Mining Environmental Accidents, Pollution, Tailing Dams and Abandoned Mines – Page 43

U.S. judge orders Teck Resources to pay aboriginal group $8.25-million – by Sunny Dhillon (Globe and Mail – August 25, 2016)

August 26, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

VANCOUVER — Vancouver-based Teck Resources Ltd. says it is “reviewing the implications” after a U.S. judge ruled it must pay an aboriginal group $8.25-million (U.S.) in costs.

Members of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation – which is comprised of 12 indigenous groups and located across the border in Washington State – brought a lawsuit against Teck in 2004 and alleged hazardous substances from its Trail, B.C., smelter were disposed of in the Columbia River. The group’s reservation borders that river.

Senior U.S. District Court Judge Lonny Suko in a ruling earlier this month awarded the Colville Tribes $8.25-million in costs, plus interest. Of the money awarded, approximately $3.4-million stems from the group’s investigative costs into the status of the water and expert analysis. About $4.85-million stems from its attorneys’ fees and litigation costs.

Teck not liable for historic air pollution, rules U.S. court – by Sheri Regnier (Trail Daily Times – August 24, 2016)

August 25, 2016

http://www.traildailytimes.ca/

The U.S. Court of Appeals recently ruled that Teck Resources cannot be held liable for air pollution that historically drifted across the border into Washington.

Chris Stannell, Teck’s senior communications specialist says the company is pleased with the decision and a review of its implications are currently underway with counsel.

He says Teck and its affiliates have invested over $75 million to date, under EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) oversight, towards a study to identify potential risks to human health or the environment in the Upper Columbia River associated with historic operations at the Trail facility.

Exclusive: Goldcorp struggles with leak at Mexican mine – by Allison Martell, Frank Jack Daniel and Noe Torres (Reuters U.S. – August 24, 2016)

August 25, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

TORONTO/MEXICO CITY – Mexican regulators said they are examining whether mining company Goldcorp Inc (G.TO) broke any regulations in its handling of a long-running leak of contaminated water at Mexico’s biggest gold mine.

The move follows questions from Reuters about the leak, which until now has not been disclosed to the public. Levels of the mineral selenium rose in one groundwater monitoring well near Goldcorp’s Penasquito mine as early as October 2013, Goldcorp data reviewed by Reuters shows.

The Canadian company reported a rise in selenium levels in groundwater to the Mexican government in October 2014, after which the contamination near its mine waste facility intensified, according to internal company documents seen by Reuters, and interviews with government officials. Two weeks ago, the company told Mexican regulators that contaminated water had also been found in other areas of its property.

Miners slam demolition campaign, blame illegal small-scale mining – by Manolo Serapio Jr and Enrico Dela Cruz (Reuters U.S. – August 24, 2016)

August 24, 2016

http://www.gmanetwork.com/

MANILA – Miners claim the government’s environmental crackdown is a “demolition campaign” against mineral producers and are seeking to meet with President Rodrigo Duterte amid a spate of shutdowns stemming from the probe, an industry official said.

Duterte’s seven-week old government has so far suspended 10 mines, eight of them nickel, for environmental infractions, sowing fear among large-scale miners in the world’s top nickel producer that more shutdowns may follow.

The mining industry expects to push ahead with $23 billion worth of new investments from this year through 2020, but this “spirit of optimism is being shattered by … a very unstable policy outlook,” Benjamin Philip Romualdez, president of the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines, said at an industry conference on Wednesday.

Bad air from Rio Tinto aluminum smelter forcing her to move, Kitimat resident says – by Andrew Kurjata and Robin Batchelor (CBC News British Columbia – August 23, 2016)

August 24, 2016

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

Move highlights continued battle between company and community over air quality in Kitimat

A Kitimat woman says she is being forced to leave the community due to sulphur dioxide emissions coming from Rio Tinto Alcan’s aluminum smelter. Sheena Cooper blames an increase in SO2 [sulphur dioxide] in the air for a spate of asthma attacks that have put her in hospital and on increased medication.

“At this point, it’s we need to get out of this town so I can get healthy again,” Cooper said of the decision to move her, her husband and their two children to the nearby community of Terrace.

Cooper said she’s suffered from asthma since she was five years old, but until this year its effects have been mild. That changed in March, when she suffered a series of attacks and had to check into hospital seven times. She is now using prednisone, antibiotics and a higher dose of inhaler.

