British Columbia

Project Name

Description

Kemess Mine Remediation Assessment Client: AuRico Gold Location: Northern BC

AuRico (formerly Northgate Minerals) retained Hammera to assess potentially contaminated areas of the site to facilitate closure, including: ore processing facilities, maintenance and fuelling areas and structures, the pit, and other non-core facilities. The Kemess Mine is not a typical contaminated site given the geographic scale and remote location relative to populated areas. Therefore, applying standard BC Contaminated Sites Regulation approaches and guidelines was not only inefficient and potentially more costly than necessary, but was also potentially unnecessary to achieve the closure objective and regulatory and stakeholder acceptability. Hemmera recommended and implemented a risk-based approach to facilitate the development of an appropriate level of field investigation and data consideration that would be responsive not only to meet the direct needs/expectations of Kemess Mine, but also to meet the needs of relevant stakeholders that the BC Ministry of Environment, and BC Ministry of Energy Mines and Petroleum Resources would be expecting during their reviews. We completed all contaminated sites stage of the project on time, on budget, and the unique approach prevented unnecessary allocation of resources (i.e., money, time, and labour) towards issues that were not essential to achieve the project goals and objectives.