Mining Environmental Accidents, Pollution, Tailing Dams and Abandoned Mines – Page 47

BHP, Vale Shares Plummet Following Brazil Dam Disaster Lawsuit – by Paul Kiernan (Wall Street Journal – May 4, 2016)

May 4, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO—Shares of two of the world’s biggest mining companies continued to plummet Wednesday after Brazilian federal prosecutors hit them with a 155 billion real ($43.8 billion) lawsuit in response to a catastrophic dam collapse in November.

The lawsuit cast fresh doubt upon Brazil-based Vale SA’s and Australia-based BHP Billiton Ltd.’s hopes for a swift resolution to liabilities stemming from the failure of a tailings dam at their Samarco Mineração SA joint-venture in southeast Brazil. It also threatened to upend a settlement the companies signed in March in which they agreed to fix up to 20.2 billion reais of damage initially estimated by Brazilian government agencies.

A task force of public prosecutors that has been investigating the accident never signed on to the settlement, saying in the lawsuit that it was “incomplete, precarious and partial.” Among other things, the prosecutors said, negotiations didn’t involve actual victims of the accident, while the ensuing settlement failed to hold various state and federal authorities accountable for their own negligence in monitoring the construction and operation of Samarco’s dam, known as Fundão.

Victoria dodges liability issue in Mount Polley tailings collapse – by Vaughn Palmer (Vancouver Sun – May 3, 2016)

May 4, 2016

http://vancouversun.com/

Victoria — At first glance Tuesday, it looked as if the B.C. Liberals were accepting the auditor general’s findings of guilt in connection with the catastrophic failure of the tailings dam at the Mount Polley mine.

“Government accepts auditor general’s recommendations,” announced the Mines Ministry after auditor general Carol Bellringer put out a lengthy, damning report on lax enforcement in the mining sector that focused on the August 2013 breach and massive tailings spill at Mount Polley. Then there was the apparent endorsement from the minister of energy and mines himself.

“I want to thank the office of the auditor general for this report,” Bill Bennett was quoted as saying. “We are well on our way to implementing the audit report’s 17 recommendations. I agree with the auditor general’s office that ‘business as usual’ on mine sites in B.C. is just not good enough.”

[Water contamination with lead] The lead wait – by Omar El Akkad (Globe and Mail – May 4, 2016)

May 4, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

What surprised Elyse Pivnick weren’t the details, even though they were grim: Flint, Mich., a town of 100,000, had been poisoned, its children made sick by levels of lead in the drinking water so high, they exceed the government’s definition of hazardous waste.

But as she watched the eyes of the nation turn to Michigan last year, Ms. Pivnick, an environmental health expert who has spent 12 years working on lead-poisoning prevention, realized something else. Shortly before the Flint scandal became public, Ms. Pivnick had worked on a study of lead poisoning in New Jersey. In 11 cities in that state, there was a higher percentage of children affected by lead than in Flint.

“This is not to take a thing away from the debacle in Flint,” says Ms. Pivnick, who is the director of environmental health at Isles, a community development organization, “but it is to say that this is a very old problem.”

Vale-BHP’s Samarco Faces $43 Billion Suit for Dam Disaster – by R.T. Watson and Yasmine Batista (Bloomberg News – May 3, 2016)

May 3, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Brazilian prosecutors filed a civil suit worth 155 billion reais ($43 billion) against Vale SA, BHP Billiton Ltd., and Samarco Mineracao SA for a November tailings dam burst that killed as many as 19 people and caused severe environmental damage, according to a document from the prosecutors office obtained by Bloomberg.

The prosecuting task force is demanding an initial payment of 7.8 billion reais within 30 days, according to the document. The civil suit, which prosecutors said they put together after a six-month investigation, also targets Brazil’s federal government along with both Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo state governments, the prosecutors office said in a statement earlier Tuesday.

Samarco’s $1 billion in bonds due in 2022 fell 4.8 percent to 57 cents on the dollar at 4:30 p.m. in Sao Paulo, the biggest drop since Dec. 21. In March, Samarco and its co-controllers signed an agreement with the federal government and the two states committing to pay as much as 12 billion reais over the next 15 years.

Illegal gold rush hits Indonesia’s forest – by Lauren Farrow (AAP Southeast Asia/Yahoo.com – April 29, 2016)

April 29, 2016

https://au.news.yahoo.com/

It took illegal miners less than two weeks to destroy six hectares of lush forest in one of Indonesia’s precious national parks – all in pursuit of gold.

