Services › Category 14 of 18
Water, power & infrastructure
Dewatering, pipelines, substations and comms
This is the site utilities package, and it breaks into five buyable services. Dewatering and water treatment covers pit and underground dewatering by sumps, in-pit pumps, submersible wellfields and horizontal drains, then treatment of what comes out: lime neutralisation and high-density sludge for acid rock drainage, reverse osmosis and ion exchange for dissolved metals and sulphate, and biological or physico-chemical plants for selenium, nitrate and ammonia from blasting residues. Pipelines and pumping covers raw water, process water, tailings slurry, reclaim and discharge lines in HDPE or steel, with booster stations, surge protection, pressure class selection, thrust restraint and slurry wear allowances. Power supply covers the utility interconnection or transmission line extension, the main substation and switchgear, medium-voltage distribution to the pit, mill and shops, and the study work that has to precede any of it: load flow, short circuit, motor starting for mill drives, protective relay coordination, harmonic and arc-flash studies. Generation and load studies covers diesel and gas gensets, battery storage, solar and hybrid microgrids where a utility line is uneconomic, and the load profile and reliability analysis that determines firm versus interruptible supply. Site communications and camps cover licensed land-mobile radio, leaky feeder and wireless underground, microwave or fibre backhaul, private cellular, and accommodation with potable water, wastewater and catering.
11 firms working in this trade
Alphabetical. Nobody paid to be here
- AquatechCanonsburg, Pennsylvania
Industrial water reuse, zero liquid discharge, minerals recovery
aquatech.com - Burns & McDonnellKansas City, Missouri
Mine electrification, substations, water supply and pipeline engineering
burnsmcd.com - Civeo CorporationHouston, Texas
Workforce lodging, catering and facility management at mine sites
civeo.com - Global Pump CompanyDavison, Michigan
Dewatering, wellpoint and high head pumps for mines
globalpump.com - Griffin Fluid ManagementHouston, Texas
Wellpoint, deepwell and eductor construction dewatering systems
griffinfluidmanagement.com - Rain for RentBakersfield, California
Temporary pumps, tanks, filtration and pipe rentals
rainforrent.com - Rajant CorporationMalvern, Pennsylvania
Wireless mesh networks for surface and underground mine sites
rajant.com - Target HospitalityThe Woodlands, Texas
Turnkey workforce housing, modular construction and camp operations
targethospitality.com - Thompson PumpPort Orange, Florida
Heavy-duty dewatering pumps for mining and construction sites
thompsonpump.com - UlteigFargo, North Dakota
Substation, transmission and distribution power engineering and SCADA
ulteig.com - WesTech EngineeringSalt Lake City, Utah
Thickeners, clarifiers and filtration for mine water treatment
westechwater.com
Listed because we found them, not because they asked or paid. Every entry was checked against the company’s own website; none of it is an endorsement, and we have no commercial relationship with anyone on this page. Work in Water, power and infrastructure and want to be added, corrected or removed? Tell us — it is free either way.
How it is actually bought
Contract shapes and what they price
These are engineered packages, and the studies come before the equipment. Water treatment is designed against a characterised influent — a real flow and chemistry duty curve across wet and dry seasons, not a single grab sample — and against the discharge limits in your actual NPDES permit, because a plant designed to the wrong selenium or sulphate number is a stranded asset. Power follows an interconnection study, and the interconnection queue, not the substation contract, is the schedule driver: FERC's Order No. 2023 replaced serial first-come first-served processing with a first-ready first-served cluster study process, so your request is grouped with others, studied on a 150-day cluster study clock, and requires 90 percent site control at submission and 100 percent by the facilities study agreement, with commercial readiness deposits and withdrawal penalties. Engineering and design carry the seal of a professional engineer licensed in the state where the work is installed. Where the owner holds the design basis, load list and single-line diagram rather than the vendor, packages stay competitively biddable. Anyone working on a mine site is a contractor under MSHA with their own contractor ID and Part 46 or Part 48 training obligations, and where the package involves an impoundment or a dam the state dam safety programme, not the mine permit, sets the design and inspection regime.
Who regulates it
And what each one requires of this trade
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — NPDES — The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System regulates point-source discharges of pollutants to waters of the United States through technology-based and water quality-based limits. A permit is a licence to discharge a specified amount of a pollutant under specified conditions; 47 states and one territory are authorised to implement the programme themselves, with EPA oversight, and permits may not exceed five years.