Lone Norwegian mayor accuses Russian oligarch of fouling the Arctic: When will Oslo follow? – by Anna Kireeva (Bellona.org – August 23, 2016)

August 24, 2016

http://bellona.org/

KIRKENES, Norway – Following a gathering of politicians and citizens in this town earlier this month, calls from its mayor to forbid travel to a Russian oligarch for his hand in polluting Northern Norway have intensified.

Norilsk Nickel, produces a third of the world’s nickel with facilities on the Kola Peninsula, which Norwegian and other scientists have said are responsible for extremely high concentrations of sulfur dioxide on their side of the border, something Rosprirodnadzor, Russia’s official government environmental watchdog has long denied.

But Rune Rafaelsen, mayor of Kirkenes told Bellona in an interview that he’s tired of watching as nothing is done to solve the 26-year-old crisis, and is appealing to Vidar Helgesen, Norway’s Minister of Climate and the Environment to hit Norilsk Nickel where it hurts.

DR Congo’s second city poisoned by years of mining (AFP/Daily Mail – August 22, 2016)

August 22, 2016

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

“In this stream, the fish vanished long ago, killed by acids and waste from the mines,” says Lubumbashi resident Heritier Maloba, staring into the murky waters of his childhood fishing hole.

Pollution caused by copper and cobalt mining has not only poisoned the Katapula, a tributary of the mighty Congo River and one of the main waterways in this second city of the Democratic Republic of Congo, but has also induced widespread illness.

“High concentrations of toxic metals … cause respiratory disorders and birth defects,” particularly in people living near the mines, said toxicologist Celestin Banza of the University of Lubumbashi.

NEWS RELEASE: Study finds arsenic contamination from Giant gold mine wiped out key algae and invertebrates from lake near Yellowknife (University of Ottawa – August 17, 2016)

August 19, 2016

A study led by researchers at the University of Ottawa and published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B has found that a lake ecosystem was severely affected by arsenic contamination from the Giant Mine, which produced over seven million ounces of gold while it was active, between 1948 and 2004. Over 20,000 tonnes of toxic arsenic trioxide were released from the Giant Mine’s roaster stack over the years as part of its process to extract gold from arsenopyrite ore.

The team of researchers relied on a paleoenvironmental approach, extracting core samples of lake sediments to show how lake contamination increased after mine began operations, and how the lake’s ecosystem responded to that contamination.

“Many species of algae and invertebrates were killed off in Pocket Lake, near Yellowknife, by pollution from the mine’s roaster stack, and these species have not recovered even now, more than ten years after the mine closed,” says lead author Joshua Thienpont, a postdoctoral researcher with the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa.

Navajo Nation Sues E.P.A. in Poisoning of a Colorado River – by Julie Turkewitz (New York Times – August 16, 2016)

August 18, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/

DENVER — The Navajo Nation filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Environmental Protection Agency and several corporations, saying that poisoned water that flowed from a punctured Colorado mine last year disrupted hundreds of lives near a critical watershed.

The disaster, the federal suit says, has heightened economic and spiritual pain in a region hamstrung by poverty and drought. The tribe is seeking to hold the agency and corporations accountable, be made whole for at least $2 million spent on testing and alternative water sources and be compensated for lost revenue and psychological damages.

“We cannot just sit back and let the E.P.A. do what they’ve been doing, just doling us pennies,” said the president of the Navajo Nation, Russell Begaye, in a telephone interview. “This river is the main river that gives life to the whole region, not just those who live around the river, but the entire nation. This is our lifeblood. It is sacred to us.”

[British Columbia] Mining company facing charges for alleged damage to Hecate Strait island – by Andrew Kurjata (CBC News BC – August 15, 2016)

August 15, 2016

http://www.cbc.ca/

First Nation says B.C. government failed to monitor mine as pollutants leaked into the wetland and waterways

A B.C. mining company, along with its CEO and chief geologist, are facing charges for allegedly releasing waste material into woods, wetland, and water on a Hecate Strait island.

They have been charged with 18 offences for allegedly violating the province’s Environmental Management Act, including failure to report a spill of a polluting substance and repeatedly failing to comply with environmental permits.

