Romarco Minerals, Inc. (Toronto, Ontario; www.romarco.com) has awarded Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies (Moon Township, Pa.; www.veoliawaterstna.com) a contract to supply engineering design, equipment, construction oversight and startup of a new 1,200 gallon per minute (gal/min) DesneSludge water treatment plant at its Haile Gold Mine located in Kershaw, South Carolina. The high-density-sludge water-treatment solution chosen for the Mine ensures that any discharge meets all National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit requirements.
The treatment system selected is a two-stage process. Veolia’s DenseSludge process was selected for stage one, which utilizes a high-rate package clarifier to create a crystalline sludge. The DenseSludge process reduces the normal sludge volume created by a factor of five to ten times and creates a sludge that is easier to dewater, which is important in the high solids water at the Haile mine site. Stage two utilizes an inclined plate clarifier and five multi-media filters to polish the effluent clarified water.