Title and statement of responsibility area
Title proper
Island Copper Mine fonds
General material designation
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Level of description
Fonds
Reference code
Edition statement
Edition statement of responsibility
Class of material specific details area
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
Statement of coordinates (cartographic)
Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
Date(s)
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1970-2000 (Creation)
- Creator
- Island Copper Mine
Physical description area
Physical description
3.9 m of textual records
Title proper of publisher's series
Parallel titles of publisher's series
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Statement of responsibility relating to publisher's series
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Archival description area
Name of creator
Administrative history
The Island Copper Mine (ICM), which was Canada's third largest copper mine, was located about 16 kilometres South of Port Hardy, near the northern end of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. From 1970 to 1995, Copper, Gold, Silver, Molybdenum and a by-product Rhenium were mined, using conventional open pit truck and shovel methods. At closing more than 1 billion tons of material had been moved, leaving the deepest excavated depression below sea-level on earth.
At one time, the mine employed over 900 people, and helped turn the tiny community of Port Hardy into a town of 5,000. It also made very significant contributions to the mining and milling industry. Because of the challenges faced by the mine, including low-grade ore and economic recession, many improvements to techniques and equipment were implemented, and copied around the world. Examples include the tailings disposal system, the comprehensive environmental monitoring program, the use of a semi-mobile crusher system located in the pit itself, and the South Wall Pushback, a 4,000 foot long plastic concrete wall constructed as a seepage barrier against seawater intrusion, which allowed mining to continue longer than anticipated.
To deal with the massive amounts of mine tailings produced, Island Copper Mine discharged around 400 million tons of tailings through an outfall at 50 m depth into the adjacent Rupert Inlet, a process known as submarine tailings disposal (STD) or submarine tailings placement (STP). The mine's final environmental project was the conversion of the pit to a meromictic pit lake, which involved flooding the pit with seawater, and forming a stratified lake with anoxic bottom waters into which the acid rock drainage could be injected and neutralized. This was a novel, near-passive system.
ICM pioneered the engineering for STD systems and the monitoring techniques for assessing the impact of tailings on the marine ecosystems, and subsequent recovery from that impact. For thirty years, a team of scientists and engineers from BC universities oversaw the assessments conducted by the mine.
Custodial history
Scope and content
Fonds consists of the following series: Annual Environmental Reports, 1971-98; ICM staff environmental reports, 1970-2000; University reports, 1970-2000; Consultants' reports, 1970-99; Government reports, 1970-97; and Other reports, 1970-2000. These reports document the history of the mine, as well as the monitoring information, problems, and solutions it dealt with over the years. The first two series are arranged by date. The remaining series are arranged alphabetically by author. The report files often also include scientific articles, newspaper clippings, letters and related documentation.
Notes area
Physical condition
Immediate source of acquisition
Arrangement
Language of material
Script of material
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Finding aids
Inventory available with series and file level control.Online Finding Aid [http://archives.library.uvic.ca/featured_collections/esa/fonds_island_copper_mines/default.html]
Associated materials
Accruals
2000-069
Alternative identifier(s)
Standard number
Access points
Subject access points
Name access points
- Ellis, Derek V. (Subject)
- Island Copper Mine (Subject)
Control area
Description record identifier
Institution identifier
Rules or conventions
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
2013-02-05. Updated 2016-04-28 [MP].
Language of description
- English
Script of description
Sources
Digital content metadata
Filename
Island_Copper_Mine_AR340_FIND.pdf
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Longitude
Media type
Text
Mime-type
application/pdf