The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.
TIMMINS – As David Yaschyshyn leads the way towards the former jarosite pond site, a cool mild breeze carries a waft of clover from the field up ahead.
Yaschyshyn, the environmental manager at Kidd Operations (Glencore), points to the ground, noting the fresh moose tracks along the trail.
“Since the jarosite pond has been reclaimed and re-vegetated, we have seen hundreds of geese. We’ve seen bears and their cubs and even moose wandering across. So it really has been returned to nature. It’s now an open meadow ecosystem.”
Yaschyshyn isn’t exaggerating. The 50-hectare area that was once a dumping pond for a liquid byproduct of the zinc refinery process is now covered waist-high in wildflowers and native grasses.
The jarosite (iron sulphate mud) pond was built in 1971 and was used as part of the smelting process from 1972 until the refinery at the metallurgical site closed in 2010.
After that there was no use for the storage pond, so it was dewatered, dried, covered with layers of stones, gravel and dirt, before being sealed with a specially designed 60-millimetre thick plastic liner.
It was then buried deep under soil and cultivated over into what is now a lush field.
“This is the area here that we now see the animals and the wildlife coming,” said Yaschyshyn.
He wades through the field at one point and remarks that he doesn’t want to be stung by bees because there are usually so many of them buzzing around, attracted by the new floral surroundings.
The transformation of the site which was conducted over the past three or four years has been so impressive, Kidd Operations received a prestigious mining award for its efforts.
It is the company’s reward for a $58-million investment in redeveloping the site.
Kidd was presented in June with the 2014 Tom Peters Memorial Reclamation Award for the closure plan design and reclamation of its metallurgical site’s jarosite pond as well as the adjacent Three Nations Creek. The creek is located just south of the former pond site.
For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.timminspress.com/2014/07/29/kidd-operations-earn-reclamation-award