Veolia, through its subsidiary Veolia Water Technologies Canada, has been chosen by Pretium Resources to supply the new effluent treatment facility for the Brucejack gold mine in British Columbia, Canada. Brucejack is one of the largest and highest-grade gold projects in the world with commercial production targeted for 2017.
Veolia will supply proven proprietary processes to treat up to 10,000 m3/d of effluent water from the mine. The permanent effluent treatment system will consist of several technologies which were selected for their robustness and compactness, starting with the Actiflo® clarification process for primary metals removal. The water will be further polished by a highly-efficient Hydrotech™ Discfilter, which gives added insurance in meeting very stringent discharge criteria. Start-up of the new effluent treatment facility is scheduled for spring 2017.
This contract follows months of extensive collaboration and testing to ensure that the most stringent environmental discharge limits will be met. The exhaustive test work that was carried out at Veolia laboratories in Montreal has been largely used in support of the extensive permitting work that has been prepared by Pretium for the Canadian and Provincial authorities. “Based on Pretium’s investment in several months of test work, it was clear how committed they are to ensuring their environmental stewardship”, stated David Oliphant, Vice President Business Development Heavy Industry for Veolia Water Technologies Canada.
Klaus Andersen, CEO of Veolia Water Technologies, Inc., stated: “The Brucejack project is a great example of how Veolia can partner with industrial clients over several years, from rapidly providing a temporary solution to working through months of testing and navigating the steps to secure required permitting, and coming up with the best water treatment solution possible. We are very proud to be working with Pretium on this exciting mining project”.
Veolia started working with Pretium in spring 2014 when the company needed to dewater Brucejack’s underground workings during its exploration phase. Veolia then supplied a Mobile Actiflo water treatment plant, which it has operated since. This temporary facility has provided Pretium large amounts of extremely valuable seasonal operational data for future reference. As the Actiflo clarification process will also be installed in the new effluent treatment facility, it gives Pretium the confidence that the system meets the stringent requirements of low level metals and Total Suspended Solids (TSS) while dealing with variable feed water.
Pretium Resources, headquartered in Vancouver, is advancing Brucejack to production as a 2,700 t/d underground mine, with commercial production targeted for 2017.