Mining Environmental Accidents, Pollution, Tailing Dams and Abandoned Mines – Page 11

Navajo residents affected by uranium share stories at U.S. Nuclear Commission (Navajo-Hope Observer – April 26, 2022)

April 27, 2022

https://www.nhonews.com/

CHURCH ROCK, N.M. — On April 22, Navajo uranium and contamination victims voiced concerns to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the devastating health and environmental impacts caused by federal uranium mining.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency Executive Director Valinda Shirley were on hand for the meeting along with U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Christopher T. Hanson, Commissioner Jeff Baran, and Commissioner David Wright who met at the Redwater Pond Road community, located within the Church Rock Chapter on the Navajo Nation.

Bishop in Brussels to lobby against Investment in Mining – by Ellen Teague (Independent Catholic News – March 27, 2022)

March 28, 2022

https://www.indcatholicnews.com/

A delegation from Latin America, including a Catholic bishop, has travelled to Europe to raise awareness and urge support for communities suffering from destructive mining. It called for disinvestment from mining.

The members of the delegation met with European parliamentarians in Brussels on 24 March to denounce the relationship between dispossession and extractive impacts in Latin America.

Regulatory body wraps up investigation into engineers involved in B.C.’s Mt. Polley mine disaster – by Chad Pawson (CBC News British Columbia – March 12, 2022)

March 14, 2022

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/

Nearly eight years after the largest environmental mining disaster in Canadian history, B.C.’s engineering regulatory and licensing body has wrapped up its investigation into three engineers who were involved.

Engineers and Geoscientists British Columbia (EGBC) brought a collective $226,500 in fines against two engineers involved in the Mount Polley mine disaster who are no longer working in the industry and a brief suspension and required training for a third engineer.

Barrick Gold near Pueblo Viejo tailings decision – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – February 17, 2022)

February 17, 2022

https://www.mining.com/

Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX)(NYSE: GOLD) is close to reaching an agreement with the government of the Dominican Republic on where to build a new tailings storage facility (TSF) for its $1.3 billion Pueblo Viejo gold mine.

The world’s second largest gold producer had warned last year that production at the mine would have to end in 2030 without a new mining waste depository. Building a new dam is part of the planned expansion for Pueblo Viejo, which will extend its productive life beyond 2040.

War has been an environmental disaster for Ukraine – by Jessica McKenzie (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – February 15, 2022)

February 17, 2022

https://thebulletin.org/

If Russia embarks on a full-scale invasion of Ukraine—as military maneuvering suggests it might—US intelligence officials estimate that between 25,000 to 50,000 civilians could die.

An additional 5,000 to 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers and 3,000 to 10,000 Russian soldiers could also be killed. While the toll on human life would be steep, a full-scale military invasion would also have long-lasting environmental impacts in Ukraine.

Red seas and no fish: Nickel mining takes its toll on Indonesia’s spice islands – by Rabul Sawal (Mongabay.com – February 16, 2022)

February 17, 2022

https://news.mongabay.com/

HALMAHERA, Indonesia — Yoksan Jurumudi came home with a long face after spending the whole day looking for fish in the waters off the Obi Islands in Indonesia’s North Maluku province. The fisherman dumped out his catch, but it was only enough to feed his own family. There was nothing left over that could be sold, let alone shared with his extended family.

The days when the fishermen of Obi Island would land a bounty of skipjack tuna have long passed, they say. It now takes them at least three days of fishing, venturing increasingly farther out to sea on their small wooden ketinting canoes, to bring back just 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of tuna.

Barrick launches tailings reprocessing project at closed US gold mine (Mining Technology – February 14, 2022)

February 15, 2022

https://www.mining-technology.com/

The new project is expected to remove potential water pollution from the Golden Sunlight Mine.

Mining firm Barrick has commissioned the tailings reprocessing project at the shuttered Golden Sunlight Mine in Jefferson County, Montana, US.

Over the next decade, the new project is expected to provide tax revenue worth ‘tens of millions of dollars’ for the state while removing potential water pollution from the mine site.

Canadian Mine Waste Is Crossing Borders and Facing International Backlash – by Stephen Robert Miller (Discovery Magazine – February 5, 2022)

February 7, 2022

https://www.discovermagazine.com/

For decades, Canadian waterways have carried toxic mine waste through natural ecosystems, into tribal lands and across the U.S. border. A coalition of indigenous leaders and scientists are now calling for international protection.

