Consultancy Services
Water Quality and Treatment:
Levay & Co. Environmental Services Pty Ltd undertakes investigations related to water treatment processes, water supply operations, and management of water quality in heating and cooling systems and cooling towers. In particular, we have expertise in the area of impact of poor quality water on mineral processing operations and treatment technologies to improve recycle water stream quality to give acceptable processing performance.
Tests are carried out to determine the optimum amount of chemical additions required for effective water treatment (e.g. coagulation, adsorption, disinfection, corrosion, scaling etc.). Furthermore, bench and pilot plant scale studies are applied to determine optimum operational parameters and improve water treatment technologies. We have developed considerable capability in the use of the Rapid Small Scale Column Test (RSSCT) technique for the investigation of activated carbon filter adsorption processes.
Examples of clients for which recent water treatment consultancies have been undertaken include:
Anglo American Platinum Corporation Ltd (South Africa)
Aquatec Maxcon Pty Ltd
BHP Billiton Olympic Dam
Boliden Metal AB Garpenberg
Cable Sands (WA) Pty Ltd
Caroma Industries Ltd
Cobar Consolidated Resources Ltd
Coca-Cola Amatil (Aust) Pty Ltd
De Beers (South Africa)
Earth Tech Engineering Pty Ltd
Energy Resources of Australia Ltd.
Iluka Resources Limited
Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines Pty Ltd
Kanowna Belle Gold Mines
Lynas Corporation Ltd Mt Weld
MMG Ltd Century
Newcrest Australia Ltd
Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd
Red Dome Gold Mine Pty Ltd.
Taupo District Council New Zealand
Teck Ltd Red Dog
Tiwest Joint Venture
United Utilities Australia Pty Ltd
UraniumSA Limited
Veolia Water Systems Australia Pty Ltd.
Recent Case Study
Gold mine tailings water treatment for recycle and environmental discharge – A gold mine in NSW faced closure because their tailings storage facility was full to capacity with contaminated water which could not be discharged to the environment or recycled to the processing plant because of the severe impact the contaminated water had on flotation. We were asked by the mining operation to develop a treatment regime which would enable the water to be recycled to the plant without impact to recovery and/or enable environmental discharge. The species and mechanism by which flotation was impeded by the contaminated water was ascertained and a simple and easily implementable treatment process was developed which allowed the operation to recycle the TSF water without impact on recovery of valuables and thereby continue operation without detrimental impact on the environment.
Acid Rock Drainage
We undertakes investigations related to ARD and ASS for the mining industry, environmental consultants and engineering consultants. These studies cover the range of investigations from literature reviews through analytical testing for acid base accounting and kinetic testing, longer-term column leach testing and detailed surface analysis for fundamental process analysis.
Examples of ARD consultancies included:
- BHP Billiton Iron Ore
- BHP Billiton Stainless Steel Materials
- Panoramic Resources Ltd
- PB Environmental Services
- RGS Environmental Pty Ltd
- URS Asia Pacific
Recent Case Study
Base metal sulfide mine Stage 2 TSF Amendment – We were engaged by the mine to help in their submission to the EPA to amend their mining permit to include storage of tailings in the TSF after closure. We conducted extensive geochemical testing to demonstrate that the highly sulfidic tailings would, under specific conditions, remain benign and pose minimal environmental risk. This work, combined with other studies, ultimately resulted in the operation gaining approval for the amendment and continued mining in a sustainable manner in a sensitive environment.