Tom Peters Memorial Mine Reclamation Industry Award
Tom Peter Memorial Mine Reclamation Student Award
The awards were named to honour Tom Peters a founding member of the Canadian Land Reclamation Association (CLRA) – established in 1975. He was President of the Association in 1981-82. In 1984, he won the CLRA’s prestigious Noranda Land Reclamation Award for outstanding achievement in the field of land reclamation.
Tom graduated from the University of Guelph in 1948 and moved to Copper Cliff, Ontario where he worked in the agricultural department of Inco Limited (now Vale), becoming their Agriculturist in 1973. Tom utilized his agricultural background to assist Inco with their tailings revegetation and overall land reclamation programs. He pioneered the use of agricultural practices in re-greening mine tailings, including the basic recipes for the addition of limestone, fertilizer, seed and the planting of fall rye as a cover crop.
His work yielded excellent results on Inco’s Copper Cliff tailings and his methods became the standard practice for mines all over the world. Tom was a well-respected and gifted leader for environmental causes and was internationally recognized in the field of land reclamation. He made major contributions to the City of Greater Sudbury Land Reclamation Program. He taught agricultural courses at the University of Guelph and Cambrian College, and contributed to reclamation courses at Laurentian University.
He received an honorary doctorate from Laurentian for his outstanding leadership in re-greening Sudbury. Tom retired in 1985, and in 1987, became the first non-American to be named Reclamationist of the Year by the American Society for Surface Mining and Reclamation. Following his death in 2007, the Canadian Land Reclamation Association (CLRA) in cooperation with the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (MNDM) and Vale established the Tom Peters Memorial Mine Reclamation Award to recognize outstanding achievement in the practice of mine reclamation in Ontario.
Nomination Deadline: November 12
2016
Walter Senza, Newmont Corporation
Lifetime Achievement in Reclamation
2017
Agnico Eagles Mines Ltd.
Coniagas No. 4 Shaft Rehabilitation
2018
Golder Associates Ltd.
Bat friendly progressive rehabilitation of the historic Edison Mine
2019
Vale and Terrapure Organics Solutions
Sustainable reclamation utilizing sewage biosolids and other waste materials
2021
Brandon Williams
2022
Behnaz Bahroudi
2016
Renate Vanderhorst, Laurentian U
Assessment of the ability of manufactured soil to support boreal vegetation for use in mine reclamation
2017
Jillian Bieser, U of Toronto
Biochars and natural chars in boreal forest restoration: vegetation, phytotoxins, and soil greenhouse gas flux
2018
Katie Mitchell, Laurentian U
An evaluation of silica-Bacillus microencapsulation for reducing acid mine drainage from sulfur waste rock in cold climates
2019
Robyn Rumney, Laurentian U
Facilitating landscape carbon storage through brownfield restoration
2020
Jonathan Lavigne, Laurentian U
Regreening industrially damaged landscapes and investigating the effectiveness of novel restoration protocols (species-rich tree planting regime) and strategies (biosolid soil conditioner)
2021
Patrick Levasseur, Trent University
Evaluated a suite of biogeochemical parameters at field sites post-reclamation to understand how forest nutrient pools and fluxes have changed over time
