Environmental Consequences of Underground Mining #3

Real World Examples/Real World Problems: Several examples should give readers a better understanding of the nature of the very real challenges associated with underground mining. The first example is perhaps the most chilling illustration of mining gone terribly wrong anywhere in the world. Russia’s greatest mineral district, with extensive gold, thorium, and uranium deposits is located a remote region of Siberia known as Chita, near the headwaters for both Lake Baikal, the world’s largest lake, and the Amur River, one of the world’s largest rivers. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the resultant near chaos into which the Russian economy has descended, pressure has increased to extract natural resources at an even faster pace than before to generate increasing wealth for the new owners of the resources.

However, the critical issues facing increased mineral extraction are not the resources themselves but the many severe public health and environmental problems that persist throughout Chita that were directly caused by mining activities. Both the gold and thorium mines of Balei (with gold reserves approaching $3 billion) and the uranium mines of Krasnokamensk (which is among the largest uranium complexes in the world) provide stark evidence of mines that were operated for decades without the slightest concern for reclamation, pollution control, or human health and safety. When anyone observes the devastated landscapes of large-scale pollution in Chita, the term ecological disaster instantly springs to mind.

The well-documented radiation exposure situation at Balei (also spelled Baley) from unreclaimed and open Soviet-era gold and thorium pits and other waste piles includes extensive areas in the urban settlement characterized by high indoor and outdoor radiation and multi-generational disease patterns in local families living in adversely affected homes. Not surprisingly, areas of extreme health problems are coincident with areas of high residential radiation exposure and pollution by contaminated water. A particularly alarming example of the severity of the multiple threats to human health is the fact that 95 percent of the children in areas affected by thorium exposure have been diagnosed with one or more congenital or chronic diseases or handicaps.

Large-scale pollution problems at Krasnokamensk, the most important uranium production site in the former Soviet Union, include groundwater damage from a large and expanding plume of acidic tailings seepage, a contaminated streambed that was used to move large quantities of untreated radioactive mine water, high indoor radon levels, and hundreds of millions of tons of unreclaimed radioactive mine and mill waste piles in areas open to wind and water erosion.

Both Balei and Krasnokamensk paint compelling images of the heartless and cruelly exploitative practices of Soviet-era mining. The history of non-existent environmental management and protection efforts during the Soviet-era and the present lack of legal enforcement programs to support and direct a technically competent clean-up effort in post-Soviet Russia have combined with a distinct lack of will to invest financial resources in modern remediation programs. The horrific and scarcely imaginable results (to most North Americans and Western Europeans) include the continued use of homes in areas of high radiation and water pollution and the consequent continued exposure of human populations, including children, to the most severe threats imaginable to health, safety, and survival.

Not much closer to home geographically is the case of the Canadian mining firm, Placer Dome, which has a thirty-year history in the Philippines of one large-scale mining disaster after another.[1] From 1975 to 1991, Placer Dome oversaw the surface disposal via pipeline from the Tapian mine on the island of Marinduque of more than 200 million tons of mine tailings directly into the shallow waters of Calancan Bay. The tailings covered 30 square miles of coral reefs and seagrasses in the Bay, severely affecting the food security of residents of twelve fishing villages in the area. A large portion of the tailings are currently exposed in the Bay and particulates are regularly blown by winds into nearby villages. Metals are also leaching from the tailings into the Bay and are thought to be the source of lead and other heavy metal contamination found in children from villages around the Bay. A State of Calamity for health reasons was declared in 1998 by the Philippine Government for Calancan Bay villages because of that contamination. Since then all the children from the area have been treated for lead detoxification in Manila. Placer Dome never bothered to ask villagers living around Calancan Bay for permission for the dumping and the villagers have never been compensated for their various losses. The tailings dumping was not halted by Placer Dome until 1991, and only then because the Tapian Mine was depleted. Today, Placer Dome officials hold up their hands in righteous innocence and bleat that the company complied with all applicable laws and regulations then in force.

Author’s Rant #1: By the way, did I mention that Placer Dome’s 60 percent ownership partner in the Tapian mine was none other than ex-President and dictator Ferdinand Marcos? So, why on Earth would they be worried about Philippine law? Grease, brother, grease is the name of the game.

