Resource Recovery, Moving Forward at Lowber
by Andy McAllister, Watershed Coordinator
Resource recovery, extracting and utilizing what had been considered “waste” or “by-product” material, has been the buzz word in AMD treatment for a few years now. Historically, the iron sludge that settles in an AMD treatment system’s settling ponds, the stuff we want to keep out of the creeks, has been seen as a waste product with no use. However, Bob Hedin of Hedin Environmental had been thinking outside of the box and spent several years looking for a way to make lemonade out of lemons. Or in this case, paint pigment out of iron oxide sludge. In the Sewickley Creek Watershed in Eastern Westmoreland County, the concept of resource recovery is becoming a reality.
The Marchand treatment system near the town of Lowber has been designed and built with resource recovery, specifically iron oxide recovery, in mind and in October 2007 Hedin and the Sewickley Creek Watershed Association celebrated the system’s first birthday. At the Marchand treatment system first anniversary celebration , Hedin recalled the very beginnings of the resource recovery process at the Marchand system,”This water is very treatable and it’s a good site. We were able to work with the watershed association to get a modest Growing Greener Grant to determine whether we could indeed, treat this water on the site”, Hedin recalled.. “That ended up leading into a full scale proposal to DEP to design, permit, and build the treatment system. We’re confident we could make good iron sludge here,” Hedin stated. “We were finished in October 2006 and the water was turned on and it’s been running for one year now”, Hedin explained. “It’s working like a charm”.
In seven years, when the settling ponds have about a foot and a half of iron sludge in them, Hedin will return with his trucks and pumps to remove the accumulated sludge, dry it out, and take it away to be processed into pigment. In traditional systems, the accumulated iron sludge waste product has to be removed from the settling ponds and disposed of. With resource recovery guiding the process, the watershed association gets long term maintenance and the sludge gets used rather than dumped into a landfill.
Unfortunately, not all iron oxide sludge coming from Abandoned Mine Drainage is appropriate for use as pigment. The quality of the irox oxide must be appropriate for its destined use as pigment for paints and stains. Also, how the mine drainage is treated plays a vital role in determining whether or not a particular sludge is suitable to be used for pigment.
Marchand treatment system ponds at Lowber. Photo: WPCAMR
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