Services

Reclamation Management

  • Our Approach to Reclamation / Restoration  Click Here

  •  Our team has won an Alberta Emerald Award (2014) and was a finalist in the ASTECH Awards in 2015 for our work in restoration ecology.  With over 20 years’ experience reclamationworking within the reclamation industry we have the depth and experience to deal with any reclamation issue. Our team specializes in reclamation in challenging environments including, alpine and subalpine mines, wetlands, native grasslands, and forested areas across western Canada. Unlike most reclamation companies we are specialists in challenging environments and dealing with difficult environmental issues. we are leaders in reclamation and restoration of Fescue grassland ecosystems with Southern and Central Alberta with virtually no one else ever demonstrating consistent ability to reclaim these challenging grassland communities. While we are focused on natural ecosystems it is our goal to provide our clients with unparalleled technical expertise regardless of the complexity of the project.
  • Our team has been involved in the design and installation of over 20 bioengineering projects across Western Canada in the past 5 years as well as designing reclamation plans for mines, urban parks, oil and gas projects along with other industrial clients.
  • Our focus on natural ecosystems allows us to adapt to the most challenging environments regardless of the project requirements. Our Approach is as follows
  • Pre-Site Planning:
  • Habitat Assessments: we complete a comprehensive habitat assessment for each project including environmental conditions, soils, topography, landscape characteristics, vegetation, invasive species
  • Regulatory Requirements: For each site we determine the regulatory requirements such as requirements of the regulator (AUC, AER, AEP), required regulatory approvals to do the work, (Water Act, Public Lands Act, DFO, Transport Canada...) and put a plan together with our client to get all required regulatory approvals before work begins.
  • Route Planning: When our clients bring us in to a project during the planning stages we are able to help with route selection in order to minimize environmental impacts and reduce regulatory requirements. This can involve avoiding wetlands, rare species, and selecting routes that will be the fastest and most cost effective to reclaim.
  • Minimizing Environmental Impacts: Our team has extensive experience in minimal disturbance construction techniques and we can aid our clients in reducing impacts to the environment while reducing their costs at the same time.
  • Rare Species Mitigation: When rare species are encountered we can employ mitigation measures to ensure projects can proceed while impact to rare species is minimized. We can complete wildlife, aquatic and vegetation assessments to support the reclamation process and in some cases enhance sites during this process so that upon completion the reclamation results in improved habitat for rare species.
  • Reclamation and Restoration Planning:
  • Environmental Protection Plans and Restoration Frameworks: We have completed reclamation frameworks for wind farms and have experience designing complete environmental protection plans for small and large projects.
  • Reclamation Management Plans: Where our clients require detailed plans including drawings and specifications for reclamation we can provide detailed reclamation plans with all the details in an easy to follow plan.
  • Planting Designs: We have created numerous planting designs for bioengineering projects, wetland restoration projects, mine reclamation projects as well as for landscape architects and for the oil and gas industry. Our plans can vary in complexity to simple densities all the way up to detailed plans showing the location of each plant being installed. We customize each plan to our client’s needs.
  • Seed Mix Creation: we have created advanced seed mix calculators capable of predicting plant community composition based on the environmental conditions of a site and the management being employed on the site. With over 30 years’ experience propagating native plants for commercial seed and live plant production we are capable of creating high quality seed mixes capable of achieving our client’s goals. We apply scientific principles with the art of interpreting landscapes and the environment to provide our clients with some of the most effective seed mixes available. Our calculator is used by the City of Calgary parks department and we teach courses on creating seed mix calculators annually.
  • Bio-engineering Designs: Our skill in propagating plants has allowed us to provide unique bio-engineering designs suitable for harsh climatic conditions including droughts, poor soils, and exposure to harsh weather. We build our designs in consultation with our clients and regulatory authorities to ensure that each project is delivered to the satisfaction of both our clients and the regulators. We focus on 100% self-compensating designs to ensure that our clients do not have to create additional offset projects for fish compensation and we have a very successful track record of having our designs accepted by regulators.
  • Regulatory Applications: we can complete all regulatory applications regardless of whether they include pre-disturbance applications or final reclamation assessments and submissions (Detailed Site Assessments).
  • Reclamation Assessments: while our focus is in managing reclamation we have a network of professionals we partner with to allow us to complete turnkey reclamation programs regardless of the project complexity. Our team has extensive experience in the following assessment techniques with hundreds of assessments completed for each category.
  • Phase 1 Assessments
  • Detailed Site Assessments
  • Reclamation Management: We provide our clients with complete management and inspection services for reclamation projects. Our team has managed numerous reclamation programs from concept to final monitoring for the oil and gas industry over the past 15 years and we have worked with numerous teams to provide these services for bank stabilization projects, urban parks, and mine reclamation programs.
  • Construction Management
  • Environmental Inspections
  • Post Reclamation Monitoring