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Dewatering Equipment & Filter Presses

Why You Should Remove Your Settling Ponds

Are you considering to remove your settling ponds? How to deal with settling ponds? Also, are you unsure of what to put in its place? Generally, settling ponds are headaches for industrial waste water management because of all the unnecessary waste of time and money spent maintaining their settling ponds. As a result, companies end up having to decide to remove their settling ponds and implement a more cost-effective solution for their discharge. The case study below is an example of a company that had to choose to either keep their settling pond or install a filter press.

Case Study:

For decades at a North Carolina quarry, the plant would produce fines and discharge them at Carolina Sunrock. Because of this, cleaning costs were up to $500,000 per year. The lost time and high cleaning costs to maintain their settling ponds were frustrating for the client until they installed a Matec solution:

  • Natural raw materials never solidified in the settling pond
  • Flocculant needed to be mixed into tailings to allow settling and make disposal possible at the reclamation site
  • The plant had to be shut down for cleaning the pond
  • No space for a second settling pond

Success would require elimination of the Settling Pond:

  • No Permitting
  • No Clean Outs
  • Stockpile Recovery Areas

Savings by Removing Settling Ponds

Results:

All things considered, the best solution for how to deal with settling ponds would be to install a dewatering filter press. As a result, they were able to eliminate both $500K per year in costs and gain $1M per year in savings.

Today, Carolina Sunrock has a convenient area for stockpiling aggregates instead of its old pond and saves nearly $1 million per year.

Quarry Filter Press remove settling ponds
Quarry Filter Press remove settling ponds
Quarry Filter Press remove settling ponds

Reasons Water Management has come to the Forefront:

  • Mine Planning without covering good reserves and allows for a Reclamation Plan
  • Water Constraints
  • Later on, the amount of water allowed to producers may be the only factor limiting production capacities.
  • Space issues
  • Cost savings
  • Permit issues
  • Environmental Concerns
  • Safety Concerns