Nevada university to develop promising anti-pollution technology

Scott Sonner

Wednesday, Aug. 18, 1999 | 3:16 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - DuPont Co. awarded patent rights to the University of Nevada, Reno on Wednesday to develop technology that may drastically reduce pollution from mines.

The chemical treatment, which is still in development, would help prevent acid runoff at hard rock mines. The contamination is common in rivers and streams in remote areas of the West, according to researchers at Nevada's Mackay School of Mines.

"It is one of the major environmental problems worldwide, whether you ask regulatory agencies, environmentalists or the mining industry," said Glen Miller, director of the university's Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering.

He said Wednesday that the technology has "the potential to be very significant" and said it could help prevent billions of dollars in annual damage. He said natural processes take so long to clean acid runoff from mines that sites in Great Britain now defunct for 2,000 years are still contaminated.

Known as "passivation," the technology involves spraying a chemical on mine rocks and other mining waste that are near rivers and streams. The coating seals in the acid and prevents it from dissolving into the water.

"It is very simple. Elegantly simple. We are quite excited about it," Miller said.

Most of the North American mines with acid runoff problems are in Montana, Idaho and Canada, he said. These mines involve ores containing sulfides. At the Earth's surface, the sulfides mix with air to form poisonous sulfuric acid.

Several other sites in California and Nevada likely would benefit from the technology, Miller said. One is the Leviathan Mine, an abandoned Sierra Nevada sulfur mine proposed as a Superfund site. It is near Markleeville, Calif., near the Nevada border.

The mine first produced copper sulfate in the 1860s. From the 1950s to early 1960s, open pit mining was used to extract sulfur. The mine was shut down in 1962.

"At the Leviathan, it would be decades if not centuries before it is naturally cleaned up," Miller said.

University officials said the agreement with DuPont prohibits them from disclosing the estimated value of the patents. But Miller said it was in the millions of dollars.

The patent has the potential to be, over time, one of the largest gifts to the university ever, said school spokesman Greg Bortolin.

School officials said DuPont's gift would reduce the company's tax liability.