WED AM News: AquaMetals has eco-friendly way to prevent toxic discharge into waterways

— AquaMetals is bringing continuous, real-time data to the metal waste prevention industry.

The Wisconsin-based advanced manufacturing company has made it possible for businesses to control chemical treatment of toxic metals in real time, while monitoring the risk for pollution. President Bruce Bathurst and partner Tom Dougherty created the company in 2016 to help control and measure the concentration of heavy metals in flowing water.

Businesses that discharge heavy metals into public waterways are required to meet government-regulated environmental standards to avoid legal and financial repercussions.

Companies often rely on taking samples of discharge water and analyzing them with expensive lab equipment. These results are not measured in real time, and as a result discharge water could have already enter public waterways.

AquaMetals aims to improve that process. Bathurst created this technology with the help of four UW-Milwaukee graduate students and two UW-Milwaukee professors.

“This makes it possible to control industrial processes in real-time with maximum efficiency and minimum risk,” Bathurst said. “The measurement technology has the potential to save global industries billions of dollars in treatment costs and at the same time improve the quality of the environment with continuous monitoring.”

Read more: http://wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=391200

— An equally divided state Supreme Court has rejected efforts by Wingra Redi-Mix to remove land it owns from a burial site catalog and mine the area.

The court was evenly divided in both suits Wingra filed against the Burial Sites Preservation Board and the State Historical Society with Justice Daniel Kelly not participating. That upheld appeals court rulings that preserved the land in Dane County over the company’s contention that there is no definitive evidence that human remains were buried in the mounds, which have been protected as a burial site since 1991.

Attorneys for the tribe and Wingra did not immediately return calls yesterday seeking comment.

According to court records, seven Native American effigy mounds were identified and mapped in 1914 on property that now belongs to Wingra. In 1989 and 1990, the Dane County Indian Mounds Identification project studied the site and found a bird effigy and a portion of a tailed mammal remained, and the property was protected as a burial site in 1991.

Wingra, which had operated the site as a gravel pit since 1961 and owned it since 1982, did not challenge the finding at the time. It mined around the mound group, resulting in a 50-foot tall mesa in the middle of the quarry, according to the company.

But in 2010, it sent a letter to the Burial Sites Preservation Board asking the mounds to be removed, arguing there was no definitive evidence of human remains at the site. It also asked the State Historical Society for a permit to disturb three “anomalies” at the site to confirm they were not human remains.

Both efforts were rebuffed by the two organizations, though a circuit court overturned the decision denying a permit to disturb the anomalies. Ultimately, a circuit court ruled against the company in both cases, resulting in the appeal to the Supreme Court.

GOP lawmakers in the 2015-16 session proposed legislation to give property owners more leeway to investigate the contents of burial mounds. But that legislation stalled in the face of intense criticism from Wisconsin tribes, including the Ho-Chunk.

Read the decisions:

https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=213151

https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=213152

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