Underneath the now moon-like landscape of Central Sulawesi’s Lore Lindu National Park, people risk mine shaft collapses to dig up hundreds of kilograms of rock that will wield just grams of gold.

They will earn around $A1.40 an hour, while the men above ground – who haul large sacks of rock upon their shoulders down steep cliffs – will make even less. The mining site at Lore Lindu was once the territory of a small number of people who sat ankle deep in water, panning for gold.

Then a “story” of a woman finding a nugget at the site spread.

My Turn: Doing mining differently up north – by Lewis Rifkind (The Juneau Empire – April 29, 2016)

April 29, 2016

http://juneauempire.com/

Lewis Rifkind is a mining analyst for Yukon Conservation Society.

British Columbia Minister of Energy and Mines Bill Bennett’s response to Alaskans’ growing concerns about the downstream effects of mining in BC has usually been to defend the BC mine permitting process, invite more Alaskan participation in the process and then accuse Alaskans of having an inadequate understanding of the BC mine review and regulatory regime.

Alaskans have rightly bristled at these statements, noting that the BC process has resulted in more than 50 years of acid mine drainage from the Tulsequah Chief and the Mount Polley tailings dam disaster. Alaskans formally asked for a federal Panel Review of the KSM mine proposal, but these requests were ignored. So, it makes sense that Alaskans do not trust the BC process.

And, despite Bennett’s defense of the BC process, there are clear examples of ways to do it better.

Northern Ontario’s Steep Rock Mine water to overflow by 2070 – by Jeff Walters (CBC News Thunder Bay – April 20, 2016)

April 20, 2016

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

The problem is decades away, but th Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry wants to figure out the best way to control water that will eventually overflow the former Caland and Hogarth open pit iron ore mines, in northwestern Ontario.

The Caland mine, about three kilometres north of Atikokan, Ont., has two pits, the Caland and Hogarth. Water in the Caland pit is of a fairly high quality, while the Hogarth pit is contaminated with mining waste.

The MNRF projects the two pits will overflow in 2070. Graeme Swanick,the Executive Lead on the Steep Rock Mine Rehabilitation Project, said the process will take decades. “So we expect rehabilitation of the Steep Rock site is going to unfold over a long period of time.”

Contaminated water spills from Teck’s Trail operation (CBC News British Columbia – April 13, 2016)

April 14, 2016

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

Teck Metals has confirmed a spill of metal-contaminated water at its operations in Trail, B.C.

The company says it thinks the spill lasted 15 to 20 minutes and was caused by a break in a water runoff line leading to a treatment plant. It says some of the contaminated water may have gone into nearby Stoney Creek, which flows into the Columbia River.

The Ministry of Environment says an estimated 90 litres of contaminated water was spilled. The spill has been contained, said a company spokesperson in a written statement, and there is “no human risk as a result of this incident.” Teck also said an environmental assessment of the spill will be undertaken.

Teck was recently fined $3.4 million for polluting the Columbia River from its zinc and lead smelter in Trail over about 16 months ending in February 2015.

For The Navajo Nation, Uranium Mining’s Deadly Legacy Lingers – by Laurel Morales(Nevada Public Radio – April 10, 2016)

April 11, 2016

http://knpr.org/

The federal government is cleaning up a long legacy of uranium mining within the Navajo Nation — some 27,000 square miles spread across Utah, New Mexico and Arizona that is home to more than 250,000 people.

Many Navajo people have died of kidney failure and cancer, conditions linked to uranium contamination. And new research from the CDC shows uranium in babies born now.

Mining companies blasted 4 million tons of uranium out of Navajo land between 1944 and 1986. The federal government purchased the ore to make atomic weapons. As the Cold War threat petered out the companies left, abandoning more than 500 mines.

Brazil wants Samarco to stop leaks before operations resume – by Marta Nogueira (Reuters U.S. – April 6, 2016)

April 7, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO – Samarco Mineração SA will not receive Brazilian government authorization to resume iron ore mining operations at the site of a dam burst that killed 19 people until leaks of tailings are stopped, environmental protection officials said on Wednesday.

Samarco, which is jointly owned by mining companies Vale SA and BHP Billiton Plc, hopes to resume operations at the start of the first quarter to be able to pay for a 20 billion real (US$5.53 billion) damages settlement.

