An organic solution to reclaim mine waste: Sudbury nickel miner and remediation company lauded for innovative tailings rehabilitation project.

• Position: NEWS

Sudbury nickel miner Vale and an industrial waste management company have come up with an award-winning organic solution toward covering mine tailings near the smelter in Sudbury.

A remediation project conceived by Terrapure Organics Solutions, through a collaboration with the Brazilian mining giant, was lauded as the Project of the Year at the Environmental Leader & Energy Manager Conference in Denver, May 14.

This is the third consecutive year Burlington-headquartered Terrapure has been honoured with an Environmental Leader Award.

Terrapure has been working with Vale since 2012 on a program to apply municipally treated bio-solids to reclaim and vegetate the mining company's Central Tailings area. This program was the first of its kind in Ontario.

Tailings are the ore waste rock generated from mining.

For more than 100 years, Vale (formerly Inco) has been depositing tailings on the surface at its Copper Cliff impoundment site.

Today, there are some 1,300 hectares of tailings--deemed inactive --that still need reclamation work.

While some spots had been successfully covered over the years, there remained large bare or sparsely vegetated patches that were susceptible to wind erosion.

To keep the dust down, Vale used farm equipment to lay down hay, straw and chemical suppressant. But it was a costly solution because it had to be done constantly to maintain the cover.

In search of a cheaper and more permanent fix, they entered into discussions with Terrapure Organics Solutions (formerly Terrapure Environment) to establish a trial project to apply municipally treated biosolids.

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