Ontario spends $10m on mine rehab

The Ontario government will spend $10 million this year on a program designed to rehabilitate abandoned mines.

The work is being carried out under the $27-million Abandoned Mines Rehabilitation Program, a 4-year initiative launched in 1999. During the first three years, all the abandoned mines in Ontario were assessed, and more than 45 were rehabilitated.

Among the rehabilitated sites is Kam Kotia, near Timmins, a former producer of copper and zinc recently transformed into a lime treatment plant. The plant was opened in a ceremony attended by James Wilson, minister of northern development and mines, who remarked: “With support from this program, the important rehabilitation work begun at Kam Kotia last year is moving ahead and is the main focus of fourth-year activities.”

In all, $6 million will be spent at Kam Kotia in a program that entails relocating the south-end impounded tailings in a newly constructed building in the northeast, and building appropriate drainage control and water courses.

In 1991, the Ontario government amended the Mining Act to require mining companies to submit closure plans and financial assurance to return lands to an acceptable state upon completion of exploration and mining activities. After various stages of production, surface structures must be removed, and companies must perform assessments of underground stability and tailings areas for both physical and chemical stability.

Other mines that have been rehabilitated under the program include:

q Toburn, near Kirkland Lake, where $900,000 was spent backfilling two stopes, capping a mine shaft, and fencing off revegetated areas; and

q Central Patricia, in Pickle Lake, where $1.7 million was spent restoring the North Road to its original two lanes by removing the temporary Bailey bridge and constructing a permanent one.

Also, $650,000 was spent rehabilitating the properties of Kinross Gold in Timmins, and stopes at the Provincial mine in Cobalt were backfilled to the tune of $100,000.