Liquid Waste Storage Pit

a hydraulic-engineering structure for storing waste rock (overburden, tailings of enriching works, and so on) by hydromechanization methods.

A liquid waste storage pit consists of impoundment dikes to contain the waste material (a settling pond), equipment to remove clarified water, and facilities for handling floodwater and storm water. The pits are built in enclosed basins (the worked-out parts of quarries, or ravines blocked by dikes); in flat regions, dikes are built on four sides, and on sloping land, they are built on three sides.

Liquid waste storage pits are classified according to height as low (up to 10m), medium (10-30 m), and high (more than 30 m) and according to annual capacity (up to 1 million cu m, from 1 million to 2 million cu m, from 2 million to 5 million cu m, and more than 5 million cu m). Material is poured into the pit from trestles or low supports or without trestles. In the first case, the slurry is discharged over the waste area from outlets of a distribution pipeline mounted on a trestle; in the second case, the pipe is mounted on low supports (up to 1.5 m high); and where no trestles or supports are used, the pipe is laid on the ground and the slurry is discharged from the pipe face.