Moringa oleifera (M.O.) or commonly known as malunggay is a common tree in the Philippines that is cultivated for its food and medicinal uses. It is an excellent source of nutritional and natural energy boosters and bioactive compounds (Leone et al., 2015 cited in Desta & Bote, 2021). The seeds of M.O. have been found to be a potential biosorbent due to its ability to adsorp contaminants (Gomez, 2022). Several studies have experimented on the use of moringa seed powder as a natural coagulant for wastewater treatment for removing contaminants such as heavy metals and dyes. Alakaparampil Joseph Varkey (2020) published an article using the M.O. seed powder along with copper for purification of river water for household application. His study has shown that M.O. seed powder was successful in reducing the turbidity of the river water while using copper was effective in the reduction of the fecal coliform levels in the water samples. This paper proposes the adoption of the M.O. seed powder and copper set-up in the treatment of river discharge and mine silt pond waters. Tap water samples diluted with lateritic soil were used to imitate turbid mine silt water. Varying amounts of M.O. seed powder was mixed with the samples and observed for the next four hours. Visual comparison showed a significant change in the M.O. seed powder -treated water from being turbid to clear water as compared to the control setup. In another experiment using river water, samples were treated with M.O. seed powder and Cu coil as an antibacterial additive. Fecal coliform levels were tested for the samples before and after treatment using the MGB-RIII’s in-house Tecta B4 – PDS microbiological detection kit. After four hours, the treated river water’s turbidity was clearer as well as a measured decrease in the fecal coliform than the controlled sample. Fecal coliform levels were significantly reduced to about 72.80%- 99.4% after submitting the water samples to M.O. seed powder - copper treatment. Initial experiments using Moringa oleifera seed powder has shown that it is an effective coagulant in treating turbid water such as highly lateritic mine silt pond waters, and copper has the potential to mitigate fecal coliform in river waters.
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