Irish Cove
The Irish Cove limestone quarry, before and after!
This reclaimed Cape Breton quarry, on the eastern shore of the Bras d’Or Lake, started providing metallurgical limestone in the 1960s that was used as flux in SYSCO’s steel mill in Sydney. (Flux is used in the smelting process to promote fluidity and remove impurities in the form of slag.)
The site was reclaimed in 2003-04. Soil and over 100,000 tons of leftover crushed limestone were used to contour the quarry’s slopes for safety and to re-vegetate it. Today it’s a beautiful greenspace.
In 2018, 1000 red spruce seedlings were planted in the former quarry by the Bras d'Or Lake Biosphere Reserve Association as part of a nation-wide effort to plant 100,000 trees to offset the greenhouse gas emissions created by the G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Quebec.
