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Blairsville, PA Mine Drainage Reclamation

Details

Commenced:	01/11/2015
Submitted:	23/09/2018
Last updated:	23/09/2018
Location:	five miles outside of Blairsville PA, Blairsville, PA, US
Phone:	814-937-9115
Website:	https://ecoislandsllc.com/blog/
Climate zone:	Cool Temperate

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Blairsville, PA Mine Drainage Reclamation

Project Type

Rural, Commercial

Project Summary

Two clients of ours, Bentley Development and MB Energy, have adjoining reclaimed mine properties. The area has four individual acidified mine drainage seeps contributing iron, aluminum and manganese at different concentrations and flow rates. Existing treatment embodiments, including open water horizontal flow ponds, lime stone beds, and horizontal flow wetlands removed the Al and Fe, but the Mn would not precipitate without the use of caustic soda as an alkalinity amendment. By installing a total of 9 MRU's, starting in 2015 with two early prototypes, to polish and capture residual Mn not captured by the existing system, caustic soda was turned off and the system now removes Mn and MnOx (hexagonal bernesite, MnO4) at pH 7. The buffering is provided by gravity flow limestone beds using high quality CaCO3. Other MRUs were installed over the years to polish MnOx but also to increase the upstream removal of Fe, which is the primary inhibitor of manganese oxidation at pH 7. Our latest upgrades have been to add top retaining trays to better maintain the placement of the loose fiber organic matrix used in the biofilm reactors. Also, we are upgrading the original units to the new designs with added flush manifolds. This will increase the available flow by a factor of about 9 through the original MRUs and allow for a 10 fold decrease in the time it takes to drain and clean an MRU filled with mine drainage mineral oxides. check out our youtube channel to see the MRUs at Deitrich site during flood stage... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ7Ckqm3mq066zuTS8cXieQ?view_as=subscriber

Project Description

Metal Removal Unit performance upgrades

Updates

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