Dewatering Tubes in Mining
Pacific Gold Corp. has annouced that it is progressing on new design approaches for desanding at the Black Rock Canyon gold mining operation in Nevada's Lander County. As part of their future approach, they anticipate using geotextile dewatering tubes to eliminate fine gravels from being delivered to the settling ponds after initial gold recovery. This will allow for mostly clean water to be reprocessed back into the screening operations.
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GeoAfrica 2009 in the News
Word is starting to get out about GeoAfrica 2009. The event will be held in Cape Town, South Africa 2-4 September 2009. This will be the first conference to be held under the auspices of the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS) in the region. The first call has been issued. Updates are forthcoming. Keep an eye on geosynthetica.net and the IGS' South African chapter website for more.
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Dow Buying Stevens
Dow Building Solutions, a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company, announced June 11 that it has signed an agreement to acquire Stevens® Roofing Systems and Geomembrane Systems, a business of JPS Industries, Inc. Stevens is based in Holyoke, Massachusetts. For more information on Dow's acquisition, see the official release.
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GSE Expands Sales Team
GSE has announced the appointments of four new members to its key sales team: Dale Geary, Larry Lydick, Richard Mason, and Edgar Rodriguez. All four bring a couple decades of experience in geosynthetics and affiliated sectors, such as mining. The release from GSE offers a bio of each person and identifies their regional territories.
Long-Term Mining Boom
World prices for precious and semi-precious metals have vaulted in the past few years, and this spike in demand has helped fuel tremendous growth in the mining industry. But while prices have somewhat stabilized, growth will continue. Australia forecasts a 70% rise in employment (90,000 new jobs) in mining through 2020 in the mining sector. And these projects will also require environmental controls, which is where geosynthetics enter in.
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Geosynthetics 2009 Deadline Extended
Geosynthetics 2009, the next chapter in the international, biennial Geosynthetics series, will be held in Salt Lake City 25-27 February 2009. Beth Wistrcill of IFAI has released information regarding an extension to the abstracts and proposals submission deadline. It is now 30 June 2008. Read the release here.
YGEC 2008 Registration
Over on the Geosynthetics Interest Group of South Africa's (GIGSA) website, they've posted the registration call for the Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference (YGEC) 2008. The conference theme is "Geotechnics - 2010 and Beyond." It will be held 20-22 August 2008 in Hillcrest, Natal, South Africa. For more information, download the registration PDF.
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Liner Dispute
Mining company Glacier Northwest is at loggerheads with people in the Seattle area now that the firm wants to expand a sand and gravel mining operation on Maury Island. To do so, Glacier would need to encapsulate contaminated soil in geosynthetic linings. Opposition to the project claims that the company's design is of a landfill, not a "containment facility" as maintained. Landfills are banned on Maury Island.
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Future Nickel Mining
Nickel comes in two types: laterites and sulphides. The latter is deeper in the earth but easier to process. The former is the dominant sort in today's mining, but not by choice. It seems to be the lionshare of accessible deposits right now. Laterite mining is near the surface, but the nickel requires acid leaching, high temperatures and more stringent environmental controls.
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Post-Mining Creek Restoration
The Maryland Bureau of Mines is tackling a decades-old acid mine drainage problem. The $1.2 million project goal is to transform Bloomington's Aaron Run into a fresh water creek that can sustain fish. The first phase of the work's bid will be awarded soon with a second phase solicited and awarded closer in early 2009.
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Engineering Demand in Mining
Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper reports that Canada's skyrocketing demand in energy and mining sectors is producing a hard-to-fill order for engineering and technical services. The Canadian mining industry is thought to need 92,000 more professionals by 2017, many of them engineers and engineering technologists. These projects require significant environmental controls, access roads and remediation readiness too.
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Mining Cleanup Tax
In Florida, a higher tax will be placed on phosphate companies to encourage quicker closure of former gypsum operations. Florida has a long successful gypsum mining industry, but its environmental legacy is not nearly as admirable. Significant cleanup and capping are required for operations dating back decades. The Ledger article includes an interesting close-up photo of a geomembrane being seamed.
