Mining Environmental Accidents, Pollution, Tailing Dams and Abandoned Mines – Page 21

Chinese-owned nickel plant spills waste into Papua New Guinea bay – by Melanie Burton and Tom Daly (Reuters U.S. – August 28, 2019)

August 30, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE/BEIJING (Reuters) – Waste from a nickel plant in Papua New Guinea owned by Metallurgical Corporation of China spilled into the adjacent Basamuk Bay over the weekend, three sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

Locals noticed red discharge clouding parts of the bay that is next to the Ramu Nickel plant in Madang, Papua New Guinea, a local indigenous person who took photographs of the spillage told Reuters. The man declined to be identified because of the topic’s sensitivity.

The head of Papua New Guinea’s Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) said that its officials, as well as those from PNG’s Conservation and Environment Protection Authority (CEPA), had put together a preliminary report on the incident.

Amazon Gold and Army Suspicion Fuel Bolsonaro’s Rainforest Rage – by Simone Preissler Iglesias and Bruce Douglas (Bloomberg News – August 28, 2019)

August 29, 2019

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Among the tens of thousands of Brazilians who descended on the Amazonian goldmine of Serra Pelada in the 1980s was Percy Geraldo Bolsonaro, father of the current president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro senior was among the wildcat miners who endured brutal working conditions in the quest for riches. The rainforest suffered too, with widespread environmental degradation as miners ripped apart the Amazon in their desperate hunt for gold.

It’s an aspect of Brazil’s national psyche that resonates deeply with the president. “Gold mining is a vice; it’s in the blood,” he told miners from the region in a video posted to YouTube in July 2018. “We owe all we have to people with spirits like yours.”

Imperial Metals seeks to present evidence before decision on potential Mt. Polley environmental prosecution – by Gordon Hoekstra (Vancouver Sun – August 26, 2019)

August 27, 2019

https://vancouversun.com/

Imperial Metals wants evidence from a trial on the responsibility for the Mount Polley mine dam failure to be considered in a prosecutorial decision by Canada against the company for potential environmental damage charges relating to the breach.

In a petition filed in B.C. Supreme Court on Aug. 19, Imperial Metals says the evidence of former-British Columbia chief inspector of mines Al Hoffman is of “fundamental importance” to establishing whether there is any reasonable prospect of securing a conviction against the company under the federal Fisheries Act, and whether it is in the public interest to launch such a prosecution.

The mining company has asked for the court’s permission to use Hoffman’s evidence and related B.C. government responses collected during the discovery stage, information normally only to be used in the lawsuit for which it is gathered.

TÜV SÜD pulls out of dam safety checks after Brazil disaster – by Alexander Hübner (Reuters U.S. – August 19, 2019)

August 20, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

MUNICH (Reuters) – Germany’s TÜV SÜD has pulled out of conducting safety assessments of dams after the collapse of a Brazilian dam it had vetted killed almost 250 people in January, the industrial inspection firm’s chief executive told Reuters.

The collapse of the tailings dam, which was operated by Brazilian mining company Vale SA, flooded the town of Brumadinho with mining waste water only four months after TÜV SÜD had vouched for the safety of the structure.

“So far nobody knows the cause of the accident. And we do not know in particular what happened between September 2018 and January 2019 – if, for example, heavy equipment was being operated nearby or if there had been detonations,” Axel Stepken said in an interview.

NEWS RELEASE: New program to clean up largest abandoned mines in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories (August 19, 2019)

August 20, 2019

YELLOWKNIFE, Aug. 19, 2019 /CNW/ – Canada is moving forward with a long-term plan to clean up contaminated sites in the North.

Today, the Honourable Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, announced that the Government’s new Northern Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program will invest $2.2 billion over 15 years to address remediation of the eight largest abandoned mine projects in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

These projects are the Faro, United Keno Hill, Mount Nansen, Ketza River, and Clinton Creek mines in the Yukon; and the Giant, Cantung, and Great Bear Lake mines in the Northwest Territories. The Great Bear Lake project consists of multiple smaller sites in close proximity to each other.

