Most mines close and that’s the last you hear about them. The Island Copper Mine near Port Hardy, BC, closed in 1995, and BHP has been working on it ever since. That three-decade commitment just earned the company British Columbia’s Annual Reclamation Award from the Technical Research Committee on Reclamation.
The scale here is hard to wrap your head around. The pit plunged over 1,320 feet deep, once the deepest sunlit point on Earth, and produced more than a billion tons of ore including copper, silver, gold, molybdenum, and rhenium. At its peak it employed 900 people and built Port Hardy into a town of 5,000. When the ore ran out, BHP flooded the pit with seawater, creating a stratified lake where oxygen-depleted bottom waters neutralize acid rock drainage. Since 2001, crews have fertilized the surface every 7 to 10 days to grow plankton that absorb heavy metals from the water.
BC deserves credit too. The province was the first to require reclamation plans and budgets before a mine gets approved, which means cleanup isn’t a favor, it’s a condition. Port Hardy’s boom-and-bust story got a rare responsible ending. What’s the most impressive long-term commitment you’ve ever seen a company follow through on?
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Local Lawton
Local Lawton is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.