Engineers say that the bacteria in the slurry will clean up the zinc, copper and sulfur in the pond.

?EUR??,,????'??Pig slurry contains bacteria that bind metals that are in the mine water and they will sink to the bottom,?EUR??,,????'?? said Eero Soininen, reclamation manager of the Outokumpu Mining Company. ?EUR??,,????'??We have used this system to clean mine waters at various mines. Around 15 years ago, we noticed mine water got cleaned by itself at our Foldal mine in Norway. We studied the water and found that bacteria eat sulfides.?EUR??,,????'??

The sulfide-eating bacteria takes approximately 2 to 4 years to clean the water.