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Elands Platimun Water Circuits
11 November 2008
Gauteng-based engineering firm Thuthuka Group Limited has been awarded the contract for all of the on-site water reticulation for the new Elands Platinum mine near Brits in the North West province. Both process and potable water will be delivered to the mine.
The initial focus is to install the major reticulation pipe systems between terminal points (some 6 kilometers of 200mm to 350mm NB pipe work). The various pump stations are currently under construction. The last phase of the project sees the construction of the Water Treatment Plant (WTP) and the Sewage Treatment Plant (STP). The Water Plant produces 300m3/h process water to Elands' quality specification and 150m3/h potable water to SANS 241 Class 1 water. The ADWF design capacity of the Sewage Plant is 45m3/h.
Elands Platinum obtained an abstraction permit from Department of Water Affairs and Forestry to abstract water from one of the Hartbeespoort irrigation canals. Approximately 400m3/h water will be abstracted and pumped via a 4.5 kilometer transfer line to an open quarry on the Elands site. The quarry acts as water sink and equalisation volume for all the mine water. From the quarry (and through approximately 650 meters of 350mm NB pipe), 450m3/h water is transferred with pumps on a floating barge to the WTP. On the plant a set of control valves spit the flow into a 300m3/h and 150m3/h stream and from there into the two separate treatment trains. After treatment, process water is transferred to the mine's Process Water Dam located near the mine's concentrating plant. Potable water is transferred to a 500m3 storage tank.
Through the mine's operation, most of the process water ends up on the tailings dam. This water is recovered via penstocks, clarified in a settler and recovered back into the process water system by pumping it back to the Process Water Dam. Should the dam be at or near 100 per cent capacity, the control circuit repositions a set of control valves to allow the recovered tailings dam water into the quarry. Should the quarry level be at or near its pre-defined maximum level, the control system reduces the water abstracted from the irrigation canal.
The final effluent from the STP is also pumped to the quarry to recycle this source of water back into the system.
Bringing this water system into a steady, balanced state ensures that water usage on the mine is optimised and limited to the bare minimum. Water wastage is regarded an evil that both Elands and Thuthuka guard against with fervour.
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