Clean Water

Under the Clean Water strategic priority scientists at CanmetMINING will focus their research to address the issues surrounding water use and discharge that occurs during the mining process. Specific focus will be placed on the following five areas:

Protection of receiving environment and local communities: CanmetMINING conducts research to investigate the potential impacts of mining on local environments, including the effects of effluent discharges, atmospheric deposition and historical contamination. This research area has strong linkages with remediation and solution formulation.

Cleaner mine effluent and greater discharge compliance: With the implementation of tighter environmental controls on effluent discharges the mining industry are under increasing pressure to improve treatment processes. For example, discharge levels of total dissolved solids, largely due to the impact of salinity on the receiving environment, are of concern. At CanmetMINING, research to develop treatment processes that improve the quality of effluents will not only aid industry in achieving discharge compliance but also result in greater protection of the environment.

Reduced consumption of fresh water in mining/milling process: Treatment and reuse of low-contaminated process water from mining/milling process is important for the mining industry. Fresh water consumption could be reduced by reviewing site water management practices. Optimization of water management practices include; recirculation of water, use of membrane processes, tailings and sludge ponds operation through novel densification methods.

New treatment technologies development: Recent technology developments in wastewater treatment relate to membrane, nano-technology ion-exchange, biological and chemical treatments. Application of these methods or use of hybrid systems constitutes a promising alternative for mining water treatment.

Ensuring regulatory decisions are based on sound science: The development and modification of environmental regulations requires considerable understanding of the compound of concern. With this in mind, one of the priorities at CanmetMINING is to identify data gaps in the areas of environmental regulations/policy development. This allows us to work with industry and other government departments to fill the gaps in these key areas to ensure appropriate regulations are developed.