The Highland Valley Copper mine is the largest

open-pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock (geology), rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a Borrow pit, b ...

copper mine Copper extraction refers to the methods used to obtain copper from its ores. The conversion of copper consists of a series of physical and electrochemical processes. Methods have evolved and vary with country depending on the ore source, loca ...

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, located near

Logan Lake Logan Lake is a district municipality in the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. History It was founded in the 1960s and 1970s to support copper, molybdenum and other mineral mining operations located south of the town. The Villag ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. It is an amalgamation of three historic mining operations: Bethlehem (later Valley Copper), Lornex and Highmont.

History

Early years

The earliest roots of the Bethlehem mining operations began when the Jersey zone was staked and bonded to a French syndicate . This claim changed hands several times until finally in October 1954 when the Huestis-Reynolds-McLallen Syndicate sponsored a prospective examination covering 100 claims including Jersey and surrounding zones. Copper was known to occur in the

Cascade Mountains The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, ...

near

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

as the productive mines of Allenby in 1914 had shown. On the strength of this, prospectors searched for other deposits in the region. These they found north of Merritt and east of Ashcroft at Logan Lake at the Jersey zone.

1950s-1960s

In February 1960, Bethlehem Copper Corporation made an agreement with the Japanese group

Sumitomo The is one of the largest Japanese ''keiretsu'', or business groups, founded by Masatomo Sumitomo (1585-1652) around 1615 during the early Edo period. History The Sumitomo Group traces its roots to a bookshop in Kyoto founded circa 1615 by Masa ...

for US$5.5 million to bring the property into production. Construction began in July 1961. At the time, Jersey and East Jersey were identified as zones containing suitable ore for production, and an assessment was completed of the area between the two zones. It was found that this middle area did not have suitable deposits to favour commercial operation and the Jersey and East Jersey zones were mined separately. This operation of two mines in close proximity by the same company led to a case brought before the

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on what constituted a mine for tax purposes. Production of the East Jersey pit began on November 28, 1962, and continued until February 17, 1965, when a rock slide forced the Company to end the pit's life early. Production of the Jersey pit began quickly after.

1970s and 1980s

The Jersey pit was given an extension in 1977, extending its life another 5 years. Two minor additional pits were also operated for brief periods during this time: Huestis from 1970 to 1976 and Iona from 1976 to 1979. On the south side of the valley the Lornex mine began mining in 1972. In 1981

Cominco Teck Resources Limited, known as Teck Cominco until late 2008, is a diversified natural resources company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is engaged in mining and mineral development, including coal for the steelmaking indust ...

, who already owned the claim to the Valley Copper deposit located west of Bethlehem, purchased Bethlehem Copper to consolidate the nearby operations. Mining of the original Bethlehem Copper pits ceased in 1982. The Bethlehem concentrator continued to operate on ore from the Valley Copper deposit until June 1989. Production on the Valley Copper mine, now the largest mine and most noticeable feature, began in January 1983. For fifty years the ore was dug using shovels and

open pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

methods. A very large pit ensued--half a mile deep and two miles in diameter. Highland Valley Copper was created in mid-1986 when the Highland Valley mining operations of Lornex Mining Corporation Ltd. and Cominco Ltd. were combined into a new single entity, structured as a partnership. The Highmont mill on the south side of the valley was acquired in 1988 when Highmont Mining Company joined the partnership. This mill had been closed down in 1984 when the Highmont deposit became uneconomical.

Current operation

Highland Valley Copper Mine, Logan Lake, BC, Canada

A large tailing pond is maintained to support these operations (48.5 million tonnes of tailings pumped in 2003), with two containment embankments to retain the tailings from the environment. In April 2017 freezing pipes caused 850 cubic meters of process water to spill. The spill was contained on site and returned to the tailing pond. Trojan Pond, a previous tailing pool used in the operation, began to be reclaimed in 1990 and is now a self-sustaining ecosystem and used for sport fishing. Copper and molybdenum mineral concentrates, which include trace amounts of silver and gold, are sent via truck to nearby rail facilities in

Ashcroft Ashcroft may refer to: Places * Ashcroft, British Columbia, a village in Canada **Ashcroft House in Bagpath, Gloucestershire, England—eponym of the Canadian village * Ashcroft, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia * Ashcroft, Colorado, ...

where the ore is carried to the

Port of Vancouver The Port of Vancouver is the largest port in Canada and the fourth largest in North America by tonnes of cargo, facilitating trade between Canada and more than 170 world economies. The port is managed by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, whic ...

and to international destinations (primarily Japan and China for copper and steel production). The mine employed approximately 1300 persons in 2011.

References

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External links

HVC official website
Copper mines in British Columbia Molybdenum mines in Canada Open-pit mines Surface mines in Canada Teck Resources