Tuesday 09 December 2008, San José, Costa
Rica
EL SALVADOR: Gold Mining
'Is a Huge Rip-Off' -
Environmentalists
By Raúl Gutiérrez
SAN SALVADOR (IPS)
- A black coffin was
consigned to the flames
amid music and fireworks
as dozens of people from
Salvadoran communities
that fear the impacts of
gold and silver mining
celebrated a "symbolic
burial" of the Pacific
Rim Mining Corporation,
a Canadian-based
company.
"We want the El Dorado
mine to close," said
21-year-old Juan Carlos
Moreno, who took part in
the Dec. 5 demonstration
held in downtown El
Salvador.
The protest was held by
the "I Reject Metal
Mining" campaign
launched by members of
organisations opposed to
the granting of mining
concessions because of
the threats to water
resources and public
health.
Pacific Rim hopes to
start mining for gold
and silver at the El
Dorado mine in the
village of San Isidro in
the department
(province) of Cabañas,
about 65 kilometres from
San Salvador, once it
obtains the necessary
permits from the
government.
The company acquired the
property, an area of 144
square kilometres, in
2002 when it merged with
the Dayton Mining
Corporation. Since then,
it has been granted
exploration licenses.
According to the
company's estimates, it
could extract 1.2
million ounces of gold
and 7.4 million ounces
of silver in a period of
just over six years.
However,
environmentalists
believe that these
figures are lower than
the true potential
yields.
The price of gold
currently stands at 850
dollars an ounce. In
January, Luis Trejo,
Pacific Rim's
environmental adviser,
told IPS the mine would
create 2,000 direct and
indirect jobs, and would
pay the state up to
three percent tax on
gross sales.
Twenty-four mining
projects with
exploration licenses in
El Salvador are waiting
for a mining law,
currently being
discussed in parliament,
to come into force. The
law would give the
go-ahead to exploit
concessions, which are
currently suspended.
The draft law,
introduced by the
right-wing National
Conciliation Party (PCN),
is intended to provide
mining with three
pillars: "a clear
regulatory framework, a
monitoring body to
enforce the law, and a
classification of
companies that comply
with international
standards," said PCN
lawmaker Orlando Arévalo.
But in the view of the
left-wing opposition,
the initiative would
create an autonomous
authority in charge of
granting concessions,
taking over that power
from the ministries, and
without requiring
environmental impact
studies.
Environmentalists warn
that if the door is
opened to the mining
industry, El Salvador
will suffer severe
social and environmental
impacts from acid
drainage, water
pollution, and
evaporation of cyanide,
used in the leaching
process to separate gold
and silver from rock.
Mining would also
exacerbate water
shortages in a number of
areas, scientists say.
The most severe impact
would be caused by
cyanide evaporation,
which occurs at 26
degrees Celsius;
afterwards, rainfall
would spread it far and
wide, not only in the
mining areas but in a
sizeable part of the
Central American region,
depending on wind
speeds, said Florian
Erzinger, an
environmental chemist
who specialises in
aquatic systems at the
Federal Institute of
Technology (ETH) in
Zurich, Switzerland.
Pollution needs no
passport to cross
borders, said Erzinger,
the author of a study on
"Environmental impact of
extractive mining on the
Lempa river and its
consequences for the
metropolitan area of San
Salvador," presented on
Nov. 17 in the capital.
One-third of the water
consumed by the over two
million people in the
metropolitan area of San
Salvador comes from the
Lempa river, which rises
in southeastern
Guatemala, flows through
Honduras, enters El
Salvador in the
northwest and winds
through most of the
country until it reaches
the Pacific ocean.
The 24 mining projects
are concentrated in the
north of the country, a
farming region crossed
by the Lempa river. The
Lempa basin in El
Salvador has an area of
over 10,000 square
kilometres and a number
of tributaries, such as
the San Francisco river,
which would be polluted
by acid drainage,
according to the study.
"Acid drainage" of
mercury, cyanide,
arsenic, zinc and
aluminium, at levels
"much higher than
permitted levels," will
pollute surface waters
and cause many health
problems, according to
the study which was
sponsored by the
Catholic organisation
Caritas-El Salvador and
the non-governmental
Salvadoran Ecological
Unit (UNES).
Large amounts of water
are needed in precious
metal mines for
leaching, so "the water
table will fall to a
depth of about 400
metres," the scientist
said.
For example, Erzinger
said the El Dorado mine
would pump between 75
and 110 litres per
second from groundwater
sources and from the San
Francisco river, which
supplies the local
population with water.
The average Salvadoran
uses half that quantity
of water per day,
Erzinger said.
Mining operations would
affect four million
people,
environmentalists say.
According to official
figures, the country's
population is 5.7
million (other sources
estimate it at seven
million), and more than
1.5 million people do
not have access to clean
drinking water.
El Salvador has no
mining tradition. The
first mining projects
were developed in the
late 19th century, but
they closed down a few
years later. Mining was
revived in 1940, but
declined again in the
1950s.
There have been
complaints that several
rivers around the
village of San Sebastián,
in the eastern province
of La Unión, were
polluted with iron,
copper and aluminium due
to extraction operations
from 1950 to 1981 at a
nearby gold mine by the
Commerce Group
Corporation. The local
community sued the
company in 2007.
The Roman Catholic
Bishop's Conference last
year stated its position
against mining, saying
it "causes irreversible
damage to the
environment and to the
surrounding
communities."
The costs will be paid
by the Salvadoran
people, while the mining
companies will take
almost all the profits,
Ángel Ibarra, the head
of UNES, told IPS.
The 24 mining projects
would make "over nine
billion dollars for the
companies" in 10 or 15
years of extraction, the
environmentalist said,
quoting Erzinger's
estimates based on the
quantities of precious
metals that would be
recovered.
Out of these profits the
companies would have to
pay royalties and taxes
of about 180 million
dollars to the national
government and to local
municipalities in the
mining regions. "It's a
huge rip-off," Ibarra
concluded.
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