Mine Water Management

Managing stormwater runoff at active, abandoned, and reclaimed mine sites presents unique challenges. Our team provides the specialized expertise needed to address these complexities effectively. We understand the critical interaction between precipitation, erosion, runoff, and mine facilities—pits, waste rock storage, tailings areas, roads—and the associated potential for impacts on water quality from sediments and other constituents.

Our services include:

• Developing site-specific hydrologic/hydraulic modeling
• Performing water balance evaluations
• Designing effective stormwater conveyance, containment, and erosion control systems—diversions, ponds, best management practices—tailored to dynamic site conditions and regulatory frameworks

Securing, evaluating, and managing legal water rights are critical prerequisites for successful mine development and operations. Trihydro has experience with the diverse water rights frameworks essential for mining projects, addressing needs for reliable water supply and compliant management of excess water, such as dewatering discharge. Trihydro applies technical expertise alongside a thorough understanding of relevant administrative procedures and regulatory standards to support documentation, reporting, and strategic planning, ensuring our clients’ operational water security and regulatory compliance.

Our services for water rights include:

• Due diligence for acquisitions
• Feasibility studies
• Water availability
• Permit applications for supply or dewatering
• Regulatory process assistance for water right modifications or transfers related to plans or closure

Expertise in mine geochemistry focuses on understanding and predicting interactions between materials, water, and air at sites. Evaluating the geochemical character of waste rock, discharged water, tailings, and pit materials is important for predicting potential water quality impacts or the generation and treatment of acid rock drainage (ARD). Geochemical analyses can also fingerprint contributions from varied water sources, which are important for treatment strategies and liability. Trihydro works with specialized labs, and we have direct user access to state-of-the-art characterization techniques. We apply these results, integrated with hydrogeological understanding and modeling, to predict contaminant fate and transport. Additionally, these geochemical models and assessments are critical for supporting water balance modeling and treatment system design, evaluating long-term geochemical stability for closure and reclamation planning, and fulfilling regulatory requirements for environmental prediction and performance monitoring.

Mine-impacted water often presents treatment challenges such as remote and high-altitude locations, seasonal variation, and a multitude of contaminants that require varied treatment technologies. Our team provides specialized expertise to address these challenges across various project phases, from active operations to closure and reclamation. We focus on designing and implementing reliable, cost-effective treatment systems tailored to specific water chemistry and environmental challenges. Our goal is to deliver compliant, efficient, and sustainable treatment solutions that reliably achieve mine-impacted water quality objectives, supporting both operational needs and successful site stewardship.

Our experience includes:

• Developing solutions to meet in-stream discharge limits.
• Enabling water reuse in operations and managing water quality for sustainable closure, including pit lake strategies.
• Conducting water and solids characterization.