It has been a long road for University of B.C. researcher Craig Nichol to help devise a green solution to mitigate landscape contamination from mine tailings.
Nichol, an assistant professor in earth and environmental sciences in the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences at UBC’s Okanagan campus, and three co-authors were recently awarded the 2014 Thomas C. Keefer Medal for the Best Paper of 2013 in hydrotechnical, transportation, or environmental engineering by the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers.
The award-winning paper examines the type and amount of materials used to cover mine tailings and how they may prevent contamination, or acid rock drainage from the tailings.
Titled the Evaluation of a Single-layer Desulphurized Tailings Cover, it was published in the Canadian Geotechnical Journal in May 2013
