Site Tours

Sept 2020 – Habitat Remediation Working Group Tour

The remediation of Edney and Hazeltine creeks has been planned and advanced through the direct collaboration of the Habitat Remediation Working Group (HRWG) which includes Mount Polley mine employees and their consultants, Williams Lake and Xatśūll First Nations and their consultants, Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. Ministry of Environment, and Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The HRWG inspected the construction of habitat features in the Lower Hazeltine Creek, the weir and fish ladder at Polley Lake, the functioning spawning habitat in Upper Hazeltine Creek, and the terrestrial plant growth in Polley Flats. The tour also viewed all stages of remediation, from installation of habitat features to a remediated ecosystem in Upper Hazeltine Creek that is maturing into a self-sustaining landscape used by all manner of life forms.

Tour discussion topics included local nursery plant sources, local contractors support in the remediation efforts, reflections on how far the remediation has advanced, reopening plans for the mine, plans for the continued use of the weir on Polley Lake for flood control, and fish rearing in Hazeltine Creek until the plants in the terrestrial flood plain mature, and the in-stream habitat features installed which are potentially superior to those which existed pre-2014.