Mining Environmental Accidents, Pollution, Tailing Dams and Abandoned Mines – Page 41

Underfunding for mine cleanups rises to more than $1.27 billion – by Gordon Hoekstra (Vancouver Sun – January 27, 2017)

January 30, 2017

Underfunding for the clean-up of mines inched up to $1.273 billion in 2015, upping the level of financial risk to taxpayers above what it was the year before. The estimate is up from $1.263 billion in 2014 and may continue to increase, according to B.C. Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett.

B.C. law requires mining companies to post security, for example a bond, to cover the costs of reclamation and any continuing treatment of tailings pond water, which contains mine waste, when a mine closes. In a report last year, B.C. auditor general Carol Bellringer said the shortfall meant taxpayers could be on the hook if a company couldn’t pay for cleaning up a closed mine.

Bellringer recommended mine-by-mine details be reported and that government “safeguard” taxpayers by ensuring the estimate of the reclamation liability is accurate and that security demanded by government is sufficient to cover potential costs.

Underground fires, toxins in unfunded cleanup of old mines – by Michael Virtanene (Las Vegas Sun – January 28, 2017)

January 30, 2017

https://lasvegassun.com/

Associated Press – PRESTON COUNTY, W.Va. — An underground coal mine fire burns beneath a sprawling hillside in West Virginia, the pale, acrid smoke rising from gashes in the scarred, muddy earth only a stone’s throw from some houses.

The fire, which may have started with arson, lightning or a forest fire, smoldered for several years before bursting into flames last July in rural Preston County. The growing blaze moved the mine to the top of a list of thousands of problem decades-old coal sites in West Virginia awaiting cleanup and vying for limited federal funds.

State officials say $4.5 billion worth of work remains at more than 3,300 sites abandoned by coal companies before 1977, when Congress passed a law establishing a national fund for old cleanups. That program was part of an effort to heal the state from the ravages of an industry that once dominated its economy but has fallen on hard times.

BHP-Vale Mine Restart Encounters New Obstacle: Small-Town Mayor – by R.T. Watson (Bloomberg News – January 26, 2017)

January 27, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

BHP Billiton Ltd. and Vale SA’s crippled Samarco mine, once the world’s second-largest producer of iron-ore pellets, has a new obstacle threatening to slow its much-anticipated restart: a small-town mayor.

The Brazilian city of Santa Barbara declined to sign off this week on a plan for Samarco to continue to use water from a nearby river. Without the approval, Samarco won’t be able to complete an ongoing environmental study required by state regulators for a restart, a person familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private.

“There are environmental impacts related to the water supply that need to be thoroughly studied,” Leris Braga, the 34-year-old mayor of the town of 30,000 people in Minas Gerais state, said by telephone. He is calling for a separate study to be done to test for possible disruptions to water flow.

BHP Billiton, Vale closer to Samarco dam settlement – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – January 19, 2017)

January 19, 2017

http://www.afr.com/

BHP Billiton and Brazilian miner Vale have struck a preliminary agreement with Brazilian prosecutors, which lays out a path for a future settlement of the largest legal claim eminating from the Samarco dam disaster.

The dam disaster killed 19 people in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais in November 2015, and as the owners of Samarco, BHP and Vale have been locked in legal negotiations with Brazilian regulators and prosecutors ever since.

The Brazilian government agreed to a reparation and rehabilitation package worth 9.2 billion Brazilian Real ($3.7 billion) in March 2016, but that deal was suspended when independent federal prosecutors in Brazil lobbed a 155 billion Brazilian Real ($63.7 billion) claim in May 2016.

Contaminated mine ‘an embarrassment to Canada’, says Yukon judge – by Paul Tukker (CBC News North – January 18, 2017)

January 19, 2017

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

Supreme Court justice cites ‘unscrupulous and unchecked profiteering’ at BYG’s Mount Nansen mine

A Yukon judge has delivered a strongly-worded “wake up call” to Canadian taxpayers, who are now on the hook for another expensive mine cleanup in the territory.

Yukon Supreme Court justice Ron Veale approved a clean up plan for the abandoned Mount Nansen mine site, last spring — to be paid for by Ottawa — but issued his written decision this week.

