The BC TRCR Committee is pleased to announce that the action-packed Symposium in Fort St. John, BC from September 21 to 24th, 2026, was a great success.
The TRCR originated in the early 1970s in response to a demonstrated need in the British Columbia mining sector for greater government-industry communication in the area of environmental protection and reclamation. Membership is drawn from industry, provincial and federal government agencies, exploration, sand and gravel and mining associations, and universities and colleges.
The TRCR developed the 2026 BC Mine Reclamation Symposium and has done so for the last 49 years (the 50th anniversary will be in 2027).
A press release was issued on September 24th with the 2026 Media Release for TRCR, wherein winners were announced for the annual 2026 Mine Reclamation Awards, a special tribute award to Glenda Ferris from Houston, BC, the annual Milligan Award for the best paper presented in 2025 and the Jake McDonald Memorial Scholarship and winner of the Student Poster sessions.
The presentation of the reclamation awards is found here: 2026 TRCR Awards Presentation.
The Annual Reclamation Awards began with the keeper award for the 2025 winner of the Jake McDonald award presented to Elk Valley Resources. This award recognized EVR’s progressive reclamation of the Swift Project at Fording River’s operations.
L-R: Wade Aebli, Elk Valley Resources; Tim Antill, Chair, BC TRCR Awards Subcommittee
2026 Reclamation Award Winners:
BHP Canada won the Jake McDonald Annual Reclamation Award. This award recognizes BHP’s progressive reclamation of the past-producing Island Copper Mine near Port Hardy at the northern end of Vancouver Island. While the mine closed in 1995, BHP has continued to support its reclamation through ongoing monitoring, adaptive management, and improvements to the site’s water management infrastructure. These efforts have strengthened environmental protection, enhanced the long-term reliability of the Pit Lake treatment system, improved operational flexibility through remote capabilities, reduced worker safety risks, and increased resilience to extreme weather and power outages. Together, these initiatives demonstrate the success of the mine’s reclamation strategy and innovative water management approach more than 30 years after closure.
BHP representative accepting the Jade award from Tim Antill. Chair, BC TRCR Awards Subcommittee
Elk Valley Resources (EVR) and Nupqu Resource Limited Partnership secured the Steelmaking Coal Mine Reclamation Award for a leading example of progressive mine reclamation and partnership between industry and Indigenous communities. Nupqu, a Ktunaxa business, and EVR have come together to restore land with native plants grown from locally collected wild seed. Nupqu collects native seed from across the Elk Valley, building a growing seedbank that supports EVR’s reclamation efforts. Through matching species to specific reclamation sites, the program helps return native vegetation to its natural habitat while supporting biodiversity and ecosystem restoration. Each year over 60 different plant species are collected, with more than eight million seedlings planted since 2022. Beyond environmental benefits, the collaboration has created economic opportunities for the Ktunaxa Nation and fostered innovation in seed collection, propagation, and planting techniques. The program demonstrates how industry and First Nations partners can work together to achieve long-term environmental and community outcomes.
L-R: Tim Antill, Chair, BC TRCR Awards Subcommittee; Kori Singleton, Elk Valley Resources; Aaron Higgs, Nupqu
Glenda Ferris received a Special Tribute Award in recognition of her lifetime contributions to mine reclamation in Northern BC. For more than 40 years, Glenda has contributed towards advancing reclamation practices locally, nationally, and internationally through her work reviewing mine plans and performance, shaping policy and guidelines, and helping ensure regulatory compliance across industry and government.
The presentation with her accomplishments is attached: Glenda Ferris TRCR slides.
As Glenda could not attend, Bill Price from the TRCR committee accepted the award on her behalf.
Bill Price, formerly of NRCan and Tim Antill, Chair, BC TRCR Awards Subcommittee
Tony Milligan Book Award:
Tony Milligan was a founding member of the TRCR, a past manager of reclamation at the Elkview Mine, and a BC reclamation inspector. Throughout his career, Tony had a keen interest in increasing our understanding of mine reclamation. Each year, the Milligan Book Award is given to the paper at last year’s BC Mine Reclamation Symposium judged to best address technical and practical aspects of reclamation.
Based on a survey of Symposium participants in 2025, Matthew Barnette, Jess Rodgers, and Amanda Schoonmaker were awarded the Tony Milligan Book Award created in recognition of the contributions Tony Milligan made to mine reclamation. This year’s award was presented based on the quality of their paper, “Reclamation at the Site C hydro-electric project”, presented at last year’s symposium.
