TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Junior project developer Atlanta Gold, which is developing an eponymous gold project, in Idaho, on Thursday said it believed it could improve on its legacy effluent filtering system, which could eliminate the need to construct the approved 757 000 ℓ east pond, as planned in the company’s supplemental plan of operations.

The company said its innovative passive water filtration system (PWFS), which it had installed on November 1, 2012, continued to remove more than 99% of the arsenic and iron, enabling the company to remain in compliance with the US Clean Water Act.

Atlanta was required to make long-term upgrades to the water treatment system in terms of a July 19, 2012, US District Court order for the state of Idaho. The court imposed a penalty of $2-million and ordered the company to implement measures to come into compliance with the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.

The court’s decision earlier in 2012 held that Atlanta was not in compliance with the Clean Water Act with regard to its operation of the PWFS at the 900-level adit, which was located on property owned by the Bureau of Land Management and administered by the US Forest Service.

Atlanta said the arsenic and iron removal could be improved with a modification to the final filter, by installing a solids removal filter between the existing settlement ponds and the final filter, instead of increasing the pond capacity.

The company added that it had encountered some clogging in the final filter owing to suspended solids forming, but not settling in the ponds. The solids removal filter would act as an interceptor to remove suspended solids that had formed during treatment in the ponds and before the final filter received it.

The solids removal filter would consist of two separate cells, one of which could be taken offline at any given time.

The filter material in the cells would consist of silica sand and zero-valent iron material. These materials would increase the contact time and the rate of sediment removal. Before treatment in the final filter, the inert solids that were collected in the cells could be easily removed and transported to an adjacent private property owned by the company’s Atlanta Gold Corporation subsidiary for disposal.

Meanwhile, the company reported it had received numerous expressions of interest in its PWFS from communities, mine operators and well water users. The company and engineering firm Centra Consulting had agreed, in principle, to work together to market and deliver PWFSs to third parties.