He used the opportunity to lambaste the mine’s former owner, Toronto firm, BYG Resources, for an “unscrupulous history of … operational mismanagement” that left a big, toxic mess for government to deal with. “This case stands as a painful reminder of the lasting and egregious damage that unscrupulous and unchecked profiteering can bring about in the mining sector.

NEWS RELEASE: Justice Department, EPA and The Navajo Nation Announce Settlement for Cleanup of 94 Abandoned Uranium Mines on The Navajo Nation (January 17, 2017)

January 19, 2017

January 17, 2017 – The United States and the Navajo Nation have entered into a settlement agreement with two affiliated subsidiaries of Freeport-McMoRan, Inc, for the cleanup of 94 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation. Under the settlement, valued at over $600 million, Cyprus Amax Minerals Company and Western Nuclear, Inc., will perform the work and the United States will contribute approximately half of the costs.

The settlement terms are outlined in a proposed consent decree filed today in federal court in Phoenix, Arizona. With this settlement, funds are now committed to begin the cleanup process at over 200 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation.

The work to be conducted is subject to oversight of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in collaboration with the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency.

Brazil tips Samarco restart in two months – by Daniel Palmer (The Australian – January 18, 2017)

January 18, 2017

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

The Brazilian government has tipped operations at the Samarco mine to resume in two months, although confidence has been tempered by part-owner BHP Billiton noting its timeline remained unchanged.

The joint venture of BHP and Brazil’s Vale has been offline since the tragic collapse of an iron ore tailings dam in Bento Rodrigues in November 2015 killed 19 people and all but wiped out several small communities.

Questions have been raised around whether Samarco would ever restart, although BHP said last month it hoped to resume mining at some stage in 2017.

Crown attempts to stay MiningWatch’s charges against Mount Polley – by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (Mining.com – January 15, 2017)

January 16, 2017

http://www.mining.com/

Public Service of Canada prosecutor Alexander Clarkson announced that the Crown wants to enter a stay of proceedings in relation to MiningWatch Canada’s private prosecution against the Mount Polley Mining Corporation and the Government of British Columbia over the 2014 Mount Polley Mine tailings breach near the city of Williams Lake.

In other words, the federal government is seeking a withdrawal of the criminal charges before the NGO has the chance to present the evidence it claims to have over the spill’s damages to downstream waters and fish habitat, which would constitute a violation of the Fisheries Act .

Talking to the Williams Lake Tribune, Clarkson explained the rationale behind the Crown’s request: “The first reason is because there’s no reasonable prospect of conviction against these two parties with the materials presented to us by the complainant Mr. [Ugo] Lapointe.

British Columbia to clean up mine near Juneau (Washington Times – January 5, 2017)

January 5, 2017

http://www.washingtontimes.com/

Associated Press – JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – Canadian officials say they will take action to prevent polluted water from a decades-old mine from entering the Taku River, a key source of salmon caught in southeast Alaska.

British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett told CoastAlaska News (http://bit.ly/2iGcewN) experts will explore different options, including plugging leaking tunnels from the defunct Tulsequah Chief Mine. The acidic water has been carrying pollutants into the Tulsequah River, which is a tributary of the Taku near Juneau.

The mine hasn’t operated since 1957, and the two companies that tried to reopen it in the last 20 years have been unsuccessful.

Two decades after closure of Yukon’s Faro mine, a cleanup plan takes shape – by Justin Giovannetti (Globe and Mail – January 4, 2017)

January 4, 2017

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

FARO, YUKON — The Yukon’s abandoned Faro mine is a 25-square-kilometre moonscape, where deep pits filled with millions of tonnes of toxic waste are contained by substandard dams, and mountains of rubble tower in the background.

What was once the world’s largest open-pit zinc mine is one of Canada’s costliest environmental liabilities, according to the federal government, a toxic blight that has yet to be cleaned up after nearly two decades.

“We hardly talk about it, but Faro is a sleeping giant. The amount of money we’re spending is astronomical,” said Lewis Rifkind, who has kept an eye on the Faro project for years as part of the Yukon Conservation Society. Government spending has served only to attempt to keep the blight at bay, but now, after 14 years, Ottawa is close to finalizing its proposed plan to clean up the site.

