News
Kennecott Eagle Minerals Selects Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies For Mine Water Treatment
October 24, 2011
Kennecott Eagle Minerals, a wholly owned unit of Rio Tinto, has awarded Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies a contract for the wastewater treatment plant at its Eagle Mine located in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Kennecott's Eagle Mine will be the only primary nickel mine operating in the United States and is expected to produce approximately 300 million pounds of nickel and 250 million pounds of copper over the life of the mine.
Kennecott Eagle Minerals strives to protect the surrounding environment including groundwater, streams, rivers and lakes and has teamed up with Veolia to treat the mine water to meet and exceed water quality standards set by its mining permits. Veolia's treatment solutions include the patented OPUS® high recovery membrane process and Liquid Evaporation and Distillation (LED) evaporators and crystallizers for brine management to achieve Zero Liquid Waste Discharge at the mine site.
The wastewater treatment process includes precipitation softening and clarification, filtration, ion exchange softening and a final two pass reverse osmosis (RO) 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 will begin operations late in 2011. Veolia will start-up and commission the facility.
Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies, subsidiary of Veolia Water, is a leading design & build company and a specialized provider of technological solutions in water treatment. With over 9,658 employees, Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies recorded revenue of $2.9B in 2010.
Veolia Water, the water division of Veolia Environnement, is the world leader in water and wastewater services. Specialized in outsourcing services for municipal authorities, as well as industrial and service companies, it is also one of the world's major designers of technological solutions and constructor of facilities needed in water and wastewater services. With 96,260 employees in 67 countries, Veolia Water provides water service to 100 million people and wastewater service to 71 million. Its 2010 revenue amounted to $16B.
For more information, visit www.veoliawaterna.com and www.veoliawaterstna.com