In the bitter cold winter of 2017, British Columbia’s minister of energy and mines discovered that someone had staked a mining claim in his actual backyard. The request had come without notice or warning.

If approved, it would allow the people behind it to pan for precious minerals in streambeds on his Cranbrook, B.C., property, less than 50 miles north of the U.S. border.

Church of England rattles tailings sabre – by Jax Jacobsen (Mining Magazine – January 25, 2022)

January 25, 2022January 25, 2022

https://www.miningmagazine.com/

Only one third of companies with tailings dams have adopted standards

Three years to the day since the Brumadinho dam disaster, the Church of England’s pensions board said on Tuesday it would vote against re-electing company heads of 183 mining companies who have not committed to a new global standard on tailings.

The pensions board said 79 mining and metals companies have signed onto the new Global Industry Standard for improving the safety of tailings dams worldwide.

Ottawa on the hook for $4-billion tied to abandoned mines’ cleanup in the North – by Kevin Philipupillai (Hill Times – January 20, 2022)

January 21, 2022

https://www.hilltimes.com/

NDP MP Lori Idlout says the Liberals need to hold companies accountable. ‘Our communities can’t continue to be disregarded when the profit is gone and we’re left to clean up the mess that a multi-billion dollar company made.’

Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada is responsible for $4-billion in environmental liabilities for mines abandoned by private operators in the territories, according to the federal government’s public accounts for 2020-21. This figure represents the amount required to bring 162 contaminated sites back up to current minimum environmental standards. But in extreme cases the remediation costs may extend into perpetuity.

Brazil fines Canadian miner Great Panther for cyanide leak at gold mine – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – January 2, 2022)

January 10, 2022

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A Brazilian state environmental regulator has fined Canadian precious metals producer Great Panther Mining Ltd.GPL-A -3.41%decrease $11.4-million, after ruling a cyanide leak at the company’s gold mine in Brazil polluted local rivers and killed a large fish population.

Vancouver-based Great Panther operates the open-pit Tucano gold mine in Amapa state in northern Brazil. Until a few days ago, the company’s chairman was well-known Canadian mining executive David Garofalo, who is also the former head of Goldcorp Inc., a onetime high flier in the gold mining industry.

Tailings pond collapse affects world’s highest human settlement – by Staff (Mining.com – December 3, 2021)

December 3, 2021

https://www.mining.com/

The collapse of a tailings facility in Peru’s Ananea district has destroyed a segment of the main road that connects the area with the neighbouring La Rinconada district, the highest human settlement in the world located in the southeastern Puno region.

According to local media, the San Antonio mining cooperatives are responsible for the maintenance of the tailings storage facility that collapsed on November 26.

Vale unit to invest US$800mn in dry iron ore processing technology (bnamericas.com – November 9, 2021)

November 15, 2021

https://www.bnamericas.com/en/

Brazilian iron ore mining giant Vale, through its tech subsidiary New Steel, signed a protocol of intent with southeast state Minas Gerais to invest 4.4bn reais (US$795mn) in technology that eliminates the need for tailings dams.

The funds will be used to implement an innovative dry iron ore processing technology that drastically reduces the environmental impact and extends the life of mines, the state government said in a release. The process also will also create jobs and more revenue for three municipalities, it added.

New gold rush fuels Amazon destruction (France 24.com – November 9, 2021)

November 10, 2021

https://www.france24.com/en/

Sao Felix do Xingu (Brazil) (AFP) – Standing over the gaping pit in the middle of his small farm, Brazilian wildcat miner Antonio Silva struggles to explain why he joined the new gold rush sweeping the Amazon.

The 61-year-old grandfather of six had planned to retire from illegal mining, and the environmental destruction that comes along with it. He bought this farm in rural Sao Felix do Xingu, in the southeastern Amazon, and was starting a cattle ranch on a long-deforested patch of jungle where he would not have to cut down more trees.

Vale says it continues to upgrade its tailings dams in Greater Sudbury – by Jonathan Migneault (CBC News Sudbury – November 3, 2021)

November 3, 2021

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

Vale says it inspects its more than 40 tailings dams in Greater Sudbury every day

Two years after a dam collapse in Brazil that killed more than 250 people, Vale has said it has continued to upgrade its tailings dam infrastructure in Greater Sudbury.

In the last 15 years, the mining company has upgraded five dams in the Copper Cliff region which were built using what the industry calls the upstream method. That is when the tailings materials themselves — which are the rock waste byproduct of mine milling operations — are used to build a dam.