Aggregate Inventory

Information about aggregate pits in British Columbia is collected and managed primarily by two ministries. The Ministry of Transportation and Highways gathers data on some 4,000 to 5,000 public pits in order to ensure an adequate supply of good quality gravel is available for construction, maintenance and rehabilitation of highways in the province. These data have been managed by the Ministry of Transportation and Highways using three systems: ADIS (aggregate deposit information system), ARMS (aggregate resource management system) and RAAMS (regional aggregate account management system). These are being replaced by a new system, GMSS, which is a compilation of the previous three separate systems. Assembly of this new database will allow for the elimination of errors in location and status of pits and the completion of missing data fields.

In British Columbia, aggregate pits are designated as mines. As such, the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources is responsible for their planning, management and regulation, including permitting, health, safety and reclamation. Owners or operators of all private aggregate pits must file Notices of Work as part of the permitting and reclamation process. Our efforts to establish a provincial inventory of private pits have been based on these files. Individual pit identifications and locations were obtained, reviewed and upgraded. The locations were plotted on 1:50 000-scale base maps, digitized and compiled in a simple dBase format. In total, over six hundred currently permitted pits, and a lesser number of reclaimed pits, have been located accurately for inclusion in the database. Where possible, the landform associated with each pit has also been determined.

The inventory was released in 1996 as Open File 1996-5 and also can be viewed on the MapPlace Aggregate Potential Map.

An updated inventory of Private and Public Pits was done in March 2004 and can be downloaded or viewed on the MapPlace Aggregate Potential Map.

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