The restart depends on authorization from the Minas Gerais state environmental agency Semad, which told Reuters that the miner needs to find a solution for the leaks from dikes built after the dam burst. Tailings are mineral waste and water sludge left over from mining operations and stored in ponds.

Study finds arsenic levels high in Yellowknife-area lakes near Giant Mine – by By Guy Quenneville (CBC News North – April 7, 2016)

April 7, 2016

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

University of Ottawa study finds high arsenic levels in several lakes within 15 km of Giant Mine

Another study has found high levels of arsenic in the lakes around Yellowknife’s Giant Mine.

The study, released Wednesday by researchers at the University of Ottawa, found arsenic concentrations higher than the Canadian drinking water guidelines in several lakes within 15 kilometres of the mine.

The guideline is 10 micrograms per litre. “Many of the lakes we sampled in the region were exceeding that value, particularly ones that are closest to the mine,” said Jules Blais, a professor of biology and environmental toxicology at the university and a co-author of the study.

Half of natural World Heritage sites at risk from industry: WWF – by Alister Doyle (Reuters U.S. – April 5, 2016)

April 6, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

OSLO – Industrial activity such as mining and logging threatens almost half of the world’s natural World Heritage sites, from Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru, the WWF conservation group said on Wednesday.

It urged companies to obey U.N. appeals to declare all heritage sites “no go” areas for oil and gas exploration, mines, unsustainable timber production and over-fishing.

A total of 114 World Heritage sites out of 229 worldwide that are prized for nature or a mixture of nature and culture were under threat, according to the study by WWF and Dalberg Global Development Advisors, a U.S.-based consultancy.

Illegal mining hits Congo gorilla population: conservationists – by Ed Stoddard (Reuters U.S. – April 6, 2016)

April 6, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG – The world’s largest gorilla sub-species has seen its population fall 77 percent over the past two decades, a trend linked to illegal mining for coltan, a key mineral used in the production of cell phones and electronics, a new report has found.

Grauer’s gorilla, the planet’s biggest primate which can weigh up to 400 pounds (180 kgs), is found in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where minerals have been plundered for decades under the smokescreen of conflict and instability.

A report this week by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Fauna & Flora International found that its numbers had fallen to 3,800 from an estimated 17,000 in 1995.

Mining Dams Grow to Colossal Heights, and So Do the Risks – by Paul Kiernan (Wall Street Journal – April 4, 2016)

April 4, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/

Engineers say Brazilian disaster shows world-wide danger from Hoover Dam-size earthen structures holding ‘tailings’ waste

MARIANA, Brazil—Half an hour’s drive from this colonial town in southeast Brazil, trees suddenly give way to what looks like a desert salt flat. It is a 2-mile-wide valley filled with mine waste.

On Nov. 5, an earthen dam holding back this sea of sludge collapsed, releasing a deluge that killed 19 people, destroyed villages and traveled more than 400 miles to the Atlantic Ocean, where it left a reddish-brown plume visible from space. As tall as a 30-story building and holding enough refuse to fill 19 Dallas Cowboys stadiums, the dam was the largest structure of its kind ever to give way.

It won’t be the last. From Chile to Australia to the U.S., the quest for economies of scale has prompted mining companies to dig larger and deeper pits, creating record volumes of waste.

BHP Facing Billions in Disaster Payouts Boosts Brazil Staff – by Rt Watson (Bloomberg News – April 1, 2016)

April 1, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Facing the prospect of billions of dollars in damages and debt obligations after the Samarco mine disaster, BHP Billiton Ltd. has more than tripled its staffing in Brazil, adding two top executives to the mix to oversee a push to restart operations.

On Nov. 5, a dam filled with sludge from the mine burst, killing as many as 19 people and leaving hundreds homeless. If Samarco Mineracao SA, the BHP-Vale SA joint venture that ran the mine can’t reopen it, the partnership won’t be able to meet $1 billion in debt obligations due in 2022, or pay damages valued as high as 12 billion reais ($3.3 billion).

In that case, Brazil’s Vale and Australia’s BHP, the world’s largest miner, would be required to pick up the cleanup bill. In an era of depressed commodity prices, BHP, whose stock has dipped 42 percent in 12 months, has already made deep cuts to its dividend and trimmed capital spending. That’s raised the stakes to lessen the disaster’s impact.