Mining Environmental Accidents, Pollution, Tailing Dams and Abandoned Mines – Page 54

BARRICK GOLD NEWS RELEASE: Processing Restrictions at Veladero Lifted

September 25, 2015

http://www.barrick.com/

TORONTO, September 25, 2015 — Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE:ABX)(TSX:ABX) (Barrick or the “company”) today announced that restrictions on processing activities at the Veladero mine in San Juan province, Argentina, have been lifted.

A local court previously restricted the addition of new reagents to the mine’s heap leach circuit following the failure of a valve on a pipe carrying cyanide solution at the leach pad, which led to a release of solution.

The safety of people and the environment has been the company’s top priority since the faulty valve was detected. Barrick immediately implemented a comprehensive downstream water monitoring program. This monitoring, as well as testing results from an independent third-party laboratory, have confirmed that there are no risks to the health of downstream communities as a result of this incident.

These findings are consistent with independent water testing results released by other third parties in San Juan province, including the Public Health Department and the state water distribution company.

Francis: Mining industry in need of ‘a radical paradigm change’ – by Brian Roewe (National Catholic Reporter – July 17, 2015)

September 25, 2015

http://ncronline.org/

The global mining sector is called to “a radical paradigm change” to make improvements in how the industry impacts the planet and the poor, said Pope Francis ahead of a Vatican meeting on the topic.

The pope’s message was sent Friday to representatives from Africa, Asia and the Americas gathering at the Vatican this weekend to discuss their experiences living within mining communities.

“You come from difficult situations and in various ways you experience the repercussions of mining activities, whether they be conducted by large industrial companies, small enterprises or informal operators,” he said.

Francis described minerals as “a precious gift from God” that humanity has used for thousands of years and that are fundamental to many aspects of human life and activity. He then repeated an appeal from his environmental encyclical, “Laudato Si’: on Care for Our Common Home,” that people collaboratively work toward “countering the dramatic consequences of environmental degradation in the life of the poorest and the excluded.”

Barrick’s cyanide spill five times larger – by Herald Staff (Buenos Aires Herald – September 24, 2015)

September 24, 2015

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/

Company’s own new figures show leak had been massively underestimated

The amount of cyanide solution that spilled from Barrick Gold’s Veladero mine in San Juan province is almost five times more than previously believed, the company acknowledged yesterday as a second federal prosecutor moved to investigate national and provincial officials and mining executives amid growing environmental concerns.

By Barrick’s own estimates, approximately 1,072 cubic metres (1.072 million litres) of cyanide solution made it into the Potrerillos River, due to a valve failure and a sluice gate being left open on September 12.

Previous upper estimates of the spill had been in the realm of 224,000 litres. The Canadian multinational chalked up the revised number to the pinpointing of the approximate time of the valve failure, believed to be around 8pm. The cyanide solution is used to leach gold from processed rocks, a common method for the extraction of gold from ore.

Despite the revised estimate, Barrick insists the spill will not lead to any health risks for area residents.

Peru: Pope Gets Pushback on Environment – by Justin Catanoso (Pulitzer Center.org – September 20, 2015)

September 21, 2015

http://www.pulitzercenter.org/

LA OROYA, Peru – In Pope Francis’ teaching doctrine on climate change and environmental sustainability, released in June to worldwide attention, he intertwines two threads that often dangle separately: nature and the world’s poor.

“A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach,” Francis writes in his papal encyclical. “It must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”

There are few places on Earth where the cry of both is louder than in this city of 33,000 more than 2 miles high in the central Andes. La Oroya, Peru, is recognized as one of the world’s most polluted places. A smoke-belching smelting plant for copper, zinc and lead, operating from 1922 to 2009, made it so. Chernobyl makes those same lists.

Every child in town has excessive levels of lead in his or her blood, according to health officials. The soil is contaminated with sulfur dioxide. Portions of the Montaro River, which flows past the smelting plant, has been dead for years. Seven decades of acid rain chemically transformed the mountains surrounding the plant so that they look like molten wax, not solid rock.