Matthew Barnette (on left) accepts the Best paper award for 2025 from Justin Straker, TRCR papers chair
Jake McDonald Memorial Scholarships and Judged Student Poster Session
Rabeya Shikdar Orpa received the Jake McDonald Scholarship for Mine Reclamation. Rabeya is working on completing her MSc in Environmental Science program at Thompson Rivers University. She is passionate about reclamation research, and her project focuses on native species use in mine reclamation. Rabeya is conducting a large greenhouse trial that evaluates the effectiveness of various soil amendments and fertilizers in establishing native plant species in post-mining environments.
Wendy Gardner, Chair of the TRCR Scholarship Committe (on left) presents the scholarship award to Rabeya.
The judged poster sessions was won by Can Zhang, a PhD student at UBC, received the Poster Award for his poster, “Physics-Informed Machine Learning for Mine Waste Rock Drainage Prediction and Climate Change Impact Assessment”.
Wendy Gardner, Chair of the TRCR Scholarship Committe (on left) presents the student poster award to Can.
The Award winners and the work they completed to gain them are also posted along with the Award criteria and previous recipients on the awards page.
Symposium Event:
More than 250 people attended this year’s symposium, including biologists, engineers, mine workers and representatives, partners and members of First Nations communities, and academic students.
The conference began on September 21st from the Pomeroy Hotel and Convention Center with two field visits to the John Horgan dam (previously Site C) and on the 22nd, a trip to Conuma Steelmaking Coal mines. These tours had 90 participants on the 21st and three buses with x participants on the 22nd. Thereafter, we thank our sponsor ALS Environmental for the hospitality at their lab and a seperate ticketed event by the BCEIA organization that evening.
John Horgan dam from the FSJ viewpoint
Conuma steelmaking coal mine visit on September 22nd was held on a beautiful sunny day in the South Peace region.
Overall view of the Murray River valley at the Quintette minesite with sediment ponds in the foreground
TRCR participants viewing revegation at reclamation site
A visit to the Tumbler Ridge Global Geopark office in town was provided for the participants on the tour. Through registrations for the Symposium, donations were provided to the Tumbler Ridge Community Resilience Fund that was established by the Northeast BC Community Foundation to help support the long journey forward after the February 2026 horrific mass shooting at the Tumbler Ridge high school.
Memorial in Tumbler Ridge
The two day technical sessions on September 23 and 24th began with an introduction by the Honourable Minister of Mines, Jagrup Brar about the exceptional mine reclamation and environmental work that the BC mining industry completes every year and also noted the TRCR’s 49 years of presenting this work.
Minister of Mines Jagrup Brar on the left and the 2026 chair, Elizabeth Miller from Seabridge Gold at the podium
The technical papers were announced jointly by TRCR committee members and student volunteers. These students are shown here.
From L-R Wendy Gardner, TRCR student chair from TRU, Sheetal Rimel (Postdoc, U of A), Rabeya Shikdar Orpa (MSc Student, TRU and Can Zhang (PhD Student, UBC).
The 2-day agenda included 20 presentations from the industry and consultants working on these programs at the minesites and video mine tour of Conuma Resources and their metallurgical coal operations.
The full paper agenda is found here: Agenda 2026.
Technical papers from the Symposium will soon be available at UBC’s eCIRCLE on the Publications page. We would like to thank our 2026 TRCR Papers chair, Justin Straker from the CLRA and his paper review subcommittee of Kim Bittman, Michael Preston, Jaimie Dickson, Jennifer McConnachie, Kendra Bennett, Anayansi Cohen-Fernandez and Elizabeth Miller.
An exhibitor area comprising 30 manned booths was included at the conference centre to discuss products or services from a wide range of companies such as, seed and native plant producers, conservation and reclamation contractors, environmental consultants, and analytical services.
We also thank Kelly Dube and her sponsorship committee which received the sponsors for the Symposium and also to the 21 sponsors that so graciously helped the TRCR to carry out this year’s Symposium, including our Platinum sponsor, Conuma Resources. The board is shown here, and please see their logos scrolling on the right of the website which goes directly to their websites. 
Thanks so much to our conference facilitators of the BCTRCR Planning Team of EventLab with Missy Preston and Martina Waldrich, who organized the week at the Pomeroy Hotel.
Congratulations to all this year’s Winners.
Finally, Derek Holmes, the 2027 TRCR chair invited everyone to next year’s 50th Annual Mine Reclamation Symposium in Kamloops, BC with mine tours to be determined in the Okanagan.
