PHILIPPINES-ENVIRONMENT: WASTE SPILL MUDDIES THE MINING INDUSTRY MANILA, Apr. 2 (IPS) -- For a week now, residents of the Philippine province of Marinduque, the site of an open-pit mining operation, have been plagued by a host of health problems following a spill from one of its drainage tunnels. Villages have been flooded with mine waste water. Fish have suffocated in rivers swollen with mine tailings. People have fallen ill after eating fish from affected waterways. On March 24, a drainage tunnel leading from an "impoundment pit" used by the Marcopper Mining Corporation to dispose of mine wastes broke and began spewing mine tailings and other waste into the Boac river west of the company's old mine on Mt. Tapian. The pit lies under Marcopper's inactive Tapian mine. It is now used to store residue from milling operations from another open-pit mine in the area. This followed a directive from the environment department warning Marcopper to stop disposing of mine tailings in nearby Calancan Bay. Marcopper, which is 40 percent owned by Canada's Placer Dome Inc., is one of Asia's largest mining corporations. It is Marinduque's biggest employer and a major firm in the Philippines, which in 1990 ranked among the world's top 10 copper producers. Since the disaster, it has suspended trading of its shares in the local stock market. Since the 2.3 kilometer tunnel to the waste pit broke -- it sprung a leak late last year and Marcopper says repair was in progress when a bigger leak occurred -- 10 cubic meters of mine waste have been flowing per second until it eased five days later. A Marcopper statement said the waste is "primarily ground rock mixed with water and is therefore largely inert." But it did say that large amounts of sediments may suffocate aquatic species. Still, officials say at least 24 villages and some 4,000 people, especially those living by the river, have been affected by the mine spill. Villagers worry about potable water after river siltation, suffocation of fish by mine wastes, not to mention loss of livelihoods and cropland. "Fish and aquatic life are already dying and the river is extremely dangerous to people and animals," warned Boac Mayor Roberto Madla. "It will take more than 10 years for the marine damage to be repaired," added fisheries officer Gilbert Olivar. Local environment officials say mine waste water usually has traces of copper, zinc, cadmium and lead. But Marcopper vice president Ted Gabot assured officials that mine tailings flowing into the Boac River, on which residents rely on for a livelihood, are "not toxic" because the firm does not use cyanide or mercury to extract copper. The disaster revives concerns about the costs of large-scale commercial mining at a time when the Philippines has passed a law opening its mining industry to up to 100 percent foreign ownership. Environmental campaigners say the Marinduque mishap is just the latest warning about the risks that come with large-scale mining, combined with inadequate protective measures by mining firms and poor monitoring by government officials. "There are mining companies here and their record does not speak well with respect to the environment and communities" that have long lived in areas now pinpointed as mine sites, says Marvic Leonen of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center Inc., also the local partner of Friends of the Earth (FOE). Mining operations are "disasters waiting to happen" if the Philippine government does not learn its lessons from the Marinduque accident, Leonen said in an interview. After the passage of the 1995 mining act aimed at reviving the mining industry, the Philippines is reviewing applications from more than 60 firms for mining rights covering at least six million hectares or 25 percent of the country's land area. The bulk of the applications for up to 100,000 hectares per concession are by Australian and Canadian mining firms. To make things even touchier, a good part of these areas are home to indigenous groups that have lived there for generations and do not take kindly to seeing their homelands ripped open by mining companies. At least two applications, that of Australia's Western Mining Corp. Inc and Climax Mining, have been approved. Western Mining is embroiled in a controversy in Southern Mindanao, where native B'laan people are resisting plans to start mining operations. Mining mishaps are not unknown in the country, though the Marinduque disaster has been the most publicized to date. Similar discharges in the eighties affected water sources and damaged crop land in northern Luzon, another mining area. "Mining is the quintessential dirty industry," concluded Von Hernandez, Greenpeace's campaigner for Southeast Asia. Marcopper itself has been the target of church and environmental critics, beginning in 1975 when the firm disposed of its waste in Calancan Bay and fishermen began reporting dwindling catches and destroyed coral reefs. The mining of gold and copper ore, coal and nickel are among industries that pose the greatest risk to environmental and human health, says a list by the Industrial Environmental Management Project, a joint project of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the local environment department. A 1991 study on the disposal of mine tailings, by the consultant firm Dames & Moore, said: "Most mining activities inevitably affect the environment." The study says deposits of mine tailings in rivers changes the habitat for aquatic life and causes death through smothering or interference with feeding mechanisms, reduces river flow and may increases chances of flooding. At least in the short term, mine tailings carried by flood flows can reduce soil fertility. Likewise, it says much of the impact of tailings in rivers results from siltation and a changed habitat, not toxicity. Many marine species generally do not accumulate significant amounts of heavy metals, except for mercury, cadmium and copper in mussels and oysters, it adds. But viewed from the larger picture, the study explained: "Where populations depend on existing environments for their subsistence, the construction of tailing ponds or the direct disposal of tailings to the sea, lakes or rivers may drastically reduce the resource base on which such populations depend." And even with payments for environmental impact, "there still exists an imbalance between the short-term gain given to the affected populations and the long term gain of the continued existence of highly productive ecosystems." Critics urge caution in pulling out all the stops to lure large foreign investors in mining, and in commercializing extractive industries like mining and logging. Leonen says the mine spill exposes holes in the process of environment impact assessment, adding the government rarely denies a permit to a firm. "It's supposed to be yes or no, but very few get denied," she said. Senator Heherson Alvarez says Marcopper had a special agreement with the environment department, allowing it to install protective measures in 10 instead of the required two years under an environmental compliance permit secured in 1990. Apart from exchanging blame for the disaster, officials are focusing on penalties. But critics say the law is lenient there too, providing for damages only of 5,000 pesos in daily fines and 50,000 per violation of environmental regulations. Said Leonen: "The problem is that our laws adjust to them (big companies). In the case of Marcopper, it adjusted too much." Copyright 1996 IPS/GIN. The contents of this story can not be duplicated in any fashion without written permission of Global Information Network Johanna Son, PHILIPPINES-ENVIRONMENT: WASTE SPILL MUDDIES THE MINING INDUSTRY., Inter Press Service English News Wire, 04-02-1996. Copyright © 1998 Infonautics Corporation. All rights reserved. - Terms and Conditions