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Mining Environmental Accidents, Pollution, Tailing Dams and Abandoned Mines

Public left footing bill for cleanup at abandoned mines in the West – by Associated Press (Omaha World-Herald – December 31, 2017)

http://www.omaha.com/

CUBA, N.M. (AP) — For decades, yellow- and white-tinged piles of waste from a defunct copper mine have covered the mountainside at the edge of the quintessential New Mexico village of Cuba — out of sight, out of mind and not nasty enough to warrant the attention of the federal government’s Superfund program.

Still, State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn said something needs to be done as heavy metals leach from the tainted soil.

“It’s not going to go away,” Dunn said while standing on the expansive sand dune that has developed over the tailings. “There are two choices: Do nothing and look the other way, or start to figure out how to fix it.”

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RPT-COLUMN-Blue skies, green cars and a year of revolution for industrial metals – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – December 21, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Dec 22 (Reuters) – A little bit of metals history was recorded on March 29 this year. The small Central American country of El Salvador became the first nation to ban all exploration, mining and processing of metals.

Don’t worry if you didn’t notice. El Salvador doesn’t have any operating mines. It was going to have a gold mine, but in a public debate pitting economic growth against clean water supply, water won. Such environmental push-back against mining has become an ever more common feature of the metals industry.

But this year has marked a tipping point with China, a dominant producer of so many industrial metals, launching its own clamp-down on pollution. Multiple supply chains from aluminium to zinc have been disrupted with largely bullish, albeit at times chaotic, price impact.

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Aluminum under pressure after China smog cutbacks fall short – by Eric Onstad (Reuters U.S. – December 20, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – The price of aluminum has struggled in recent months as authorities in top producer China have failed to fully implement temporary winter smelter closures to slash pollution.

Lukewarm demand and new smelter projects in China are also poised to lead to more metal piling up, with inventories in the country already at record highs. China has seen sizzling growth in aluminum production over the past decade and now accounts for around half of global output.

Benchmark aluminum on the London Metal Exchange has gained 23 percent this year, but has failed to make further headway after touching a peak of $2,215 a ton in October, the highest level in more than five years. On Tuesday, aluminum – used in transportation, construction and packaging – was trading at around $2,090.

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Small town considering buying shares in Rio Tinto Alcan to force them to emit less sulphur dioxide – by Andrew Kurjata (CBC News B.C. – December 20, 2017)

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

The District of Kitimat wants the company to install saltwater scrubbers at the local smelter

The District of Kitimat is considering buying shares in Rio Tinto Alcan in a bid to force the company to install saltwater scrubbers at their aluminum smelter in northwest B.C.

There are fears in the community that SO2 (sulphur dioxide) emissions could have negative health and environmental impacts, although air monitoring stations in Kitimat have indicated SO2 levels do not generally exceed acceptable health standards.

Kitimat Mayor Phil Germuth said there are still two primary concerns: the long-term health impacts of even low-level SO2 emissions and the fear that the existing monitoring stations don’t measure SO2 levels in outlying outdoor recreation areas.

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Norilsk Nickel offers a sketch of how it will reduce its sulfur dioxide pollution – by Charles Digges (Bellona.org – December 20, 2017)

http://bellona.org/

Norilsk Nickel, which has time and again made its hometown one of the most polluted places on earth, has announced plans to slash dirty emissions – and finally has released a sketch of measures it will undertake to carry that out.

Norway would benefit too. An investment plan the industrial giant released in London late last month also presages a 50 percent cut in emissions wafting over Norway’s border from one of its smelting works in the Kola Peninsula industrial town of Nikel over the next several years.

That smelter is part of the Kola Mining and Metallurgy Company, a subsidiary of Norilsk Nickel, which has been a near constant source of pollution and worry for northern Norway and other Scandinavian countries.

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Ethical investors tightening screws on emerging-market debt issuers – by Claire Milhench (Reuters U.S. – December 18, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – For years, the Brazilian mining conglomerate Vale was a darling of emerging market investors, who were happy to ignore the company’s poor record on environmental and social issues because of the high yields its bonds paid.

