Mining Disaster

Lafayette Mining, an Australian company, in its information campaign proposes a profitable and
environmentally-clean mining operation in Rapu-Rapu, Albay (http://www.rapurapu.20m.com/mining.html). But environmentalists opposed the proposal. In fact, those who strongly opposed claimed that “gold mining in Rapu-Rapu will eventually destroy this fragile island ecosystem, flora and fauna, water resources, aquatic and marine life, corals, seagrasses, mangroves, fishes, and finally human life” (http://www.rapurapu.20m.com/mining.html). Using the concepts on resources and conditions, is the claim justifiable? Support your answer.

My Answer:

A claim is said to be justifiable if and when it is capable of being shown as reasonable or “merited according to accepted standards”. The claim by environmentalists opposed to the operations of Lafayette Mining that “gold mining in Rapu-Rapu will eventually destroy this fragile island ecosystem, flora and fauna, water resources, aquatic and marine life, corals, seagrasses, mangroves, fishes, and finally human life”, should therefore show that their claim holds ground in reason and can be merited from accepted ecological standards.

The facts are as clear as day. Lafayette Mining was previously fined by the DENR the sum of PhP 10.7 million in penalty for “spilling its mine tailings not once but twice. This is in clear violation of Republic Act 9275 or otherwise known as the Clean Water Act. DENR reported that “the water pollution raps against Lafayette, which operates a polymetallic mining project covering three barangays in Rapu-rapu, Albay, stemmed from two incidents of spillage of mine tailings that occurred on October 11 and 31, 2005, that resulted in fishkills”. It also bears mentioning that the fishkills were attributed by inspectors of the Regional Mines and Geosciences Bureau in Albay to cyanide contamination. Recently, there was another report of spilling to which Lafayette Mining reacted vigorously.

Lafayette Mining in its website denied categorically any and all allegations pertaining to a reported “third toxic spill at the mine” towards the end of July this year. It asserted that it cannot do so since a Temporary Lifting Order issued by government regulatory agencies is in effect to set for the company, a three-stage, 30-day trial period that will monitor its environment management systems. As such, any incident to this effect should have been detected first by the monitoring body. But alas, no such spilling was detected, monitored and reported by the authorities to make the claim “official”. The company even found an ally in Sorsogon’s Governor Lee who issued in his press statement dated August 12, 2006, not only a scathing admonition of the advocacy espoused by environmental activists but even more so, an accusing finger directed at the activists for advertently contaminating the bodies of water and making it appear that Lafayette Mining has not complied with the requirements set forth by the DENR. At this point, there is no doubt that the issue has already been muddled by politics and money, reducing the environmentalists’ claim to the level of “hearsay”. But this is not without good reason and sinister motivation.

Lafayette is not loosening up its hold on Rapu-rapu Island because it knows the vastness of resources embedded in this place. It reported that “the Rapu-rapu mineral resource currently supports an eight-year mine life producing approximately 10,000 tonnes of copper in concentrates, 14,000 tonnes in zinc concentrates, 50,000 ounces of gold, and 600,000 ounces of silver annually”. And obviously, the politicians know very well what Lafayette knows about the place. For which reason, they are not loosening up their hold on Lafayette mining.

As the environmentalists’ claim has already been obfuscated with counter-claims from Lafayette, the validity of the argument stipulating environmental hazards appurtenant to the mining’s operation, can now only find validity from studies that show the same projected hazards stemming out from similarly situated and circumstanced mining operations.

Where then does the evil lurk in all these? The earth’s crust is a rich resource of minerals. These minerals come from ore deposits which are of two components: the ore mineral containing the desired metal, and waste material called gangue. Tailings and gangue are what remain from mining operations. And they are of no economic worth. But sometimes, to cope with operations cost, even these tailings are reprocessed for further extraction of precious metals. Damage to the environment starts with the process of extraction. For, regardless of whatever extraction type may be operated on, harmful substances like cyanide will still have to be resorted to, processed after use, then released to the environment. In heap leaching for instance, the ore is crushed into small chunks and irrigated with solution containing cyanide which serves in leaching out the precious metal from the ore. The role of cyanide in heap leaching is best described by the following equation:

During the extraction phase, the gold ions form complex ions with the cyanide:

Recovery of the gold is readily achieved with a redox-reaction:

In other extraction processes, gold cyanidation is simply replaced with sulfur extracting solutions. Contaminants are still used and they still pose very real hazards. It must be pointed out that in the greater scheme of things, resources go through cycles and depending on what conditions are ripe to effect random combinations of these resources, the contaminants that were supplied to the mining operations will have to end somewhere. Most often, they end up in bodies of water. Or even where so ever they end up, once they get incorporated in the environs of living systems, they stay there for the whole duration of their residence time. Chances are, they get assimilated in living systems which are devoid of any built-in mechanism for metabolizing harmful substances. As such, they just linger for a while in the organism until such time that bioaccumulation piles them up in magnified concentrations resulting to death. Ecologically, death taking its toll on a significant number of organisms in a population, effectively reduces, if not terminates, the fitness of affected species thereby diminishing their capacity for perpetuating their kind.

That spilling has happened twice in a row either by operational negligence or technical aberrations, the sword of Damocles still hangs over the head of Rapu-rapu’s residents. And they can only hope that such accident or incident never happens again. But as they say, hope springs eternal – especially to those who hope even against hope.