A Laurentian University scientist is conducting independent research into "mining" decades-old tailing ponds in Copper Cliff that contain nickel and copper that, if reclaimed, would be worth billions of dollars.

Nadia Mykytczuk, an environmental microbiologist at Laurentian’s Vale Living with Lakes Centre, says Sudbury has tremendous potential to be leaders in bioleaching — a process using microbes to extract valuable minerals from ores in waste water.

In many parts of the world, bioleaching is the only source of mineral extraction from low-grade ore and waste, said Mykytczuk during a break at a forum Wednesday at the centre.

Bioleaching would remove or extract from ores minerals that weren’t removed by the smelting process.

The microscopic organisms — bacteria, viruses and parasites — eat into waste water, feeding on chemical energy and breaking the water into its chemical components.

Microbes don’t destroy those elements, but rather separate them from their mineral form, making them soluble.

Left alone, that water and the metals in it leach out as acid mine draining, entering waterways.

"So, if we leave it to its own devices, it’s a problem, like we see in Copper Cliff," said Mykytczuk, who was one of several speakers at a forum Wednesday called Completing the Mining Cycle: Bioremediation and Reclamation of Mine Waste Areas.

"But if we harness that microbial ability to remove those minerals and capture the metals that are sitting right there in those ponds, and take that out, then we remove those toxic metals and we can reprocess them and sell them on the market."

The Copper Cliff tailings area is the largest in Canada and it’s estimated to contain billions of dollars worth of metals.

Efforts haven’t been made to reclaim those metals because smelting has been an effective way of removing metals from ores.

"We have a lot of money designated to smelting. We have so much more ore, that we have higher-grade ores still present in the ground. Why do we need to go after our waste?" asked the scientist.

The argument is that mining operations are left with large amounts of waste that are causing problems, and costing more and more "because the government is imposing str icter environmental regulations," said Mykytczuk.

If you have the microbes and the environment for them to thrive in, "you really don’t have to do much and you could make this problem start going away," she said.

Mykytczuk said those tailings areas "might as well be doing something for us."

Hers is one of several research projects targeting the microbial community to better understand how it works, and then apply that knowledge in the field.

One of the issues Mykytczuk will look at in her research is if local microbes can work in our harsh, cold conditions.

Generally, the warmer the temperature, the quicker "things will turn over," when it comes to microbes doing their job.

We don’t have that advantage in Canada "so we have to make the cold work for us," and use cold-adapted microbes, which we have in Sudbury, she said.

The pilot project Mykytczuk hopes to build would be in Copper Cliff tailings smelted decades ago that still have relatively high concentrations of metals in them.

"This is material that’s been exposed to the environment, has been leaching both acidity and metals into that tailings pond for a long time," said the microbiologist.

But there are still high enough levels of metals in that waste water that, "if we can extract them all in one go, those materials aren’t going to be reactive any more."

Mykytczuk sees it as a win-win environmentally and economically.

A self-confessed "nerd and a scientist," Mykytczuk loves working with bacter ia that "pushes the limits of life and shows us that you can have life and life that’s just thriving, not surviving, in conditions that most forms can’t live in."

Originally from Ottawa, she’s working in the perfect environment in Sudbury to study microbes that are tolerant to both acidic and cold conditions.

carol.mulligan@sunmedia.ca Twitter: @Carol_Mulligan