Parks, golf courses, wetlands, farmland flourish where gravel pits used to be
INDUSTRY WORKS HARD TO REDUCE ITS ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT
On a sunny summer Sunday in Hawrelak Park, you can hear children laughing, birds singing, the sounds of games and picnics and people enjoying time together. Trees, grass and walkways surround a small lake – but it wasn’t always as idyllic as this. Decades ago, the sounds and sights were vastly different. Dump truck drivers and heavy machinery operators worked hard here in a dusty landscape of grey clay and rock. More than 50 years ago, the Hawrelak Park we know and love was a gravel pit. The park – now a vast and lovely green space in the middle of the city – is one of the best-known examples of land use reclamation in the Capital Region. It is a classic case that illustrates the way the sand and gravel industry is committed to returning the land to equivalent or greater standards when they have extracted all the aggregate. Among the key building blocks in our world, the term “aggregate” describes sand, rocks, gravel, crushed stone, shale and just about any rock product that’s mined out of the ground. It’s a crucial component in all kinds of construction, from roads to schools, bridges to sidewalks, houses to airports. In fact, next to oil, aggregate is the second most important mineral resource for the provincial economy. “From an environmental standpoint, there is very little risk associated with our industry,” said William Gowdy, Senior Geolo- gist with Lafarge North America. “We don’t use chemicals or additives on the materials. We take them out of the ground, crush them, screen them, in some cases wash them, and ship them off to market.” Aggregate mining is an interim land use, and it is mandated by Alberta Environment that every site be returned to an equivalent or better state when the mining is done. “Often in Alberta, it will be agricultural land,” said Gowdy. “We extract the aggregate and return it to agricultural use.” For every site being mined, reclamation bonds are held in trust by Alberta Environment to ensure that mandate is followed. “The bonds are posted and we don’t get that money back until the land is reclaimed,” Gowdy said. “We are always trying to reduce our footprint. It’s almost like hopscotch. You’re replacing that soil right back into the hole behind you, reclaiming as you go. You’re handling it once, not twice or three times.” The Cherry Pit is another prime example. A huge gravel pit mined in northeast Edmonton from the late 1970s and 1980s, providing aggregate for housing and road construction in and around the city. When the mining was done, and the aggregate all extracted, the reclamation project was completed. That land is now The Legends Golf Course, a picturesque 27-hole course with gently rolling hills, well-placed water hazards and a large club house.
The Villeneuve area just north of Edmonton has seen many successful reclamations through the years. The area has one of the richest deposits of aggregate in the region, and has been mined for more than 50 years on primarily agricultural land. “We do progressive reclamation,” said Trevor Lema, Land Manager for Lehigh Hanson Materials. “You can keep the land active for farming for a longer period of time, and you’re not moving the soil. You’re putting it right back.” For a period of time, the land may not look pretty, but ultimately it is returned to its original use. “Driving through Villeneuve, you’ll see farmers working the land, and you’d never know it was once a gravel pit,” Lema said. “In fact, some farmers have indicated to us that their yields have actually improved following the mining reclamation from what they originally were.” The land reclamation plan is laid out before a shovel goes into the ground, as part of the permit application process. Before the sizable bond is returned (which can be upwards of $1 million), a reclamation certificate has to be issued. “We have to apply for the certificate, and they check to make sure we did what we said we were going to do,” said Lema. “From the time we finish until we actually receive the certificate can take five or more years because you have to hav e two growing seasons before we can even apply, to make sure the site is producing again.” As in the case of a scenic golf course or a farmer’s increased yields, the industry often leaves the land better than when they started. “You can end up with water bodies, smoothed out humps and bumps, wildlife habitat,” said Gowdy. “And it is staggering how much is returned to agricultural use.” “Unfortunately, it is often overlooked how much reclamation is actually conducted by the sand and gravel industry”, says Michele Corry of Aspen Land Group Inc. “There are many reclaimed pits throughout the province that people drive by on a daily basis and they don’t even realize this land was once an active pit”, said Corry. As a former employee of Alberta Environment and now partner of a consulting company that specializes in assisting sand and gravel operators with regulatory requirements, Corry believes that operators try their very best to return land to an equivalent land capability while working with the local community and interest groups to mitigate their concerns. “The Alberta Sand and Gravel Association works closely with Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development on key regulations and policy development related to the environment and the mining of aggregate,” said Teri Muhlbeier, Executive Director of the Association. In addition, she said, “The responsible and orderly development of aggregate resources is not only vital to the sustainability of our environment, but our industry as well.” Aggregates are a non-renewable resource. Once land is developed, access to aggregate is forever lost on that site. If the resource cannot be mined locally, then it has to be hauled over longer distances. That increases costs to the industry and the consumer, and it also greatly increases the environmental footprint. Despite the challenges, aggregate producers and the association continue to work hard to provide a valuable resource while safeguarding the environment.