The new program will leverage expertise gained over 15 years of managing human and environmental health and safety risks at contaminated sites in the North and allow for longer-term tenders for work at the sites, providing greater certainty for impacted communities and economic opportunity for Indigenous people and Northerners.

Russia’s Norilsk and S.African coal town Kriel top SO2 emissions hot spots -NASA data (CNBC.com – August 19, 2019)

August 20, 2019

https://www.cnbc.com/

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 19 (Reuters) – Russia’s Norilsk smelter complex and a town in South Africa’s eastern coal mining province have the highest sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions in the world, according to satellite data from U.S. space agency NASA.

The NASA-compiled data published on Monday was commissioned by environmental group Greenpeace India and used the space authority’s satellites to track anthropogenic sulphur dioxide emission hot spots around the world.

Scientists say that excessive exposure to SO2 particles causes long-term respiratory difficulties and stunted growth in infants among other problems.

4 Investigates: Abandoned uranium mines continue to threaten the Navajo Nation – by Colton Shone (KOB.com – August 19, 2019)

August 20, 2019

https://www.kob.com/

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — There are hundreds of abandoned uranium mines scattered across the Navajo Nation.

The clean-up process has been slow for those who live right in the heart of them. For many, it’s been a decades-long fight for the removal of “hot dirt” and there’s still no real end in sight. Red Water Pond Road Community Association is home for Edith Hood. She and her family have lived there, a few miles east of Gallup, for generations.

“We had a medicine man living across the way,” she said. It’s a remote village on Navajo land surrounded by beauty and radioactive waste. There is tons of “hot dirt” left behind from the nearby abandoned Northeast Churchrock Uranium Mine and the abandoned Kerr-Mcgee Uranium Mine Complex.

Gold rush-era rules to stop mining pollution are still in use – but they’re failing – by Susan Lawrence and Peter Davies (The Conversation – August 14, 2019)

August 14, 2019

https://theconversation.com/

Bento Rodrigues, Brazil, 6 November 2015

Wet, orange mud covers everything: streets, houses, cars, animals, trees, fields. The violent force of a torrent of mud has overturned cars and left them hovering on top of buildings. It has torn the roofs off houses and pushed over their walls.

The view of the town from helicopters flying above reveals a desolate landscape: sludge-caked animals struggle to free themselves, and rescue teams search desperately for survivors. Mud dyes the river orange for hundreds of kilometres downstream, and two weeks later it will flow out into the Atlantic in an expanding orange stain.

This devastation is the result of the catastrophic failure of a tailings dam: a vast settling pond built to store the muddy waste from Samarco’s Germano iron ore mine.

A dam collapse in Brazil has some worried about PolyMet’s plans. Why the DNR says it won’t happen here – by Walker Orenstein (MinnPost.com – August 13, 2019)

August 14, 2019

https://www.minnpost.com/

In January, the tailings dam at a Brazilian iron ore mine collapsed, killing nearly 250 people. The wave of toxic waste and mud also wrecked two dozen buildings and polluted water for five miles.

In Minnesota, the disaster raised eyebrows among opponents of a copper-nickel mine planned near Hoyt Lakes. That’s because the design of the dam in Brumadinho was similar to one PolyMet Mining hopes to build. In fact, the Vale mining company had used a method to judge dam safety created by a PolyMet adviser.

And the tragedy in Brazil embodied the worst fears of some Minnesota environmental activists and the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, who warn PolyMet could pollute the St. Louis River.

Sierra Leone community’s suit against diamond miner shows activist trend – by Cooper Inveen (Reuters U.S. – August 6, 2019)

August 6, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

FREETOWN, August 6 (Reuters) – At the foot of a slag heap some 40 meters high, Adi Kalie Bangura showed the black welts that dot his arms and legs that he says are the result of drinking and bathing in water contaminated by Sierra Leone’s largest diamond mine.

The water “makes us get headaches and feel sick in our stomachs,” said Bangura, a traditional healer and community elder in Koidu, the largest city in the West African country’s diamond-rich Kono district. The aluminium roof of the mud brick house he shares with a dozen family members is pockmarked by holes he says are the result of rocks loosened by years of blasting by the mine.

