Associated Event
Mine Closure 2025
23-25 September 2025 | Kulturens Hus, Luleå, Sweden
Developing a Design Basis Memorandum for Mine Reclamation and Closure Workshop
22 September 2025 | Kulturens Hus, Luleå, Sweden
A design basis memorandum is an outcome-focused tool to achieve alignment in mine reclamation and closure planning through collaboration between industry, rights holders, communities and regulators.
Presenters
Mike O’Kane
Senior Technical Advisor
Okane Consultants, Canada
Mike is a senior technical advisor with Okane Consultants and serves as Okane’s board chair. He is chair of the Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada Independent Peer Review Panel, and also serves as a director of the Landform Design Institute and chair of its Technical Advisory Panel. He is a subject matter expert in cover system and landform design, as well as mine closure planning, and serves on numerous review panels around the world. In 2014 he was awarded a University of Saskatchewan Alumni Achievement Award.
Justin Straker
Chief Technical Officer
Integral Ecology Group, Canada
Justin is a soil scientist and forest ecologist at Integral Ecology Group. He is a subject matter expert in ecological aspects of reclamation design and mine closure planning. Justin has worked as a consultant in ecological aspects of mine reclamation for over 25 years. He has experience in reclamation of hard rock, soft rock, and oil sands mines. Justin is a member of a closure review board for a major mine, serves as a director of the Landform Design Institute, and is a member of its technical advisory panel. He has worked throughout Canada, Alaska, South America, and South Asia.
About the Workshop overview, objectives and themes
In this full-day workshop, participants will learn about the Landform Design Institute’s Design Basis Memorandum (DBM) approach in reclamation and closure planning, and the benefits of using this approach. A design basis memorandum, sometimes called a design basis report (e.g., GISTM), is a tool for developing a robust design, including critical elements of the design, and tracking the progress of that design through execution and its longer-term performance. The DBM formally documents both the “why” (design goals and rationale for design decisions that are made or not made) and the “what” (detailed design) for reclamation design and execution.
A major focus of LDI’s DBM approach is the importance of collaborating with Indigenous Peoples and local communities in reclamation and closure planning.
This workshop will teach participants about the benefits of the DBM approach, its key components, and how to develop a DBM. It will involve participants working through an example of DBM development for a mine reclamation and closure project.
Each workshop participant will be provided with a hardbound copy of the Landform Design Institute’s newly released guide, Developing a Design Basis Memorandum for Landform Design.
Themes
- Introduction to the DBM approach, and what it offers to reclamation and closure planning
- Who should participate in development of DBM
o Including collaboration with Indigenous nations - What does good look like for a DBM?
- Steps to developing a DBM
- Scales and scopes of DBMs, for both site-wide and facility-level reclamation and closure planning
- Change management and DBMs
- Main sections of a DBM
- Setting a design vision, and goals, objectives, and criteria
- Worked case study example—in groups
Preliminary Program*
*Program is subject to change. Check this web page for updates.
Who Should Attend
The target audience for the workshop is anyone working in mine closure and reclamation, as industry personnel, government regulators, consultants, academics, and members or representatives of Indigenous or other local communities. There is no required background, although we highly recommend that participants familiarise themselves with the content of the Landform Design Institute’s guide, Developing a Design Basis Memorandum for Landform Design,
prior to the workshop.