Construction is on track for the Kanmantoo copper mine in the Adelaide Hills to reopen later in the year.

More than 100 workers are preparing the site for mining for the first time since low market prices forced it to close in 1978.

Hillgrove Resources expects to produce 21,000 tonnes of copper per year for the next decade.

Company chairman Dean Brown said it had taken five years of working with the local community to deal with environmental concerns.

"They had 129 issues that they raised with the company after those consultations and we've settled completely on 123 of them and the other six were, we reached a compromise," he said.