Bangura’s claims are part of those made by a group of Koidu residents in a lawsuit against diamond mining firm Octea Limited and related companies, highlighting how communities in developing countries are becoming increasingly emboldened to use courts to pursue grievances against mining firms.

Mount Polley mine disaster five years later; emotions, accountability unresolved – by Dirk Meissner (Canadian Press/CTV News – August 4, 2019)

August 6, 2019

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/

VICTORIA – People are swimming and fishing in Quesnel Lake five years after the largest environmental mining disaster in Canadian history, but residents of Likely, B.C., are still struggling with unresolved emotions about what happened and who will be held accountable for the dam collapse at the Mount Polley mine.

A five-year deadline for federal Fisheries Act charges expired Sunday, while the possibility of other charges under the same act remains with no timeline for a decision. British Columbia missed the three-year deadline to proceed with charges under both the province’s Environmental Management Act and Mines Act.

Likely resident Lisa Kraus said the central B.C. community of about 350 people remains wounded, concerned and somewhat divided about the tailings dam breach at the Imperial Metals open-pit copper and gold mine.

Murkowski, Sullivan urge action on mine cleanup – by Peter Segall (Juneau Empire – August 5, 2019)

August 6, 2019

Juneau Empire

Alaska’s Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both Republicans, on Monday hosted a number of state and federal agencies, local organizations and commissioners of the U.S.-Canada International Joint Commission for a round-table discussion of transboundary mining.

Among the organizations present were the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, Salmon Beyond Borders, Council of Alaska Producers, Alaska Miners Association and United Fishermen of Alaska.

Government organizations present were the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Forest Service, Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Alaska Department of Fish and Game and Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Impact Of Mexico’s Worst Mining Disaster, 5 Years Later – by Kendal Blust (Fronteras.org – August 5, 2019)

August 6, 2019

https://fronterasdesk.org/

Willows and cottonwoods sway on the banks of the Rio Sonora as it flows through the little Sonoran pueblo Baviácora. Nearby, cows graze lazily in lush green pastures on the westernmost edge of Sonora’s Sierra Madre mountain range. Even in the sticky summer heat, it’s an idyllic scene.

But local Martha Velarde said nothing has been the same in this quiet river valley since Aug. 6, 2014, when Mexico’s largest mining company spilled nearly 11 million gallons of copper sulfate acid solution carrying heavy metals into the Bacanuchi and Sonora rivers.

“The water was running orange, red, a coppery color through the entire Rio Sonora,” Velarde remembered. Neighbors started getting sick. Animals were dying. And at first, nobody knew why.

Brazil’s Vale dam disasters trigger $2 billion in fresh writedowns – by Christian Plumb (Reuters U.S. – July 31, 2019)

August 1, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian miner Vale SA (VALE3.SA) on Wednesday said it swung to a quarterly loss as the company announced more than $2 billion in fresh writedowns related to two deadly dam bursts suffered by the company over a period of less than four years.

In late January, the collapse of a Vale tailings dam storing muddy mining waste near the town of Brumadinho killed nearly 250 people, less than four years after a deadly disaster at the company’s Samarco joint venture with BHP Group (BHP.AX).

The world’s largest iron ore exporter has since been grappling with the fallout, which has forced it to shake up its board, replace its CEO and made it the target of various criminal and regulatory probes.

First Nations call for stepped-up financial assurance to mitigate mine disaster risk – by Gordon Hoekstra (Vancouver Sun – July 30, 2019)

July 31, 2019

https://vancouversun.com/

The B.C. First Nations Energy and Mining Council is calling on the provincial government to close a policy gap that allows mining companies not to provide financial assurance to pay for the costs of a mine disaster.

The call comes on the eve of the five-year anniversary of Imperial Metals’ catastrophic Mount Polley mine dam spill in the Interior — which has still resulted in no environmental charges — and as the council released a report it commissioned on reducing the risks of mining disasters in B.C.

In 2014, the province ordered Imperial Metals to clean up the massive spill, which the company did, but the council’s report notes that if a company went bankrupt, the public could be on the hook for costs.