Banks Island Gold Ltd., president and CEO Benjamin Mossman and chief geologist Dirk Meckert have not yet appeared in court. They will make their first appearance in Prince Rupert on Sept. 7. According to the Gitxaala First Nation, the company has left behind environmental damage that has people worried about the safety of their food and fish.

Kidd copper spills in river in train derailment – by Sarah Moore (Timmins Daily Press – August 13, 2016)

August 15, 2016

http://www.timminspress.com/

RAMORE – Crews are still working to clean up a potentially toxic spill in the White Clay River, near Ramore, after a train from a Timmins mine derailed on Thursday afternoon.

The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) confirmed that the train, which was carrying zinc and copper concentrate and bound for Englehart, originated from Glencore’s Kidd Operations Met Site.

The mine retrieves the concentrate at its facility on Highway 101, just outside of Timmins, in Hoyle, and ships it to its processing plants via the Ontario Northland Rail (ONR) freight line. The four-car train was travelling southbound along the White Clay River Bridge on Thursday, Aug. 11 when it derailed at approximately 12:30 p.m.

The Kola Mining and Metallurgy Combine: Norwegian politicians and citizens call Norilsk Nickel ‘dirtiest industry in the Arctic’ – by Anna Kireeva (Bellona.org – August 11, 2016)

August 12, 2016

http://bellona.org/

KIRKENES, Norway – Residents of this Norwegian-Russian border town have long suffered enormous sulfur dioxide emissions from Russian industry, and say they’re fed up with weak reactions from their own politicians to the two-decade old problem.

An area event last week gathered hundreds of residents of the small town in highlighting their worries over the heavy metal emissions wafting in from the Russian Kola Peninsula’s Kola Mining and Metallurgy Company’s industrial complex towns, and requested their own local politicians break deadlocked talks between Oslo and Moscow to improve the situation.

The Kola company is spread out across Northwest Russia in three of the dirtiest industrial towns in the country: Nikel, Zapolyarny and Monchegorsk. The Kirkenes event highlighted the recent publication of a Norwegian-authored book entitled Stop the Soviet Death Clouds, the name of the eponymous movement that was sparked in the early 1990s to fight trans-border pollution from the newly disbanded Soviet Union.

EPA continues to make amends for spill at Colorado mine – by Michael Carroll (AMI Newswire.com – August 10, 2016)

August 11, 2016

https://aminewswire.com/

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ponied up more than $1 million last week to reimburse affected communities, a year after an EPA-led remediation operation at a Colorado mine backfired and sent three million gallons of toxic water into nearby waterways.

The EPA’s Office of Inspector General has also confirmed that it is conducting a criminal investigation into the federal agency’s actions last August at the abandoned Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colo. The excavation of a horizontal drainage passage caused pressurized water containing heavy metals to spew into a nearby creek and eventually contaminate waterways in three states and the Navajo Nation.

Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.), whose district includes the Gold King Mine, is now pushing to get that mining district added to the National Priorities List, which would make the area eligible for long-term cleanup strategies under the Superfund program, Tipton’s spokeswoman told AMI Newswire.

China drafts new rules to curb mining pollution (Reuters U.S. – August 9, 2016)

August 9, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

China plans to raise environmental standards in its highly-polluting mining sector, according to a policy draft circulated by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Amid rising concerns about the state of its environment, China has declared war on polluters and has drawn up new laws, standards and punishments aimed at forcing firms and local governments to toe the line.

The mining sector has been a crucial part of China’s rapid economic expansion in the last three decades, but poor regulation and weak enforcement of standards has contaminated much of the country’s soil and left parts of its land and water supplies unfit for human use, threatening public health.

Lone Philippine iron ore miner suspended in govt crackdown – by Manolo Serapio Jr and Enrico Dela Cruz (Reuters Africa – August 8, 2016)

August 8, 2016

http://af.reuters.com/

MANILA Aug 8 (Reuters) – The Philippines has suspended the operations of the country’s only iron ore miner due to environmental infractions, officials said on Monday, bringing to eight the number of mineral producers halted in a government crackdown.

The Southeast Asian nation, the world’s top nickel ore supplier, began an audit of all its metallic mines on July 8, shaking global nickel markets as seven nickel miners were suspended for causing environmental harm.

Ore Asia Mining and Development Corp, which runs an iron ore mine in Bulacan province, north of the capital Manila, was suspended after an investigation showed it polluted a river, Environment and Natural Resources Undersecretary Leo Jasareno told reporters.