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) — Clean Water Act Section 404 — Issues permits for discharge of dredged or fill material into waters of the United States, which is what a sediment pond, a pipeline crossing, a haul road culvert or a tailings facility footprint often triggers. Individual permits go through public interest review against EPA's 404(b)(1) Guidelines; general and nationwide permits cover minimal-impact activity categories with little or no delay. Approved state or tribal 404(g) programmes may issue permits instead.
- Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) — Regulates wholesale power sales and transmission service in interstate commerce and sets the pro forma generator interconnection procedures and agreements that govern how a new load or generator connects. Order No. 2023 moved the industry to first-ready first-served cluster studies with firm deadlines and penalties replacing the old 'reasonable efforts' standard.
- State water resources agency (example: Nevada Division of Water Resources) — In the western states water is a state-administered property right, not an incident of land ownership. The state engineer or equivalent grants, transfers and administers appropriative rights, permits wells and monitors basin allocation, and also typically runs the state dam safety and well-drilling programmes. A dewatering plan with no water right and no discharge or reinjection authorisation is not a plan.
- Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) — electrical standards — 30 CFR Part 56 Subpart K governs electricity at surface metal and nonmetal mines: circuit overload protection (56.12001), work on electrically powered equipment and power circuits (56.12016, 56.12017), grounding of circuit enclosures and mobile equipment and testing of grounding systems (56.12025, 56.12027, 56.12028), overhead powerlines (56.12045), transformer installation (56.12067) and equipment movement near high-voltage lines (56.12071).
The standards that apply
Ask which of these a firm works to
- 40 CFR Part 440 — Ore Mining and Dressing Point Source Category — The federal effluent limitations guidelines for ore mining and dressing, in 13 subparts by ore type — iron, aluminium, uranium/radium/vanadium, mercury, titanium, tungsten, nickel, vanadium, antimony, copper/lead/zinc/gold/silver/molybdenum, platinum, general provisions and gold placer. Each subpart sets BPT, BAT and new source performance standards for mines and mills separately, and these become the technology floor in your NPDES permit.
- IEEE C2-2023 — National Electrical Safety Code (NESC) — The code for practical safeguarding of persons during installation, operation and maintenance of electric supply stations, overhead supply and communications lines, and underground or buried supply and communications cables, plus work rules for operating those systems. It is the standard your substation, transmission tie-in and overhead distribution design will be reviewed against, distinct from the NEC which covers premises wiring.
- 30 CFR Part 56 Subpart K — Electricity — MSHA's mandatory electrical standards for surface metal and nonmetal mines: deenergisation before work, grounding and periodic ground testing, guarding, restriction of access to qualified persons, overhead line clearances and equipment movement near energised lines, with incorporation of industry codes. A substation or distribution design that meets NESC but not Subpart K will still be cited.
- FERC pro forma interconnection procedures under Order No. 2023 — Sets the process your utility or transmission provider must follow: cluster studies rather than serial studies, study deposits scaled by megawatt capacity, commercial readiness deposits at each phase, site control thresholds, standardised affected-system study agreements and modelling, and firm study deadlines with penalties for the provider. Effective 6 November 2023 with compliance filings due 3 April 2024.
- 29 CFR 1910.142 — Temporary labor camps — The OSHA standard a work camp is built and inspected against: site drainage and separation from livestock areas, at least 50 square feet of floor space per occupant with 7-foot minimum ceilings and beds spaced at least 36 inches apart, an approved water supply, toilet and sewage provisions, and kitchens separate from sleeping quarters complying with the food service sanitation code.
What to demand from a firm
Credentials worth checking before you sign
- Professional Engineer licensed in the state where the work is installed — Water treatment plants, pipelines, pump stations, substations, impoundments and load studies should be sealed by a PE licensed in that state. Licensure is state by state; NCEES maintains the member licensing board directory through which you contact the right board to verify a specific individual's licence, and the NCEES Records programme is what an engineer uses to obtain licensure by comity in additional states.
- MSHA contractor ID and Part 46 or Part 48 training records — Any utilities contractor at a mine is a miner for training purposes. Part 46 requires 24 hours for a new miner (at least 4 before starting work), site-specific hazard awareness training for contractor employees, and 8 hours annual refresher; Part 48 requires 40 hours for new underground and 24 hours for new surface miners with 8 hours annual refresher. Contractors must also inform the operator of hazards their work creates.
- A current NPDES permit or general permit coverage for every discharge point — Before a dewatering or treatment contract is signed, confirm which permit authorises the discharge, what its numeric limits and monitoring frequency are, and when it expires — the maximum term is five years and reapplication is required before expiry. Whether the permit is issued by EPA or by one of the 47 authorised states changes who you negotiate limits with.
