News

January 09, 2009

Watermark Global Aims To Turn Acid Mine Drainage Into Drinking Water: Even The Greens Can’t Argue With That Idea

By Charles Wyatt

South Africans have a few days yet before they are back at their desks, but in anticipation Minews thought it might be a good moment to take a look at Aim-traded Watermark Global, a company which should have a busy 2009. Watermark has been strangely silent since mid-October when it announced that its subsidiary Western Utilities had selected the technology it would be using to treat acid mine drainage in South Africa, where it sees a real opportunity to advance the business plan. The Alkaline Barium and Calcium process from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) was the winner, but it had to jump round a pretty tricky course. At this stage we offer a warning to those of a more sensitive nature: acid mine drainage is not a particularly easy subject to digest. Acid mine drainage is a sulphuric acid solution full of nasties, and Watermark has decided that the road to riches lies in cleaning up the deep mines of the Witwatersrand Basin. It has had a couple of pilot plants operating down shafts to determine which system works best.

These worked for about five months and it was the technology developed by CSIR which came out on top, meeting some very demanding standards, including those set down by the South African National Accreditation system for industrial quality water as well as drinking water. While all this was in process Golder & Associates, a leading engineering consulting group, started on the Environmental Impact Assessment which will investigate possible sites for a commercial plant which can treat 75...