2025 Tasks

Progam Contact

Ginger Scarbrough, PhD

WERC Program Manager

Juanita Miller, PE

WERC Safety Officer

Q: Is it alright to use pre-treatments that enhance the fungi's ability to remove metals?
A: It is allowed as long as the pre-treatment is directly and exclusively related to helping fungi remove metals. Keep your eye on the end goal: That of finding out how effective fungi, alone, is for removing metals. Pre-treatments that are un-related to the fungi are not allowed.

Q: The flow rates are listed at 10 gpm. This seems very rapid for using fungi to remove metals from the waters.
A: Correct. Ideally, the water is retained long enough to allow the fungi to treat the water.

Q:  Should this be envisioned as the fungi treating the water within a flowing stream? 

A: There are no expectations of treating the water within a flowing stream, as this may not allow enough HRT (hydraulic retention time = treatment time) unless the stream is engineered (e.g., introducing sinuosity), which is certainly possible. Teams may consider any variety of engineered solutions to hold water as needed for treatment.

 

Q:  What is the average/target size of this stream (width, depth)? 

A: Assume no restrictions so engineer as needed.This depends on treatment time needed and flow rate, as well as footprint needed vs. land available.

 

Q:  What is happening upstream of this flow?

A: Flow emerges from historical mine feature (e.g., adit).

 

Q:  What is happening downstream of this flow?

A: Can vary widely. What does the proposed treatment system need?

The way to succeed is to double your failure rate.

Thomas J. Watson

Task Sponsor: Freeport-McMoRan

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