GREY:WFEMF - Post by User
Comment by
lonadeon Jul 19, 2015 8:31am
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Post# 23938346
RE:Dewatering Mine Correction
RE:Dewatering Mine CorrectionJust to add a few comments to the dewatering:
One of the first steps will be evaluate the sizes of the pumps; since for now it is not clear how much water needs to be removed and at which rate.
The quantity can be established by using the old mining plans and calculating approx. volume; quite straightforward. To quickly empty the mine you could use addtional high capacity pumps which will then be replaced by the ones needed to keep the mine dry.
The capacityis a bit more trickier; they probably don't know yet how many sources of water there actually are (and if at all). For sure there are underwater mountain streams / groundwater feeding into the tunnels.
So they will have to design the capacity to compensate for this contant inflow of water and add at least 100% spare for safety reason as a backup (depending on applicable standards / local rules).
Then you have the problem of contamination; the water in the lower levels could possibly be contaminated from the old mining activities. They will have certain criteria that need to be met from the local environmental entity, before they can simply pump the water into a nearby stream.
If they exceed the limits they would need to have special trucks for water disposal (one option of many). Also not a big issue, just much costlier and it will take much longer to empty the mine of all the water.
I will not go into the problems they will have to solve once the mine is dry: safe access, reinforcement of the tunnels etc......