Tucush Valley Surface Water Management Project
Wins 2007 CEBC Award of Merit
March 2007

The Consulting Engineers of British Columbia (CEBC) challenges members with an annual competition. This year 42 projects were entered for consideration in five categories: buildings, municipal, transportation, natural resources, energy and industry, and soft engineering. The judging panel, comprised of industry leaders, selected 11 winners and the Tucush Valley Surface Water Management Project won an Award of Merit in the natural resources category. The award was presented at the CEBC gala on March 3, held at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

The Project
Klohn Crippen Berger and its sister company, Louis Berger Group, are collaboratively providing technical expertise in designing, constructing and monitoring an innovative water treatment facility to treat drainage from a high-altitude mine in Peru. Treatment is needed to remove current and predicted future concentrations of suspended sediment, nitrates, ammonia and dissolved metals from the expanding Tucush Valley Waste Dump.

The water treatment facility uses a unique combination of sediment ponds, serpentine and high-altitude wetlands. Project challenges include:

• Working at a rugged Andes site at 4200m elevation
• Designing with limited space on the valley floor
• Accommodating high runoff during the annual wet season
• Constructing on soft clay foundation soils
• Developing a passive, environmental method for treating surface water
• Developing sustainable technology that can be incorporated into mine closure

Project construction was successfully completed on schedule and within the US $2 million budget. Water quality monitoring to date shows targeted constituents are being successfully removed by the system and water discharge is meeting performance water quality criteria. Locally sourced and transplanted wetland vegetation is successfully adapting to the constructed site, and is healthy and growing.

The proactive management of the project owners, Compañía Minera Antamina S.A. (CMA), combined with Klohn Crippen Berger’s technical expertise, will enable the wetlands to protect the downstream receiving environment long after mine closure.