The Treatment System

Ponds 2–4

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These three ponds are wetland treatment cells. The plants and compost in the ponds slow the water and promote biological activity, making the water less acidic, allowing the metals to settle out. There are three wetland treatment cells here to assist in the removal of metals, especially aluminum.

Within a very few years these three ponds will fill with cattails and other herbaceous material that will grow in summer, die in winter, and thus provide the decaying material needed to help change acidity and allow suspended metals to settle out of the AMD. While many AMD sites with higher pH levels in the AMD they treat find it possible to use these "wetland treatment cells" as sufficient, here the pH is so high additional treatment is critical to clean water.

« Pond 1

Pond 5 »