News and Events

EPA and BLM Impressed With RCTS in Colorado

WATER TREATMENT PLANT TESTED AT GLADSTONE

August 27, 2008

First Published in The Silverton Standard

Silverton, Colo. - Environmental Protection Agency and Bureau of Land Management officials say they are impressed with results of a demonstration water-treatment project on Cement Creek. Ionic Water Technologies, of Reno, Nev., set up a portable version of its Rotating Cylinder Treatment System on Colorado Goldfields Inc. property at Gladstone last week and is continuing to test the system this week. Stephanie O’Dell, resource manager for the BLM, said the demonstration seemed to be going well. Some 98 percent of target minerals were being removed while processing 200 gallons per minute.

The new technology has a lot of advantages - the plant takes up a lot less space than traditional treatment plants, and settling ponds can be smaller. And best of all, the cost of such a plant would be a fraction of a traditional facility.

Water quality on Cement Creek has been deteriorating in recent years, according to the Animas River Stakeholders Group, and a treatment plant of some sort appears to be the best option to deal with the problem. The ARSG is comprised of representatives from mining companies, elected officials, local citizens and interest groups, environmental organizations, and landowners, including federal and state agencies.

Sabrina Forrest, site assessment and brownfields representative for the EPA, said the demonstration project should cost the EPA and BLM $100,000 to $140,000. She said the ARSG has identified upper Cement Creek “as a target area for needing more attention. “Everyone understands that Cement Creek is not a quality fishery,” Forrest said. But she said the water quality in Cement Creek is having an impact downstream in the Animas. “The fishery (in the upper Animas) has been showing some improvement in recent years,” Forrest said, but recently metals levels are climbing again, with Cement Creek being the source. “We’re losing water quality,” O’Dell said, as water contaminated with heavy metals gushes from mine portals in the upper Cement Creek basin and metals leach from tailings piles from several abandoned mine sites. Exactly how construction and operation of a treatment plant will be paid for has yet to be resolved, but a some sort of partnership between state, federal officials and mining companies is envisioned.

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See the complete article and photo at http://www.silvertonstandard.com/homepage/x144228326.

 

 

 

 

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