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Mining in Australia
Delegates have gathered in Australia to discuss ways by which the country can manage and sustain its breakneck boom in mining. Resource exploration, environmental stewdardship, and long-term infrastructure development are key topics. Australia's Premier Mike Rann opened the event by noting the mining industry could be a dominant interest for the next 100 years.
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GeoAmericas Free Papers
geosynthetica's Lara Costa has posted a wrap-up and abstracts from GeoAmericas 2008. These pages deliver conference images, a summary of events and links to free papers from the event (courtesy of IFAI, publisher of the full conference proceedings). Check out Lara's review and the significant conference papers posted here for free. See the links to those pages on the abstracts page. Full proceedings may be acquired from the IFAI Bookstore.
ASTM Update: Moisture-Holding Capacity for Fiber Mulches
A new ASTM International standard, D 7367, Test Method for Determining Water Holding Capacity of Fiber Mulches for Hydraulic Planting, will provide a means of evaluating water holding capacity in fiber mulches. The standard has been developed by Subcommittee D18.25 on Erosion and Sediment Control Technology, part of ASTM International Committee D18 on Soil and Rock.
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Geosynthetics 2009 Call for Papers
Geosynthetics 2009 will be held 25-27 February 2009 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The conference theme is "Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering." Areas of focus include shoreline and water protection, conveyance and storage, mining, agriculture, aquaculture, temporary roads and drainage. The deadline for conference paper proposals is June 2. Read more about submitting abstracts, the review process and key dates.
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BC Chooses Bituminous Geomembrane
A former copper mining site that has polluted waters in British Columbia, Canada, will be capped with a bituminous geomembrane as part of the site's $4.5 million remediation project. The project will cleanup copper leachate from now through 2010 and clean soil on top of the cap will be planted with vegeation. The end result will be not just safe land and water but a situation for replenishing Vancouver Island's fish stocks.
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Mining Remains Strong
Despite slowing demand in the US, the mining and metals sector is expected to remain strong for Eurpoean groups, reports Thomson Financal Network. Demand in China and India will help keep mining commodities prices--iincluding gold, copper and silver--high. Those prices also influence new developments, and they'll require significant environmental controls, such as leach pad liners.
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ASIA Miner & XX Macao
ASIA Miner magazine has joined with the XX Macao event, "The Exploration Exchange." The bilingual (English and Chinese) publication has become a strong mining industry news source in Asia over the past four years. XX Macao's organizer, BCM-TBG, has orchestrated the largest conferences in China. Their union here bodes well for XX Macao.
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SA: Another Saudi Arabia?
South Africa holds much of the world's unmined uranium load. The country has done very well in mining of other precious metals and minerals, and it now seeks to become a cradle to grave uranium processor. From mining to conversion to burial of spent fuel rods, South Africa hopes to become the Saudi Arabia of energy.
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EU Joins M2M
The Methane To Markets Partnership (M2M) is welcoming its newest and perhaps most substantial member: the European Union. The 27-nation body will look to incorporate M2M's methane capture and reuse strategies in landfill and mining operations, animal waste lagoon management and other areas.
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Western Claims
The spike in mineral and precious metals prices has the western United States seeing a significant rise in mining claims and competition for federal land. The LA Times reports that as the mining claims near more populated cities, residents are demanding more say in how--and if--work progresses.
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Nunatsiavut Pauses
The Nunatsiavut government, which oversees the Labrador Inuit Lands in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, is considering a three-year moratorium on uranium mining. An environmental assessment is desired to ensure the safety of land and water along coastal Labrador before greater mining can take place.
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Mining Drainage Treatment
The Mountain Watershed Association (MWA) is ramping up its efforts to treat acid mining drainage and convert the land to a usable site. The latest project concerns a site in Melcroft, Pennsylvania--MWA's home. The state Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation is soliciting comments. The $800,000 project is MWA's fourth remediation venture.
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Mexico's Mining Boom
Bloomberg.com reports that mining companies invested roughly $2.2 billion in Mexico during 2007. Mexico's Economy Minister, Eduardo Sojo, estimates that $20 billion will be spent over President Felipe Calderon's six-year term. The massive investment in silver, gold and other mineral mining endeavors will also require substantial investment in environmental protections.
Learn more here.;
