The Ontario government will contribute nearly $7 million toward rehabilitating the historic Kam Kotia copper-zinc-silver mine, near Timmins.
The money will be used, in part, to build an interceptor ditch and lime treatment plant to collect and treat ground and surface drainage from tailings.
The funding was made possible through the abandoned mines rehabilitation program, which is aimed at returning abandoned sites to their natural state.
About 40 such sites have already been rehabilitated under the $27-million, 4-year program, including the former Caland iron ore mine, near Atikokan, Ont., where a commercial fish farm has taken the place of a former open pit.
The Mining Act now requires mining companies, once they have completed activities, to submit reclamation plans. However, some of the province’s abandoned mine sites are more than a century old, and the companies that owned them are long defunct, in which case ownership reverts to the Crown.
Rehabilitation is also proposed for: the Hollinger-McIntyre mine site, near Timmins; the Toburn mine, near Kirkland Lake; and the Coppercorp mine, north of Sault St. Marie.
Also, the province will spend $125,000 on a database dubbed the Abandoned Mine Information System.
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