Abstract
Reclamation design success is not exclusively a function of meeting design criteria and regulatory requirements. Successful reclamation is strongly dependent on clear alignment and co-development between stakeholders and rights holders while meeting regulatory compliance. A mine site’s closure vision provides a high-level aspirational description of what an operation, or company, as well as stakeholders and rights holders, want to achieve through the implementation of a closure plan. One of the challenges many mine sites face is translating closure vision into actionable and scheduled activities to include in the integrated closure execution plan and detailed designs for reclamation that are mapped against rights-holders values and interests. Okane has developed a methodology to facilitate the pathway to progress closure vision to reclamation design that facilitates the shift from strategic divergent thinking to tactical evaluation to focus design and implementation. Case studies are presented for Osisko Dévelopement Corporation mine sites where the closure vision and scenario assessment methodology was used. The methodology includes a divergent thinking closure vision exercise that focuses on high-level returning land use outcomes and closure objectives. Each closure vision met, to a greater and lesser extent, documented reclamation and closure commitments for the site, as well as corporate sustainability commitments. The sites presented are at different stages along the design process; hence, the case studies will be presented to illustrate progress and future planned works.