafarge, won the sand-and-gravel category for work near Abbotsford. 

Other honours

Glenda Ferris received a Special Tribute Award for more than 40 years of work in mine reclamation in northern B.C. Her career has included reviewing mine plans and performance, developing policy and guidelines and overseeing regulatory compliance across industry and government.

Matthew Barnette, Jess Rodgers and Amanda Schoonmaker received the Tony Milligan Book Award for their paper, “Reclamation at the Site C hydro-electric project”, presented at last year’s symposium.

Thompson Rivers University MSc student Rabeya Shikdar Orpa received the Jake McDonald Scholarship for Mine Reclamation for research into the use of native species on reclaimed mine lands. Orpa is testing soil amendments and fertilizers for establishing native plants in post-mining environments.

University of British Columbia PhD student Can Zhang won the symposium’s poster award for research using machine learning to predict drainage from mine waste rock and assess potential climate-change impacts.