A professional who tends equipment, such as grinders, leachers, filters, pressers, and evaporators that recover gold, silver, selenium, and other minerals from impurities. Respnsibilities include:

• Grinds impure slag or ore in ball mill, and mixes slag with water to form slurry.
• Turns valves and starts pumps to force mixture into leaching tanks.
• Starts agitators and adds chemicals to leach combined solutions.
• Starts pumps to force leached solution into settling tanks, and installs orifices to control rate of flow of sediment and liquids to and from settling tanks to remove liquid.
• Feeds settled solution through rotary-drum filters, and presses filtered slime in press.
• Boils selenium residue to remove moisture for barreling.
• Obtains and weighs samples of slimes during process, using container and platform scales, and delivers samples to laboratory for analysis.
• Drains and cleans tanks, wire screens, inflow pipes, and equipment with water hose.
• May be designated according to mineral recovered as Selenium-Plant Operator.