Opinion: Alaska needs iron-glad guarantees on B.C. mines – by Dale Kelley and Cynthia Wallesz (Vancouver Sun – September 18, 2015)

September 21, 2015

http://www.vancouversun.com/

Dale Kelley is executive director of the Alaska Trollers Association. Cynthia Wallesz is executive director of United Southeast Alaska Gillnetters.

We were among a group of fishing, environmental and tribal representatives who met recently with Alaska Lt.-Gov. Byron Mallott, B.C. Mines Minister Bill Bennett and other officials on transboundary mining issues. Bennett’s visit was largely the result of Alaskans’ resistance to B.C.’s aggressive mining agenda and the risks it poses to our region.

Our organizations represent thousands of Southeast Alaska fishing families and businesses who fear development near the border could threaten water quality, habitat and the fish we rely upon. Last year’s tailings breach at the Mount Polley mine and plans to open several large acidic mines near our rivers heighten those concerns.

While the meeting was a good first step to starting a discussion with Canada, it did not alleviate our concerns.

Bennett told us the status quo cannot continue, but that he understands no amount of money or jobs is worth sacrificing our resource values. We absolutely agree.

Udall, Heinrich propose bill requiring hard-rock miners to help pay cleanup costs – by Justin Horwath (Santa Fe New Mexican – September 16, 2015)

September 17, 2015

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/

New Mexico’s two U.S. senators say they will introduce legislation that would require companies digging for hard-rock minerals on public lands to pay royalties to help cover the cost of cleaning up tens of thousands of mines across the nation abandoned by the industry decades ago.

Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, both Democrats, are proposing the legislation because of the Aug. 5 Gold King Mine spill that turned sections the Animas River orange and yellow from heavy metal waste that had been sitting in the abandoned mine since the 1920s.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency admits to causing the spill while cleanup crews were working at the site. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy once again defended the agency during a hearing Wednesday before Congress.

Defenders of the agency say the root of the problem that caused 3 million gallons of waste to contaminate the Animas River from Silverton, Colo., to Farmington is a lack of money to clean up waste rock piles that sit in old mines.

Udall said in a statement Wednesday that the legislation “would reform the nation’s antiquated mining laws, which date back to 1872, to ensure mining companies pay a royalty for the minerals they take from public lands.”

Trial to begin over accusations of environmental crimes at Alaska mine – by Lisa Demer (Alaska Dispatch News – September 13, 2015)

September 14, 2015

http://www.adn.com/

A first-in-Alaska federal environmental crimes trial over a mining operation is set to begin this month in Anchorage with a single defendant.

Two other managers with XS Platinum Inc. already have pleaded guilty — one earlier this month — which opens the possibility they might testify at the trial of Canadian James Slade.

Yet those at the top of the company have yet to answer charges that the effort to restart an old mine near the Southwest Alaska community of Platinum went terribly wrong. The Australians who led XS Platinum have not shown up in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, and prosecutors have been unable to find remnants of the company itself.

In all, five officials or managers were charged with felonies as was XS Platinum. The case is the first federal prosecution in Alaska related to mining under the Clean Water Act.

The focus now is on Slade, who is arguing in court that the government knew what the platinum miners were up to all along. His trial is set to begin Sept. 21 with jury selection and is expected to last about two weeks.

Colorado Mine Spill Highlights Superfund Challenges – by Dan Frosch and Alexandra Berzon (Wall Street Journal – September 11, 2015)

September 14, 2015

http://www.wsj.com/

Gold King incident shows difficulty in cleaning contaminated sites

The Colorado mine spill that sent three million gallons of toxic sludge into a river last month highlighted the struggles of the federal Superfund program to clean up contaminated mining sites across the American West.

The program, administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, was set up in the 1980s to remediate the nation’s most polluted places, from old factories to landfills. But it has been especially strained by legacy mining sites, which are often impossible to permanently clean up and instead require water-treatment plants or other expensive measures to contain widespread pollution, experts say.