But warnings about the company’s policies were horribly vindicated in 2015, when a dam holding back waste at its Samarco mine burst, killing 19 people in Brazil’s worst-ever environmental disaster.

Prices on Vale and Samarco bonds plummeted by about a third after the disaster. Vale, along with mine co-owner BHP Billiton, is facing a multi-billion dollar claim.

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Giant Mine arsenic could be cleaned up in 5 years, researcher says – by Walter Strong (CBC News North – November 26, 2017)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Not so fast, says Giant Mine Oversight Board of proposed process, which is untested in mine setting

The decision to freeze about 237,000 tonnes of toxic arsenic trioxide dust underground at the former Giant Mine in Yellowknife remains the chosen solution for now — and possibly for the next 100 years — but a researcher at Queen’s University says he and his team have a technology that could render all that toxic dust inert in five years.

“Freezing arsenic underground is a good solution, but in general it’s not a permanent solution,” says Dr. Ahmad Ghahreman, a Queen’s University assistant professor in the department of mining. “Imagine if for any reason you have a power loss … the water body around the arsenic is not frozen anymore and then your arsenic starts to release into the environment.”

Ghahreman says a new process to treat arsenic trioxide and render it into inert could work, and would be relatively affordable compared to another well-established — but prohibitively expensive — hydrogen peroxide treatment.

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INTERVIEW: A Troubling Look at the Human Toll of Mountaintop Removal Mining – by Richard Schiffman (Yale Environment 360.com – November 21, 2017)

http://e360.yale.edu/

For years, the coal industry has dismissed the idea that mountaintop mining adversely affects people living nearby. But research by Indiana University’s Michael Hendryx provides stark evidence that this widespread mining practice is leading to increases in disease and deaths in Appalachia.

The devastating environmental impacts of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia have long been well documented. But over the last decade, Indiana University researcher Michael Hendryx has been examining another consequence of this form of coal surface mining that had previously been overlooked: the health impacts on the people in the surrounding communities.

What he has found, Hendryx says, is a public health disaster, with more than a thousand extra deaths each year in areas of Appalachia where mountaintop removal (MTR) operations take place.

The air and water pollution caused by this mining practice, which involves deforesting and tearing off mountaintops to get at the coal, is leading to increases in cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, pulmonary disease, and birth defects, his research shows.

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BHP, Vale inch toward Samarco dam spill settlement – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – November 21, 2017)

http://www.afr.com/

BHP Billiton and Brazilian miner Vale have inched closer to a settlement over the multibillion-dollar lawsuits that continue to hang over their Samarco joint venture following 2015’s deadly dam disaster.

While a full settlement appears unlikely to be reached before the end of 2017, the miners have at least agreed with Brazilian prosecutors over the pathway toward a more substantial agreement.

It is now 20 months since federal prosecutors in Brazil lobbed a 155 billion real ($63 billion) claim against the Samarco partners over the damage caused by the collapse of a tailings dam at the iron ore business in November 2015.

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NEWS RELEASE: New Report – UN Body Alarmed By Mining Waste Disasters Worldwide

(13 November 2017 – London-Washington-Ottawa). An international coalition of non-governmental organizations support the recommendations of a new report released today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which urges governments and industry to act to stop deadly and damaging mining spills worldwide. UNEP calls for an urgent UN Environment Stakeholder Forum to strengthen regulations internationally.

The 70-page report, entitled “Mine Tailings Storage: Safety Is No Accident,” highlights over 40 mining waste failures over the last decade, including 7 failures significant enough to make international news since 2014. These failures have killed some 341 people since 2008 and damaged hundreds of kilometers of waterways, affected drinking water sources, and jeopardized the livelihoods of dozens of communities.

“We believe the recommendations from this UNEP report pose a serious challenge to both mining companies and their regulators to improve the rigour of the management of mining waste facilities,” states Richard Harkinson of the London Mining Network.

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Making Indonesian Rivers Great Again – by Muhammad Beni Saputra (The Diplomat – October 31, 2017)

https://thediplomat.com/

Indonesia’s rivers are heavily polluted, but they can still be saved.

