K+S Potash Canada is spending nearly $950,000 on a grassland offset project to make up for land disturbed by the construction of Sask-tchewan’s first new potash mine in decades.
The solution mine near Bethune is known as the Legacy Project and affected 480 acres of grassland.
The company last week gave Nature Conservancy Canada the money to buy nearly 1,000 acres to offset that amount.
The partners and the provincial environment ministry used a new science-based formula to calculate the appropriate offset.
“We can have our cake and eat it, too,” said Brant Kirychuk, executive director of fish, wildlife and lands at the ministry.
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This was the first project to use the method, based on a formula used to evaluate wetland replacement. It uses factors on both the credit and debit side related to habitat quality.
“Bigger is better, connectivity is better, presence of species at risk is important,” said Kirychuk.
Some habitats are more valuable than others, so swapping one-for-one doesn’t necessarily work. The conservancy will try to replace the land with similar quality in another location.
Cameron Wood, natural area manager for the conservancy, said acquisitions will ideally be close to the mine site and in at least ecologically similar areas.
He said species at risk affected in this case include Sprague’s pipit, Baird sparrows, bobolinks and northern leopard frogs. The conservancy has properties with all of those.
“We’ll focus on having (the offset lands) in areas of large connected habitat,” he said.
Wood noted that only 20 percent of original native prairie remains in Saskatchewan.
Eric Cline, vice-president of land and sustainable development at K+S, said the company committed to the offset in 2010 but soon learned that replacement wasn’t straightforward.
The formula considers ecological value of the habitat at both the original and offset sites, the effects on species of concern and the effect of breaking up the land.
“We know that when we have a large development of this nature in the province, inevitably there’s going to be some impact on grasslands, wetlands and other aspects of the environment,” he said.
“One of the commitments we make as part of our licensing from government is that we will do our best to remove any negative im-pacts of development, and this is one step to do that and a very significant milestone for us, we think.”
Cline said K+S emphasizes reclamation of the natural environment wherever it works.
The Legacy Project is currently in the commissioning phase and is expected to reach two million tonnes of capacity by the end of next year.
