WATER MANAGEMENT
All water that comes into contact with the mine site is funnelled to the water treatment plants before being discharged off site. Discharged water must comply with new regulations that recently went into effect in Peru.“ There are limits for content of various metals, salts and the acidity level of the water,” explains Wesley Ubillus, Process and Water Treatment Manager at Pierina.
Most of the water treated at the plants is not used by local communities, but some of it is channelled into several communities in the nearby Pucaurán and Pacchac valleys for irrigation use. Both treatment plants at Pierina contain reverse osmosis technology— sophisticated water purification technology that removes sulphate, carbonate and other salts from water.
Another important consideration here is to reduce exposed areas that might be susceptible to generating acid rock drainage.
The water treatment plants conduct daily water sampling and on-site analysis, measuring various metrics including water acidity, or pH levels, and turbidity. The environment team also regularly collects water samples off site and sends the samples to an independent, certified laboratory for analysis. Results from these analyses are reported to authorities on a quarterly basis to ensure Pierina is in compliance with its permit and Peruvian regulatory standards.
Reliable solutions
Flowrox technology is widely used by waste water treatment facilities. One such site in the US several years ago purchased two LPP-D25 peristaltic dosing hose pumps for control of sodium hypochlorite for disinfection and four LPP-M peristaltic metering tube pumps for pumping of sodium bisulphite and sodium hypochlorite. Flowrox LPP-M pumps are a highly sophisticated and fully equipped metering tube pumps.
LPP-D pumps were ordered with a special Halar coating for protection against the aggressive sodium hypochlorite in the unlikely occurrence of a hose failure. They were also equipped with hose leak detection to shut the pump down in the event of a hose failure and had an integral variable speed motor with 4 – 20 mA input for control.
“ Flowrox pumps offer stable flow and metering capabilities under varying operating conditions, and their energy requirement is constant”, said the customer.“ They can also handle severe variation in suction line condition in regard to suction lift and viscosity, and they are also very user friendly”, he continues.
Flowrox engineered peristaltic pumps combine smart intelligence with superior turndown. Another remarkable advantage is that peristaltic
pumps will not experience vacuum degassing in summer months like other designs.
Flowrox was selected as the equipment supplier based on the superior tube pump and control technology of the LPP-M tube pumps. Flowrox won on its technical merits, commercial merits and long-term operational advantages.
New plants
Veolia is supplying proven proprietary processes to treat up to 10,000 m 3 / d of effluent water from the Pretium Brucejack gold mine. The permanent effluent treatment system will consist of several technologies which were selected for their robustness and compactness, starting with the Actiflo ® clarification process for primary metals removal. The water will be further polished by a highly-efficient Hydrotech™ Discfilter, which gives added insurance in meeting very stringent discharge criteria. Start-up of the new effluent treatment facility is scheduled for spring 2017.
The contract followed months of extensive collaboration and testing to ensure that the most stringent environmental discharge limits will be met. The exhaustive test work that was carried out at Veolia’ s laboratories in Montreal has been largely used in support of the extensive permitting work that has been prepared by Pretium for the Canadian and Provincial authorities.“ Based on Pretium’ s investment in several months of test work, it was clear how committed they are to ensuring their environmental stewardship”, stated David Oliphant, Vice President Business Development – Heavy Industry for Veolia Water Technologies Canada.
Klaus Andersen, CEO of Veolia Water Technologies Americas, stated:“ The Brucejack project is a great example of how Veolia can partner with industrial clients over several years, from rapidly providing a temporary solution to working through months of testing and navigating the steps to secure required permitting, and coming up with the best water treatment solution
Simpson Environmental water treatment systems for B2 Gold’ s Fekola mine in Mali
possible. We are very proud to be working with Pretium on this exciting mining project”.
Veolia started working with Pretium in spring 2014 when the company needed to dewater Brucejack’ s underground workings during its exploration phase. Veolia then supplied a mobile Actiflo water treatment plant, which it has operated since. This temporary facility has provided Pretium with large amounts of extremely valuable seasonal operational data for future reference. As the Actiflo clarification process will also be installed in the new effluent treatment facility, it gives Pretium the confidence that the system meets the stringent requirements of low level metals and Total Suspended Solids( TSS) while dealing with variable feed water.
In 2011 Simpson Environmental Corp developed the concept of pre-engineered, packaged potable water and wastewater( sewage) treatment systems. The company’ s go-to-market strategy involved partnering with a select number of major global shelter manufacturers active in the remote camp market. These shelter manufacturers have strong working relationships with key global customers like B2 Gold, a Vancouver-based gold producer with four operating mines in Latin America, Africa and the Far East.
As a result of market development activity with ATCO Structures and Logistics, one of Canada’ s premier shelter manufacturers, Simpson was successful in securing a major supply contract for potable water and sewage treatment systems for an 800 person mining camp in Mali, West Africa.
The project commenced in the spring of 2015 with a purchase order from ATCO for two potable water SIMPODs to treat 75,000 gallons / d of borehole sourced water, seven sewage treatment SIMPODs to treat 60,000 gallons / d of black and grey water sewage from all camp toilets, showers, sinks, and kitchen / laundry points in use and three large steel bolted storage tanks.
32 International Mining | MARCH 2017