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Long term reclamation monitoring of vegetative covers at the Island Copper Mine, Port Hardy, BC

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

Repeat vegetation sampling along transects established in 1997 at the Island Copper Mine provides a unique picture of the development of vegetation on the reclamation sites. Reclamation at the mine has consisted of resloping waste rock dumps to a stable angle and shape, creating a reclamation cap by placing glacial till over the waste rock, seeding with agronomic grasses and legumes and planting woody species, primarily red alder (Alnus rubra Bong.). Five transects have been established in representative areas at the mine. Ten plots were established at 30 m intervals along each transect. Each plot consists of a circular plot with a radius of 5.64 m giving a plot area of 100 m² or 1/10th of a hectare. In each plot a listing of the vascular plant species present was compiled along with an estimate of their combined cover and abundance. A count of the number of woody species present and an estimate of their cover was made. This data has been used to document the progress of the vegetation cover and to project the future of the vegetation on the mine site. Results to date confirm the visually obvious excellent growth of the vegetation on most sites. In addition, the data illustrate the detrimental effects of the grass and legume seeding on the growth of forest species. In the past few years more forest species have been showing up in the dense alder stands where competition from the seeded grasses and legumes has been reduced. This paper compliments the field tour to the mine.

Text

2010-11-30

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/30248

Unreviewed

British Columbia Technical and Research Committee on Reclamation

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