Employees at the New Afton Mine just outside of Kamloops have launched a steering committee to do public engagement ahead of winding down the mine’s operations in several years.

The “Beyond New Afton” committee includes workers from different parts of the mine’s operation, and part of the project will also include an online public survey, which is now open.

“Mines have long been held to a strict standard pertaining to our environmental closure plans, but we’ve found there are few industry standards when it comes to the social impacts of closure and how we can help reduce those impacts when we wind down our operations,” Scott Davidson says, the mine’s manager of environment, lands and permitting.

The committee also has labelled five communities of interest which it says would be most impacted by the mine winding down. Those include staff members and their families, suppliers and contractors, and also the Skeetchestn Indian Band, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc and the Stk’emlúpsemc te Secwépemc Nation (SSN).

Korah De Walt-Gagnon, the mine’s First Nations Coordinator, says those five communities of interest will be engaged one-on-one by the Beyond New Afton committee. She says employees and contractors were first engaged last week.

After working with those groups and taking in public feedback, the committee will devise a guiding document called the Beyond New Afton Plan.

The copper and gold mine will close in the first quarter of 2030. It was initially planned to close in 2024 but early last year, its life was extended by six years, with New Gold spending $460 million to develop a new zone in the mine.

New Gold says the New Afton mine employs 610 people in the Kamloops area, and works with many other contractors and community groups.

The Beyond New Afton feedback survey can be found by clicking here.