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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
In 1957, the Cutler acid plant opened in Serpent River First Nation (SRFN) after the Canadian government negotiated a 99-year lease with mining company Noranda Mines, which was at the time involved in the uranium mining industry in Elliot Lake. The plant was established to process uranium from Elliot Lake’s mines.
SRFN member, Lianne Leddy documented the story of the effects of the acid plant in her book, ‘Serpent River Resurgence.’
Lianne Leddy, a member of SRFN and professor from Wilfred Laurier University said in a recent interview, “When the plant was in operation, the fumes caused deforestation in the area, damage to roofs, community gardens, cars and even holes in the laundry drying out on the line.
The Narwhal
Joan Kuyek is co-founder of MiningWatch Canada and the author of Unearthing Justice.
A recent op-ed in The Narwhal said that Sudbury, Ont. offered proof that a “[post-mining] re-greening road map exists,” and indicated that Sudbury provides a model to the world. However, any community attempting to replicate the Sudbury model has to know its dirty, and often untold, stories.
The mines and smelters in Sudbury — Canada’s largest mining community — were built on and destroyed the lands of the Atikameksheng Anishinaabek. The boundaries of their tiny reserve were deliberately drawn to exclude mineral rich lands. Although over $1 trillion has been taken from the Sudbury region, the First Nation has received no compensation and no apology.
https://www.floridasportsman.com/
Dave Markett, a Tampa Bay fishing guide who regularly fishes Piney Point, told those in attendance at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s 2021 Redfish Summit that, “We need to hold the people that are responsible for our water degradation accountable and that they pay a price.”
Markett went on to demand that “phosphate needs to be funding the cost of seagrass restoration,” and ended with a dire prediction: “We are one tropical storm away from a disaster of unimaginable proportions.” Agree. And agree.
