Cleanout of Coal Mine Settling Ponds using Geotube® Dewatering Technology

A large Indonesian mining corporation operating an-open-pit coal mine in a remote part of South Kalimantan, Indonesia, faced a problem on how to dewater silt sediments from settling ponds that had reached their capacity. There was a shortage of free land space and cleaning the ponds required a constant combination of silt dredging and truck relocation in a constant cycle to prevent runoff with high levels of suspended solids (TSS) discharging into and polluting adjacent river channels. The cost of dewatering the ponds soon became prohibitive.

As part of the settling ponds cleanout efforts, a TenCate Geotube® dewatering facility was constructed to contain and dewater slurry extracted from the ponds. In total, more than 300 Geotube® units have been used to dewater more than 1,000,000 m³ of sediments containing 170,000 m³ of dry solids annually. To optimize land space, the Geotube® dewatering tubes are stacked up to seven layers high based on standardized units with a circumference of 36.6m and lengths up to 61.4m to create large solid landfill structures.

This project has the distinction of being one of the biggest Geotube® dewatering projects ever undertaken in the world providing a wealth of knowledge on the economics of extreme large scale Geotube® dewatering. It has recently been awarded the 2021 International Achievement Award (IAA) - Award of Excellence.

Learn more about the challenges, design, construction and performance of Geotube® dewatering as a proactive and cost effective permanent solution in this project.

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Cleanout of Coal Mine Settling Ponds using Geotube® Dewatering

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