Over $350-million spent to clean up abandoned mine in Yukon and not an inch has been remediated – by Genesee Keevil (National Post – December 26, 2016)

January 3, 2017

http://news.nationalpost.com/

WHITEHORSE — More than $350 million of taxpayer dollars in the past two decades — over a quarter billion dollars in the past decade alone — has been spent to clean up the abandoned Faro mine site, a moonscape of waste rock and mustard yellow ponds in the mountains of south-central Yukon.

But, according to the Treasury Board of Canada’s annual reports posted online, nothing has been remediated: Zero. Zip. Nadda. “Actual cubic metres remediated: zero; actual hectares remediated: zero; actual tonnes remediated: zero.”

Off limits and out of sight — overlooking the Pelly River Valley on the territory of the Ross River Dena First Nations — the 2,500-hectare Faro mine property is one of Canada’s largest contaminated sites. And one of its costliest secrets. Few outside of the North have paid attention to this toxic mess. And, managed by several layers of government since the mine was abandoned in 1998, accountability appears astonishingly absent.

Tibetans in anguish as Chinese mines pollute their sacred grasslands – by Simon Denyer (Washington Post – December 26, 2016)

January 3, 2017

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

JIAJIKA, CHINA — High in western China’s Sichuan province, in the shadow of holy mountains, the Liqi River flows through a lush, grassy valley, dotted with grazing yaks, small Tibetan villages and a Buddhist temple. But there’s poison here.

A large lithium mine not only desecrates the sacred grasslands, villagers say, but spawns deadly pollution. This river used to be full of fish. Today, there are hardly any. Hundreds of yaks, the villagers say, have died in the past few years after drinking river water.

China’s thirst for mineral resources — and its desire to exploit the rich deposits under the Tibetan plateau — have spread environmental pollution and anguish for many of the herders whose ancestors lived here for thousands of years. The land they worship is under assault, and their way of life is threatened without their consent, the herders say.

Idled Canadian iron ore mine charged with $30K fine over pollution – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – December 21, 2016)

December 22, 2016

http://www.mining.com/

Wabush Mines, an iron ore operation in Canada’s western Labrador that has been shut since 2014, will have to pay a Cdn$30,000 (about $22K) fine for polluting the environment, a Newfoundland and Labrador provincial court has ruled.

The verdict follows the company’s guilty plea last week to offences including failing to perform acute-lethality sampling of effluent and failing to notify an inspector following a deposit out of the normal course of events.

In practical terms, that means Wabush Mines didn’t test the mine’s surroundings to determine whether there was any amount of waste being released that could harm rainbow trout. The company also failed to let an inspector know there was an unusual amount of deposit. All this happened in May 2015.

Norilsk Nickel’s Potanin says his company should be an environmental example – by Anna Kireeva (Bellona.org – December 21, 2016)

December 22, 2016

http://bellona.org/

MURMANSK –Vladimir Potanin, chairman of the giant and notoriously polluting Norilsk Nickel, has said his company’s biggest problem is environmental – and he knows how to fix it.

The company is looking stem sulfur dioxide emission that pollute Northwest Russia and Northern Norway by shutting down its nickel smelting facility in the Murmansk regional industrial town of Nikel.

In an interview to the business daily Vedomosti, Potanin said in order to transform Norilsk Nickel from a polluter into an example of ecological cleanliness, he’s willing to spend up to $14 million in a process that he says should take about seven years.

Russian Billionaire Is Cleaning Up in Nation’s Dirtiest City – by Yuliya Fedorinova (Bloomberg News – December 15, 2016)

December 15, 2016

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Vladimir Potanin makes an unlikely environmentalist. The Russian tycoon, worth $17 billion at last count, derives half his wealth from a mine operator that’s the biggest polluter in the nation’s dirtiest city.

The smelting of nickel and other metals from the mines pumped about 2 million metric tons of waste into Norilsk’s air as recently as 2013, eight times the level of Russia’s next most-polluted metropolis.

Yet if Potanin makes good on plans to spend billions of dollars on the largest modernization of MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC since the Soviet era, he’ll have cut annual sulphur-dioxide emissions equal to the entire output of the toxic gas from Europe’s five biggest economies.