Greg Sword and Lori Lemke accept the Jake McDonald Mine Reclamation Award on behalf of Elk Valley Resources

Elk Valley Resources (EVR) was recognized with the province’s top reclamation award at the 48th annual Mine Reclamation Symposium held this week in Penticton.

The symposium brings together biologists, engineers, First Nations, students, and industry leaders for technical presentations, mine tours, and workshops, culminating in an awards ceremony celebrating best practices in mine reclamation across British Columbia.

EVR received the Jake McDonald Annual Reclamation Award for its progressive reclamation work on the Swift Project at Fording River Operations. Reclamation activities began in 2020, and EVR’s innovative “bottom-up lift construction” method has allowed reclamation to happen safely and simultaneously with mining—an approach that stood out to the judging panel.

Two EVR employees, Jacqueline Dube and DJ Formanski, also earned recognition with the Tony Milligan Book Award for their paper “An operational approach to geomorphic design in mine reclamation: A case study from Teck Coal Line Creek Operations.”

Other winners at this year’s symposium included Amrize (formerly Lafarge), which received the Sand & Gravel Award for its collaborative reclamation work in Abbotsford, and Thompson Rivers University graduate students Rabeya Shikdar Orpa and Zhaohui (Sunny) Han, who received scholarships.

More than 270 people attended the 2025 event, highlighting the growing importance of environmental stewardship in mining.