There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the worst thing that could happen in the Upper Peninsula is for the natural beauty to be damaged by careless business practices.
That's why there has been uproar about the possibility of a sulfide mine coming to Marquette County that will be run by
Kennecott Eagle Minerals, a company owned by Rio Tinto. That's also why Kennecott has contracted
Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies to run its wastewater program at the Eagle Mine, located just outside of Big Bay northwest of Marquette.
The nickel mine is expected to produce approximately 300 million pounds of nickel and 250 million pounds of copper of the life of the operation. During the process of getting those precious metals out of the ground, the potential of contaminating the ground water in the area is very real. Permits issued by the government require strict water quality standards for the mine. Kennecott, which has indicated it is striving to protect the groundwater, streams, rivers and lakes in the area, has contracted Veoilia to meet, and exceed, the water-quality standards set by its mining permits.
The wastewater treatment process includes precipitation softening and clarification, filtration, ion exchange softening and a final two pass reverse osmosis polishing system. The discharge streams from this patented wastewater treatment process include treated effluent water, metals precipitation sludge, ion exchange regenerant and RO concentrate. The treated effluent water will be suitable for reuse in the mining process or to release back into the groundwater by a treated water infiltration system. The ion exchange regenerant and RO concentrate liquid wastes will then be sent to the evaporator and crystallizer system and converted to solids which will be disposed of off-site as a non-hazardous solid waste.
The system is designed to treat 100 to 500 gallons per minute (0.72 million gallons per day) of mine water and is expected to begin operations late in 2011. Veolia will start-up and commission the wastewater facility.
Writer: Sam Eggleston
Source: Kennecott Eagle Minerals
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.