Settling basin

A settling basin, settling pond or decant pond is an earthen or concrete structure using sedimentation to remove settleable matter and turbidity from wastewater. The basins are used to control water pollution in diverse industries such as agriculture,aquaculture, and mining. Turbidity is an optical property of water caused by scattering of light by material suspended in that water. Although turbidity often varies directly with weight or volumetric measurements of settleable matter, correlation is complicated by variations in size, shape, refractive index, and specific gravity of suspended matter. Settling ponds may be ineffective at reducing turbidity caused by small particles with specific gravity low enough to be suspended by Brownian motion.

Settling basins are used as a separation mechanism to eliminate rejected products (i.e. waste solids management strategies) of a specified size and quantity in various fields, such as aquaculture, mining, dairy, food processing, alcohol production and wine making. Regular draining and desilting of settling basins is required to maintain satisfactory performance.

All materials not removed from the system during harvesting are categorized as wastes including uneaten feed, excreta, chemicals and therapeutics, dead and moribund fish, escaped fish and pathogens. Settling basins in the field are simple ponds dug downstream of the farm to optimally remove suspended solids effectively, produce clarified effluent, and accumulate and thicken sludge to minimal volume. If impairment occurs in any of these functions, this might have a great impact on pond performance, which could lead to damaging the effectiveness of the process.

Wastewater produced by mining industries contribute to the acidity, suspended material and dissolved heavy metal ions in the aquatic environment, causing environmental problems for biological life and discoloration of the receiving waters. The application of settling basins by the Coeur d’Alene mining district of northern Idaho, United States, globally known to produce lead, zinc and silver, to treat wastewater has greatly improved the quality of water discharge from mining operations.

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