Mercury Reclamation Experts

Shell Dredging’s proprietary technology and equipment extracts mercury and other sludge and residue efficiently, safely, and cost-effectively. We take exceptional care to build dredges that clean up mercury and other harmful contaminants while preserving the environment. This means providing you with a single piece of equipment that will maintain a natural, healthy ecosystem by collecting all contaminants.

Mercury Is a Contaminate

Mercury had a purpose during the hey-days of the gold-mining era, which are now long gone! Tons of gold were mined. Tons of Mercury were left behind. Evidence shows that once mercury is in the soil, it naturally migrates toward the streams and contamination occurs!
It’s a metal. It’s a poison! Intervention is REQUIRED to remove it.

The Many Benefits of Mercury Reclamation

Mercury is a harmful toxin that can have a severe and massive environmental impact on fish and the humans who consume those fish; a Shell dredge eliminates poisonous contaminants from the water table. An investment in a Shell dredge for mercury reclamation and riverbed aeration demonstrates your commitment to removing harmful mercury and ensuring the long-term health of area rivers and streams.

Remove Mercury Safely and Easily with Shell Dredging

Shell Dredging’s proprietary technology and the equipment that is used extracts the Mercury efficiently, safely and easily. The poison is removed! There is no human handling. It’s a completely automated process. The Shell jet suction placer dredges are the most efficient placer mining method ever deployed.

The Most Efficient Mercury Remediation Method

Many of North America’s waterways have long been plagued by mercury poisoning, rendering them very hazardous to both mankind and wildlife, and left in these contaminated states pose an ongoing and serious environmental threat. Many of these rivers that have for decades been left to “remediate” themselves through natural sediment layering have been completely upset by recent 100 year floods that have now ravaged these waterways and reintroduced tons of settled mercury back into the environment, thereby resetting the clock on this natural sediment remediation.

The Main Problem With Mercury Contamination

The clean-up of these waterways has been hampered by two main problems. The scope of the mercury contamination and by employing old dredge technologies, that while good at removing materials, are completely unsuited for the effective removal of mercury contaminated materials. Yesterday’s dredges were developed for several reasons. To widen waterways, to remove large amounts of silts and sediments to make waterways more navigable and to deepen harbors for shipping to name a few. They are efficient at moving large amounts of “clean” non-mercury contaminated soils and silts. And therein is the problem. Clam shell dredges, mechanical cutter head dredges and bucket line dredges are very good at removing material. But by their very nature and design they spill vast amounts of these dredged materials back into the waterways they are dredging. That’s due entirely to the fact they were not designed to remediate mercury contaminated waterways. The captured sediments dug up by these dredging methods then have to be transferred to barges or pumped to off shore land locations to be treated to have the mercury removed. This is a long, laborious and expensive method of mercury remediation, exposing the environment to further possible spills and contamination. This is the way it’s always been done, until now. These outdated and inefficient dredging technologies have now been replaced by the state of the art dredges of Shell Dredging.

Environmentally Friendly Way To Dispose of Mercury

Shell Jet Suction dredges utilize a jet-suction method for removing contaminated sediments from the affected waterways. Using this unique high pressure/high volume method of moving material, coupled with our unique “shovel” cutter head, the dredge literally “vacuums” up the contaminated sediments from the affected waterways down into bedrock, were much of the mercury has settled over time, without upsetting vast amounts of the contaminated sediments. Unlike past technologies that relied on the contaminated sediments to then be transferred elsewhere for processing, the Shell dredges are outfitted with a proprietary state of the art mercury removal system that treats the contaminated sands, gravels, sediments and water right on the dredge itself, down to the micron level, before the now cleaned sediments and water are then reintroduced back into the environment. The entire process from start to finish is accomplished without the use of any chemical additives or toxins, and without being touched by human hands. Truly a huge breakthrough for the effective remediation of our contaminated waterways.

Using Hydrology Technology To Rebuild Levees and River Banks

Additionally, due to our “hydrology technology”, at the time we are cleaning the waterways of mercury contamination we can rebuild the old levees along the river banks utilizing the treated tailings excavated from the contaminated rivers themselves, thereby stabilizing the river banks from future erosion. And of course if needed we can build new levees where none existed before.

Shell Technology Is the Answer To The Worlds Mercury Problem

Shell dredges can be built as either diesel powered or fully electric. The Cummins diesel powered dredge runs a 450 Kw generator and at full power burns approximately 20 gallons of fuel per hour. If our clients have access to land line power the dredges can be fully electric and thereby even more environmentally friendly.
Shell dredges are THE answer to a problem that has long plagued so many of the world’s waterways. We at Shell Dredging look forward to being the solution to your mercury problem.