Romarco Minerals has awarded Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies a contract to provide engineering design, equipment, construction oversight and startup of a new 1,200-gpm DenseSludge water treatment plant at its Haile gold mine in Kershaw, South Carolina, USA. The high-density sludge water treatment solution chosen for the mine is intended to ensure that any mine discharge meets U.S. National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit requirements.
The treatment system at Haile will be a two-stage process. Veolia’s DenseSludge process was selected for stage one, which utilizes a Multiflo high-rate package clarifier to create a crystalline sludge. According to Veolia, the DenseSludge process reduces the normal sludge volume created by a factor of five to 10 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 multimedia filters to polish the effluent clarified water.
Haile is one of the United States’ oldest mines, with gold discovered there in 1827, and has operated intermittently for almost 200 years. Construction of the water treatment plant will commence once all required permits have been obtained.
