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12 <br /> concern due to the sludge slowly building up and utilizing capacity that could be better used for water <br /> treatment, retention and settling. <br /> Another issue of concern is that of pollution prevention. Since the treatment system has now been <br /> proven to be capable of meeting both the quantity and quality issues, it is time to return to the issue of <br /> minimizing the amount of water becoming contaminated, and development isolated methods of treatment. <br /> A number of universities are presently researching constructed wetlands, and it is believed these have the <br /> potential of providing economical treatment of remote sites. Even if they cannot be used to attain final <br /> treatment, they can potentially serve as a pretreatment step, thus cutting overall costs. If isolated <br /> treatment processes are effective on the inactive mine drainages within the tailing area, work can then - <br /> focus on mine dumps, dam seepages and mine dewatering. <br /> Finally there is a much larger potential benefit of the treatment system that has not yet been <br /> discussed. By raising the pH of the water pool of the tailing pond to pH 10.8, the quality of the dam <br /> seepage has improved. The amount of lime placed in the water pool has created the additional benefit of <br /> creating a buffering capacity for the generation of acid rock drainage. The Company's goal is to minimize <br /> the amount of active treatment taking place. As tailing dams are reclaimed and removed as areas of <br /> disturbance, it is believed that runoff will be of a quality good enough to go directly to the stream without <br /> treatment. We are helping ourselves attain this goal by providing buffering for the pyritic material in the <br /> tailing. <br />