In 1991, Placer Dome’s joint venture, Marcopper, constructed an earthen dam in the mountainous headwaters of the Mogpog River to prevent silt from a waste dump for the then new San Antonio mine from entering the River. Although people living in the town of Mogpog vigorously opposed the dam, fearing adverse consequences for the River they used for food, watering animals, and washing. In 1993, the dam burst, flooding downstream villages and sweeping away two children, houses, water buffaloes and other livestock, and destroying crops. Marcopper’s Resident Manager, Placer Dome’s Steve Reid, vehemently denied responsibility, blaming unusual rainfall from a typhoon.

Author’s Rant #2: Wait just one minute. Wouldn’t every responsible mining firm have planned and engineered for such likelihood? Especially since the mine was located in the tropical Philippines where typhoons are a regular occurrence. But nobody’s perfect, right? The kicker is that when the dam was rebuilt an overflow structure was added for the first time, an implicit acknowledgement of the incompetence of the original design and construction. The bad news is that within two years of that reconstruction so much toxic waste had accumulated behind the dam that contaminated water flowed freely through the overflow structure into the River, severely affecting aquatic wildlife downstream.

Not to be discouraged by years of past failures, Marcopper and Placer Dome marched full steam ahead with mining operations until March 24, 1996, when another massive tailings spill at the Marcopper Mine filled the 26-kilometer-long Boac River with between three and four million tons of metal-enriched and acid generating tailings. The spill occurred when a poorly sealed drainage tunnel at the base of the Tapian Mine failed. The mined-out pit, located high in the central mountains of Marinduque, had been used since 1992 as storage for tailings from the adjacent San Antonio mine. Adding insult to injury, in 1997, Placer Dome divested from Marcopper through a wholly owned Cayman Island holding company called MR Holdings. In 2001, Placer Dome abandoned the Philippines and left the people of Marinduque with heavily polluted and toxic ecosystems.

In October 2005, Placer Dome Inc. was named the sole defendant in a $100 million lawsuit for environmental rehabilitation and compensation to area residents. The suit was filed by the Provincial Government of the Island of Marinduque, Philippines, with the District Court in Clark County, Nevada. It asserts Placer Dome is responsible for environmental degradation with consequent economic damages and adverse effects to the health of people living in the vicinity of the Marcopper mine that was owned and operated by Marcopper Mining Corporation (40 percent owned by Placer Dome). In 2006, Placer Dome was purchased by and assimilated into Barrick Gold. Barrick inherited the litigation and as of early 2012 is waging a lengthy legal battle to avoid legal responsibility. Since lawsuits more often resemble a crap game rather than rational discourse, interested readers will have to pay close attention to determine the eventual outcome.

Author’s Rant #3: Although underground mining is not usually characterized by as many environmental hazards as is open pit or strip mining, many of the environmental consequences can be so severe that the environment may be damaged for many centuries, if not forever (in terms of human occupance), especially owing to acid leaching and the contamination of surface and groundwater sources. The only solution is enforcement of meaningful regulations specifically crafted to prevent such destruction. Naturally, those regulations are part of the political process and therein lays the flaw. Politicians get elected by persuading voters that they are the best candidates for the job. To do that, politicians must get their messages out to the public. And, for national elections, that activity requires huge piles of money. The easiest way to build political campaign funds is to go to people with the money, meaning rich people and corporations willing to part with their dough. But those people typically make their money from investments. So they generally see a campaign contribution as an investment, at the very least, to secure access to the politicians when they want something. Like relaxed environmental regulations that will result in their making more money. And so it goes. For more detailed technical information, see: Roderick G. Eggert, ed., Mining and the Environment: International Perspectives on Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1994; Charles N. Alpers, John L. Jambor, and D. Kirk Nordstrom, eds., “Sulfate minerals: crystallography, geochemistry, and environmental significance,” Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, vol. 40. Mineralogical Society of America and the Geochemical Society, 608 pp. 2000. National Research Council, Committee on Superfund Site Assessment and Remediation in the Coeur d’ Alene River Basin, Superfund and Mining Megasites: Lessons from the Coeur d’Alene River Basin. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2005.

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[1] Source: Catherine Coumans, Ph.D: “Philippine Province Files Suit Against Placer Dome — Background Report,” Tuesday October 4, 2005, Mining Watch Canada: online source:

http://www.miningwatch.ca/index.php?/Placer_Dome/Marinduque_suit_backgnd.