Five B.C. mines were honoured for their reclamation efforts at the Annual BC Mine Reclamation Awards banquet in Kamloops last week.
Top honours – the Jake McDonald Annual Mine Reclamation Award – went to the Tsolum River Partnership for remediation work to reduce leaching from the Mount Washington copper mine on Vancouver Island. The mine closed in the 1960s. The partnership includes the provincial and federal governments and landowners.
Other awards recipients were:
- Gibraltar Mines Ltd., Gibraltar Mine, Williams Lake – metal mine reclamation award;
- Quinto Technologies Inc., Lumby Mine – industrial mineral mine reclamation award;
- R.E. Postill and Sons Ltd. and the Coldstream Ranch Ltd. – aggregate reclamation award, for returning the Rosebush Pit sand and gravel operation near Vernon back into agricultural use;
- Eli Christiansen and Moril Daigel – the placer mine reclamation award.
"MABC congratulates these companies whose reclamation programs exemplify the high standards the industry in British Columbia adheres to and upon which B.C.'s reputation sets the bar for other mining jurisdictions around the world," said Karina Brino, CEO of the Mining Association of BC.
"The companies are to be commended for employing innovative, effective reclamation practices aimed restoring mine and exploration sites in BC, ensuring the land is left in environmentally sound condition."