- State dam safety approval and an engineer of record for any impoundment — Sediment ponds, process water ponds, heap leach ponds and tailings facilities sit under a state dam safety programme with its own hazard classification, design storm, freeboard, instrumentation and inspection requirements. Confirm the classification, the approved design, the engineer of record and the inspection schedule before you inherit a structure.
Where to find firms yourself
Public registers and member directories
- EPA ECHO (Enforcement and Compliance History Online) — Search any facility by name, location or ID and see its permits, inspections, violations and noncompliance status, discharge monitoring reports, pollutant loadings and formal federal enforcement actions across air, water, hazardous waste and drinking water programmes. Use it on your own site before a regulator does, and on any contractor-operated facility you are considering.
- ASDSO state dam safety programmes and contacts — The Association of State Dam Safety Officials maintains a directory of state dam safety programmes and contacts for all 50 states and Puerto Rico, reachable from a map or list. This is the fastest route to the regulator who will actually review an impoundment design and to the consultants who practise in front of them.
- NCEES member licensing board directory — The directory of every state and territory engineering and surveying licensing board. Each board maintains its own licensee verification, so this is the authoritative route to confirm that the individual sealing your substation or impoundment drawings actually holds a current licence in the right state and discipline.
- MSHA Mine Data Retrieval System — Search prospective dewatering, pipeline, electrical and camp contractors by name or contractor ID and read their MSHA citation, injury and inspection history. A contractor whose electrical citations cluster around Subpart K grounding and lockout standards is telling you something about how it will behave on your site.
Numbers worth knowing
Each one carries its source
Two facts that set the whole shape of a water procurement. The five-year ceiling means your discharge limits will be reopened inside the life of any treatment plant you build, and in 47 states you are negotiating those limits with a state agency rather than with EPA.
sourceThe federal technology floor for mine drainage in this subcategory, with froth flotation mills addressed separately at 440.102(b) (cadmium 0.10 / 0.05 mg/L). Water quality-based limits in your permit can be tighter than these but not looser, so a treatment plant quoted only against these numbers may still fail permit compliance.
sourceThe interconnection process clock and readiness thresholds under FERC Order No. 2023, effective 6 November 2023. If a project has not secured site control, it cannot even enter the queue — which is why the land position, not the substation package, is usually the critical path for mine power.
sourceThe OSHA 29 CFR 1910.142 temporary labor camp requirements. These are the figures a camp contract should be sized against, and they also set the water and wastewater duty that has to be added to the site utilities load.
sourceThe current NESC edition and its effective publication date. Because the code is on a roughly five-year revision cycle, a design or a specification that cites an older edition may be reviewed against clearances and work rules that have since changed; always state the edition in the specification.
sourceHow this goes wrong
The specific traps, not general advice
- Buying a water treatment plant before characterising the influent across a full hydrological cycle. A plant sized on dry-season chemistry and a single design flow will be bypassing in the first wet season, and the constituents that actually break the compliance case — selenium, nitrate from blasting residues, sulphate, molybdenum — are often the ones nobody sampled.
- Treating the interconnection as a procurement rather than a queue position. Under FERC Order No. 2023 the study process is a clustered, deadline-driven queue that demands 90 percent site control just to submit and 100 percent by the facilities study, with commercial readiness deposits and withdrawal penalties; a mine that starts the power conversation after the mine plan is fixed loses years, not months.
- Assuming land ownership includes water. In the western states water is a separate state-administered appropriative right, and a dewatering plan needs a permitted right, an approved place and manner of use, and an authorised discharge or reinjection destination. Pumping without those is the fastest way to a cease-and-desist on an operating pit.
- Designing to the NESC or the NEC and forgetting that MSHA 30 CFR Part 56 Subpart K also applies. Grounding and ground-test records, deenergisation and lockout procedures, guarding, overhead line clearances and rules for moving equipment near energised lines are enforced by MSHA inspectors on the mine site regardless of what the utility accepted at the fence.
- Inheriting an impoundment without knowing its state dam safety hazard classification, its approved design storm and freeboard, its instrumentation, or who the engineer of record is. That structure carries the largest single tail risk on most mine sites, and it is regulated by a state programme that is separate from the mine permit and from the NPDES permit.
Questions to ask before you sign
- What is the interconnection queue position, and what does it cost?
- What is the water balance across a wet year and a dry one?
- Who is liable if discharge exceeds permit during a storm event?
Where to next
Reclamation & environmental
Closure, monitoring, remediation and bonding
PreviousCoatings & wear protection
Surfaces that survive abrasive ground
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Every figure and requirement on this page is linked to the agency, standard or register it came from. Nothing here is legal advice, rules change, and a link is worth more than our summary of it — follow them.
