Sustainable Resource Development planners are hailing the ecological restoration plans of mines near Hinton as so successful, they may be used as a template for the restoration of other sites in Alberta. SRD officials are also saying that lessons learned during the restoration process could change government mine site reclamation policy in the future.

According to Sharad Karmacharya, a land management planner with Sustainable Resource Development, the plans for the restoration of the Gregg River and Luscar River coal mine sites started well after the mining had already started.

“Before we started, we should have developed a reclamation plan,” said Karmacharya. “This could be a change that will lead to changes in the regional and provincial policy directions... SRD would lead the plans, with support from the coal mines.”

This assessment was delivered by Karmacharya at the Foothills Research Institute in Hinton, during a lecture in their Brown Bag Lunch Speaker Series, which was held on March 12.

The mine sites are located 43 km south of Hinton, near the Gregg and Luscar Rivers. While some 4,400 hectares were disturbed by the coal mining, the actual size of the restoration site is approximately 7,100 hectares. Fifty per cent of the reclamation work at the Luscar River site is now done and is still continuing, while the Gregg River site is almost entirely reclaimed now, said Karmacharya.

Karmacharya showed pictures of what the restored site looked like several years ago and what it looks like now. When the coal mining was going on, the ground is jagged, black and split open with no trees to be seen. The forest that used to be there had been completely destroyed. Now, the site appears green and smoothly contoured, almost as it has been carpeted in grass and bush. It is a massive change in appearance. Several hiking, mountain biking and motorized vehicle trails now line the restored land where mining equipment used to work, said Karmacharya.

“The vision was that the plan will conserve wildlife and protect the watershed,” said Karmacharya.

Karmacharya said that the restored area has seen a large influx of bighorn sheep and elk to the new land, with well over a thousand sheep now calling the restored lands home.

“It’s really quite an increase,” said Karmacharya on the bighorn sheep population.

This caused one man in the crowd to question the safety of the elk and sheep living on the land. The man claimed that the land, which he has known his whole life, never had elk on it. Now, these animals will be on land that is pocked with 25-foot deep cracks and fissures from the mining.

Others are not so critical of the site.

John Mitchell, 89, of Hinton, has lived, played and worked in the Luscar and Gregg River area for much of his entire life, and said that he supports the reclamation work being done.

“We are very, very pleased with the reclamation work that they are doing in that area,” said Mitchell. “You walk through that land and it’s just beautiful.”
Mitchell’s only problem with the site is that the bighorn sheep and elk exist now in larger numbers than they did when he was young. He said that elk were extremely rare when he used to hunt in the area and to see bighorn sheep, he had to go further south into the Whitegoat area. He worries that with the larger numbers of goats, there’s a greater danger that they could become diseased.

Still, Mitchell said that when he worked mines in the Luscar area in the 1950s, reclamation work meant digging holes in the roads to stop people from going to the mine. He said that miners got what they wanted out of the ground and then just left it.

“It was just a beautiful, giant hole in the ground. Just a mess,” said Mitchell.

Bob Udell, Program Lead on the Adaptive Forest Management Program Contacts at the Foothills Research Institute, said that overall, he supports the reclamation project as well.

“It is quite striking what they’ve done there,” he said. He said that the people he has talked to in the area seem to be reporting that there is some sort of a proper ecosystem establishing itself in the area.

Elk, grizzly and black bears, mule deer, red foxes, and cougars all now call the former coal mine home as well, said Karmacharya.

Karmacharya said that one of the main developments in the plans to restore the land was the decision to talk to many different groups about what they thought should be done with the restoration. Hunters, outfitters, mountain bikers, ATV enthusiasts, photographers, energy industry players and a large number of other groups were all consulted.

As such, the restoration of the land had to accommodate and balance a broad swath of different ideas.

“I’m sure you will agree, that this is not an easy thing to do,” said Karmacharya about the decision to consult and listen to so many conflicting interests.