I once lingered at Pont d’Iena Bridge staring at the River Seine, which flows beautifully at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in the city of Paris. The clean surface of the iconic river, as seen from the bridge, had successfully entranced me and my memory flew southeast to my peaceful village near the Bukit Tiga Puluh National Park in Jambi, Indonesia. I remembered my childhood friend, the Batanghari River.

Sadly, the Batanghari is no longer as clean and clear as it was 18 years ago when I was a child. Yes, the longest river in Sumatra is now muddy, dirty, and polluted, joining hundreds of other rivers throughout Indonesia that have long contained harmful chemicals.

Research by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry showed that 75 percent of rivers in the country are seriously polluted, 52 of which are categorized as heavily polluted, and 118 watersheds out of 450 are critically polluted.

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Learning From the Fight Against Lead – by Faye Flam (Bloomberg News – October 17, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

As policymakers work to curb mercury pollution, they should consider the history of another dangerous metal.

According to some estimates, the use of leaded gasoline stole five or more IQ points from those of us who grew up in big U.S. cities during the 1960s and early 1970s, when contamination peaked. Studies show that children with higher levels of lead in their baby teeth do worse on tests of reading ability, grammatical reasoning, vocabulary, reaction times and hand-eye coordination.

And the doses back then were massive — typical kids had blood levels five times what’s known to cause brain damage. In case there was any doubt, newer studies confirm that lead’s damaging effects on children are permanent.

Eventually, science moved policymakers to take action. Now people around the world face the same challenge with mercury — another metal that’s toxic to children’s brains. Do we stall and debate while risking harm, or act with a greater level of precaution? The lessons of the past offer some guidance.

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New uranium mines: no simple answers – by Emery Cowan (Arizona Daily Sun – October 15, 2017)

http://azdailysun.com/

A town on the edge of the Navajo Nation that unknowingly drank uranium-tainted water for at least 12 years. Navajo babies showing increasing uranium concentrations during their first year of life.

Children swimming in natural pools near Cameron they later learned had been filled with water from abandoned uranium mines. The stories about the impacts of Cold War-era uranium mining on the Navajo Nation became highly personal during a forum hosted at the Museum of Northern Arizona Wednesday night.

Four decades later, the subject has come to the fore again as a grandfathered uranium mine moves forward with operations south of Tusayan and a new president stokes fears about the reopening of 1 million acres of the Grand Canyon watershed outside the national park to new mining.

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Talvivaara: Finland’s biggest environmental crime case returns to court (YLE Uutiset – October 9, 2017)

https://yle.fi/

Finland’s most notorious corporate environmental crimes case returned to court on Monday. The founder and owner of the Finnish nickel mine Talvivaara – as well as other leaders of the company – could face massive fines and suspended jail sentences in appeals court.

An environmental crime trial about mining company Talvivaara’s past operations began at the Rovaniemi appeals court on Monday.

Under scrutiny in the trial are the construction and use of Talvivaara’s gypsum waste pond, alleged scheduled and uncontrolled dumping of effluents into nature, as well as issues surrounding the handling and placement of the mine’s various waste components.

Prosecutors claim that Talvivaara bosses committed their first environmental crimes as early as 2004 when the mine was in its planning and building stages.

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[Norilsk Nickel] Russia and Norway make progress on cross-border environmental problems – by Anna Kireeva (Bellona.org – October 9, 2017)

http://bellona.org/

Russian and Norwegian environmentalists and politicians gathering in the industrial town of Nikel to tote up advances in cross-border pollution for once had something positive to report: the joint efforts seems to be working.

The results of Russia’s Year of Ecology are so far mixed, but 2017 marks a quarter century since Russia and Norway started forging an often-brittle bond of environmental cooperation.

The event in Nikel – a company town to the Kola Mining and Metallurgy Company with a history of grievous pollution – was entitled “Days of Russian Norwegian near border cooperation,” and presented a best-foot-forward program that checked off several bilateral success stories.

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