The EPA often faces opposition from communities that distrust the agency and remain fearful of the economic stigma of being labeled a Superfund site. The agency also frequently is confronted with deep-pocketed mining companies who try to fend off efforts to hold them at least partially responsible for cleanup costs.

And for the past decade, the EPA has had to work with diminished finances after levies on oil and chemical companies originally intended to help fund Superfund cleanups expired and weren’t renewed by Congress.

Erin Brockovich, activist portrayed in film, accuses feds of lying about extent of mine spill (Associated Press/U.S. News & World Report – September 8, 2015)

September 9, 2015

http://www.usnews.com/

SHIPROCK, N.M. (AP) — Environmental activist Erin Brockovich, made famous from the Oscar-winning movie bearing her name, on Tuesday accused the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of lying about how much toxic wastewater spilled from a Colorado mine and fouled rivers in three Western states.

Her allegation came during a visit to the nation’s largest American Indian reservation, where she saw the damage and met with Navajo Nation leaders and farmers affected by last month’s spill, which was triggered by an EPA crew during excavation work.

Brockovich said she was shocked by the agency’s actions leading up to the release of waste tainted with heavy metals and its response afterward.

“They did not tell the truth about the amount. There were millions and millions of gallons,” she said while speaking to a crowd of high school students in Shiprock, New Mexico.

The EPA did not immediately respond to email and telephone requests for comment Tuesday.

Opinion: Environment exposes political hypocrisy – by Harry Sterling (Vancouver Sun – September 8, 2015)

September 9, 2015

http://www.vancouversun.com/

Harry Sterling, a former diplomat, was the Department of External Affairs’ representative to the International Joint Commission from 1981-83, representing the interests and views of the Canadian government on trans-boundary issues.

It seems politicians everywhere have a tendency to become somewhat schizophrenic when confronting sensitive issues that many of their constituents may strongly support or vehemently oppose.

One such increasingly contentious subject is the environment and exploitation of its resources, an issue politicians in both Canada and the United States increasingly find dividing members of their respective societies.

Such divisions can be especially sharp and heated when involving proposed economic development of untapped resources, especially if it involves offshore oil drilling or mining in pristine regions.

Both U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian lawmakers, notably in provinces such as British Columbia, have recently found themselves increasingly confronting divisions over specific economic projects in their jurisdictions that are raising concerns regarding cross-border developments some believe could endanger their local or national interests.

Our view: Abandoned mines or future disasters? (Santa Fe New Mexican – September 8, 2015)

September 9, 2015

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/

Outrage over the spill at the Gold King Mine in Colorado — where 3 million gallons of polluted water gushed out — should be put to good use. That water, flowing into the Animas River, and eventually downstream to New Mexico waters, provided a stark reminder of the dangerous legacy of abandoned mines.

Now, rather than rage against an accident, the nation needs to deal with the hundreds of other accidents that are waiting to happen. As Justin Horwarth reported in Sunday’s New Mexican, there are some 500,000 abandoned mines across the country. How many of those are in New Mexico? We just don’t know either the number of mines or what kind of environmental risk they pose. That’s not acceptable.

To date, the Bureau of Land Management has identified some 13,000 abandoned mines in New Mexico, but has not analyzed most of them. Close to 90 percent of the mines that BLM has identified have not been remediated.

After the Gold King Mine spill, Gov. Susana Martinez has said she would put some $750,000 into addressing fallout from that spill. Some of that, say state authorities, could be put to use at other abandoned mine sites.

South Africa: Some of SA’s Top Companies Are Quietly Breaking the Law – by Alide Dasnois (All Africa.com – September 8, 2015)

September 8, 2015

http://allafrica.com/

Some of the top companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange are flouting environmental laws and not telling their shareholders, according to a study by the Centre for Environmental Rights.

The CER assessed 20 companies listed on the JSE and found that between 2008 and 2014 many of them violated their permits and licences or flouted the law. Examples of violations included toxic spills, unauthorised disposal of hazardous waste, contamination of soil or of ground and surface water, and air pollution.

