New Developments in Gold Recovery
New Developments in Gold Recovery
By Andrew Meblin, copyright September 6, 2023
At the precise moment Giovanna Molina Wallace pushed the handle to flush the toilet, her wedding ring slipped off of her finger and literally went down the drain. At first, of course, she was horrified, but then grew philosophical about it.
“I thought that was the last anyone would see of that diamond and gold ornament,” Giovanna said. Little did she know that a new program developed by the US Department of Treasury is in the process of recovering gold and other precious metals from sewage sludge.
Yes, it’s true; there is gold in them thar poops. The program has been operating somewhat under the radar for several years, but recently came to light during a brief lull in the seemingly endless cycle of news about all the other issues that face us. The Precious Metal Recapture program is the brainchild of an engineer from the US Mint, Mark Rousseau. Rousseau, a statuesque gray haired fellow with am advanced degree from MIT, had the idea after hearing a story similar to that of Ms. Wallace.
According to Dr. Rousseau, a neighbor appeared on his doorstep with a wet suit, mask and snorkel. The man explained that his wife had accidently let her heavy gold necklace slide down the bathtub drain, and was insistent the ring could be recovered from the sewer. Knowing that Rousseau had a brother who worked for the Richmond, Virginia sanitation district, he wanted to phone his brother and ask him for advice on how to hunt down the ring in the sewer main adjacent to where their house’s lateral joined up.
“I told him I didn’t have to call my brother for the tips; the advice would be simple, DON’T!” As the dismayed neighbor trudged back home, fins dragging on the pavement, Dr. Rousseau had an “ah-ha” moment. Why couldn’t gold jewelry be recovered out of sewage sludge?
“We know that people lose jewelry on a fairly regular basis,” said jeweler Nancy Bach, owner of Rings and Things, near Washington’s DuPont Circle. “Rings fall into toilets, get washed down storm drains, and all that. But to actually turn a profit, the operation would have to operate on a massively large scale.”
“In our thinking the program would not last forever,” Rousseau said, “We believed the economics make sense only for a limited time.” Rousseau went on to explain.
Just as the California gold rush had largely been so profitable while men and women accessed gold that had been largely ignored for an eternity, the first gleanings from the initial “harvesting” of sewage sludge were actually astounding. To deter competition from municipal sewage treatment plants, Obama Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had friends in Congress attach a rider to an obscure bill declaring sewage sludge a national security matter. Through the power of governmental obfuscation, government lawyers visited all 16,297 wastewater treatment plants and explained that from here on out, the federal government would begin collecting the solids left behind.
As you might imagine, there was little pushback on the part of the wastewater folks. Angel Segura, manager of Brown Falls, Texas, waste water plant explained.
“Usually we have the federal government siphoning off the cream in this country. Now, finally, DC is taking a less desirable commodity. Then we come to find out, dad gummit, the G-men was getting the gold!”
And now for the kicker; just when Dr. Rousseau and his lieutenants were expecting gold recovery to tail off to nil, the sieves continued to produce a still profitable amount of fine gold.
“We thought it was just a few flecks off some men’s rings. You know, if you don’t glove up and move rocks or CMUs (cinder blocks), you can lightly abrade a minute amount of gold off your wedding band. And that was a lot of what we found.”
At this point, Dr. Rousseau’s assistant, Dr. John Ohlmann lit up a flat-screen display adjacent to an electron microscope, and showed two sets of images. On the left, Carter explained, was fine gold consistent with coarse surface abrasion. The tiny particles clearly looked like the result of a grinding action. On the right, if miracles can be believed, even smaller nodules of gold.
“We aren’t sure what the precise mechanism is here,” Dr. Carter said quietly, “But we think that this might be a case of human-produced gold.”
“No publication until we have absolute proof, please,” Rousseau implored, as he shot a glance at Dr. Ohlmann. “OK, interview is OVER! OUT NOW!”
Despite the attempts at secrecy, some word is getting out, hence the unpermitted publication in this journal. At a press briefing Karine Jean-Pierre rebuffed a thinly veiled question that hinted at some new source of gold flowing into the nations coffers.
“I have no idea where you might have conjured up such a load of crap,” the White House spokesperson barked.