The British Columbia Technical and Research Committee on Reclamation (TRCR) presented its annual awards at the TRCR’s 45th annual Mine Reclamation Symposium Wednesday evening.

Seabridge Gold Inc. is the recipient of the Jake McDonald Annual Mine Reclamation Award for its work at the past-producing Johnny Mountain mine. “Seabridge Gold has shown great leadership in its ongoing efforts to reclaim an inherited site with a high level of Indigenous nation support and involvement,“ says Tim Antill, outgoing chair of the TRCR and chair of the awards subcommittee. Between 2016 and 2022, Seabridge Gold’s subsidiary Snip Gold Corp. has worked to return disturbed lands and anthropogenic landforms to their original land use and capability of alpine tundra wildlife habitat. The environmental and reclamation activities completed at the Johnny Mountain Gold Mine are recognized because of the timely implementation of the site reclamation activities, and for the Company’s commitment to work with Indigenous partners to ensure all site environmental and reclamation activities, which are on the traditional territory of the Tahltan Nation, have both Indigenous input and approval.

Copper Mountain Mine (BC) Ltd. is the recipient of the Metal Mining Category Award for its channel realignment of Wolfe Creek and implementation of fish habitat offsetting sites consisting of five components to improve fish productivity and one site to improve fish passage. Teck Resources Limited receives the Coal Mining Category Award for its unique approach to assessing baseline environmental conditions, developing ecosystem/habitat models using historic and current geospatial data, and ongoing reclamation monitoring.

The Tony Milligan Book Award was presented to Jeff Anderson, Melissa Iverson and Ben Pearse of Integral Ecology Group for its paper, “Applications for remote sensing by unmanned aerial vehicles in reclamation monitoring,” presented online at the 44th Annual BC Mine Reclamation Symposium in 2021.

The TRCR is also pleased to announce its 2022 Jake McDonald Memorial Scholarship recipients. Behnaz Bahroudi is in her second year of the MSc in Environmental Science Program at Thompson Rivers University (TRU), and her research investigates the influence of topsoil-till cover depths and amendments on ecosystem reclamation and hydraulic infiltration rates for reclaimed tailings facilities at the New Afton mine. Shesley Callison-Hanna is in her second year of the MSc in Environmental Science Program at TRU and is a member of the Tahltan Nation. Her research focuses on the impact of drought on productivity and community composition of an agronomic grassland community at Highland Valley Copper along with a focus on understanding Nlaka’pamux community members’ perspectives on ecosystem restoration and mining reclamation practices.

More than 250 people have attended the symposium including more than 150 in person at the Kimberley Conference Centre including biologists, engineers, students and representatives of Indigenous nations.

About the BC TRCR

The TRCR originated in the early 1970s in response to a demonstrated need in the British Columbia mining sector for greater government-industry communication in the area of environmental protection and reclamation. Membership is drawn from industry, provincial and federal government agencies, exploration and mining associations, and universities and colleges. The TRCR sponsors the BC Mine Reclamation Symposium.