Yet all the companies had regularly been listed on the JSE’s Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) index.

This index, launched in 2004, was intended to identify companies which “integrate the principles of the triple bottom line’ – environmental, social and economic sustainability. It was designed as a tool for investors, including retirement funds and asset management companies, looking for “socially responsible” investments.

But the CER research shows that many of these listed companies also feature on another list – the list of companies against whom the Department of Environmental Affairs has had to take action.

Legacy of Hard Rock Mining in the West — Death of a River, a Community’s Response – by Michele Swenson (Huffington Post – September 2, 2015)

September 3, 2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Michele Swenson is an author and activist.

A century and a half of hard-rock mining with no accountability, without consideration for environmental consequences or downstream neighbors has taken a heavy toll in the West. Metallic, acidic wastewater from mines have a long-term effect on agriculture, ranching, aquatic life, human and wild life, and aquifers.

A 3 million gallon dump of mustard-colored toxic waste from Gold King Mine into the Animas River on August 5 raised the most recent alarm, even as the EPA estimates that the overall discharges from local abandoned mines amount to one Gold King mine disaster every two days. Colorado officials estimate that drainage from 230 abandoned mines in the state result in the failure of 1,645 miles of 105,000 miles (1.6%) of rivers and streams to meet Clean Water Act standards.

Cited as the worst environmental disaster in Colorado history, the Summitville open-pit cyanide heap-leach gold mine sits at an altitude of 11,500 feet in the San Juan Mountains, southeast of the Gold King Mine and 40 miles west of the city of Alamosa, just east of the continental divide. The devastating fallout of this form of mining led one resident to lament that the San Juan Valley had become “the poster child for how not to do mining.”

Colorado mining disaster shows Maine was right to reject mining rules — again – by Nick Bennett (Bangor Daily News – August 30, 2015)

August 31, 2015

https://bangordailynews.com/

Nick Bennett is staff scientist and watersheds project director at the Natural Resource Council of Maine.

2015 has been a year of seconds with respect to mining. For the second time, the Department of Environmental Protection submitted the same weak mining rules it submitted to the Legislature in 2014. For the second time, the Legislature wisely rejected them.

Also for the second straight year, a mining disaster occurred soon after the end of the legislative session and proved that the Legislature was right to reject DEP’s rules. On Aug. 4, 2014, the tailings dam at the Mount Polley mine in British Columbia failed, releasing billions of gallons of mining waste into pristine lakes and streams.

The effects of the pollution from this modern mine, which its owner built in 1997, will linger for decades in some of the most important salmon habitat in Western Canada.

After the Mount Polley disaster, many Mainers breathed a sigh of relief that the Legislature had blocked weak rules that would have allowed Canada-based J.D. Irving to mine at Bald Mountain.

It’s time for a Better Dialogue about Mineral Exploration and Development – by Gavin Dirom (Vancouver Province – August 31, 2015)

August 31, 2015

http://blogs.theprovince.com/

Gavin Dirom is president and chief executive officer of the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia.

Over the past few months, some observers in Alaska have expressed fears about mineral exploration and mining development in northwestern British Columbia. The concerns primarily relate to water quality in rivers originating in British Columbia and draining into southeastern Alaska. These rivers support important salmon runs and communities in both jurisdictions. As good neighbours and allies, Canadian mineral explorers and developers understand and respect these concerns. We also care about our shared water and salmon.

Northwestern British Columbia is a mountainous area with high mineral development potential. This rugged area, with its world-class deposits can help provide us with the critical metals and minerals that we all use in our everyday lives. By discovering and developing mineral resources, our industry makes a major contribution to modern society. Without it, we would have no bicycles, no boats, no electric cars, no iPhones, no lights and no hospitals. These are just a few of the things that require metals and minerals that we all take for granted.

Finding a balance between environmental, social and economic values is a challenge we all face. But that is nothing new. Responsible mineral explorers acknowledge that there will always be some impacts when developing a mine, and we agree that these need to be soundly assessed and properly mitigated.