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The Whitewood Mine lake construction project

British Columbia Mine Reclamation Symposium; University of British Columbia. Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering

Alberta's regulatory process for coal mine reclamation utilizes a cooperative approach. The value of this approach will increase through the 1990s as demand for public participation increases. The Alberta Government Development and Reclamation Review Committee, the County of Parkland, and TransAlta Utilities Corporation cooperated to ensure that a useful lake and surrounding landscape would be constructed to replace two lakes that had to be drained in advance of mining at the Whitewood Mine. The goal of the reclamation process is to achieve sustainable development. This ensures that present day use of resources does not compromise future land use. The replacement lake occupies 18.5 hectares within a reclaimed area of 126 hectares. The lake and adjacent land will be exchanged with the Alberta Government for the land under the two drained lakes, as well as an additional quarter section of land required by TransAlta for future mining. The overall exchange will be for equivalent land areas. Through numerous meetings of the three principals, the lake site was designated to have the potential for development as a put-and-take fishery, wildlife habitat area, day-use recreation area, and parkland area. Special features incorporated in the lake design were a picnic area, campsite, boat launch and beach. The design process was started in 1982, construction was carried out in 1987/88, and the area surrounding the lake was revegetated in 1988/89. Monitoring of lake development and revegetation is ongoing.

Conference Paper

application/pdf

2009-08-27

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/12596

Unreviewed

British Columbia Technical and Research Committee on Reclamation

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