JEROLD JOHNSON, PE

FORTY - YEARS

The handling of tailings sure has changed. Near the start of my career, I saw mine sites that discharged their tailings directly to nearby streams. Conventional thickeners or high-rate thickeners are used to dewater the mining tailings for storage in slurry pond. The high failure risk of slurry ponds has plagued the industry. The large environmental destruction and loss of life seen recently in Brazil caused a ripple effect around the world. Slurry ponds were the standard for about half my career, until more than twenty years ago, when paste type thickeners entered the industry.

 

This new technology piqued my interest and has been my focus ever since. Now with successful installation around the world surface stacking is no longer the newcomer. Next, new feedwell designs and automatic control has brought thickeners into the spotlight to save money in flocculant costs and increase recovery of the valuable water.