Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability
How do we make Mining acceptable to the Community?
Is there a Technical Solution to Environmental Damage to Small Mining Operations - if any?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Greg O'Neill on
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Although the solution to the environmental destruction caused by mining is not yet available, it soon will be. -- One inventor I know of has come up with a 'microwave reactor' that uses the unique frequency of each element on the periodic
table to refine ultrapure metals from ores, including the capability of making a room temperature superconductive Copper.
This process does not produce toxic, heavy metal runoff from leaching fields, and contamination of groundwater, as con-ventional methods now do. -- This process has gone through lab and field tests with flying colors, so it will eventually be made available globally. --- The solution to the toxic byproducts of mining is near, and will be on the market soon. ---- Greg O'Neill
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Permalink Reply by Jerry Peloquin on
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Sadly? ... Really? What is sad it that you do not know the answer to the question you pose. I wonder why communities would be so unreasonably opposed to mining operations close to where they live and work? Might it be because once the mining is completed the land is totally wrecked, the ecosystem crushed and violated, their drinking water contaminated ... large craters and piles of slag everywhere .. trees cut down, the forrest destroyed... Do you think that might be a problem for these poor misguided people who do not understand just how much money you can make with all that manganese?
When you say a "technical" solution you mean, like a machine or something that will make it all pretty again... no manillaman ... unfortunately there are no "technical" solutions ... you have to enter into a community benefits agreement, a legal document that spells our in sufficient detail just how you will repair the ravaged ecosystem and exactly how you will compensate the community for whatever inconvenience and loss it may incur.
Ask yourself how you would like the quiet of your home to be broken by large loud rumbling trucks... have the air filled with dust and dirt for months on end... would you like that even if the minining operation had NG/Lgu permits... I think not.
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Permalink Reply by manilaman on
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Jerry,
01. I do not question the need for a Legal Contract to protect the interest of the people. But I do not agree that "ravaged" ecosystem could not be mitigated nor restored in time - Technically. I believe that Science would find us a Technical Solution if not now - in the future. I do not subscribe to the idea that a "Miner" could not be an "Environmentalist".
02. The Call for Corporate Social Responsibility cannot be a Call to Pre-Industrial Age. CSR is asking us to move ahead WITHOUT forgetting concerns for others in the present time - and in the future.
03. Have a good day.
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Permalink Reply by Arthur Neame on
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there are some 800 former mine sites in the Philippines, including of course the many small-scale mine sites; and some pretty large ones too such as those in Benguet and Marinduque. Not a single one of these mines has ever undergone closure with a proper rehabilitation process! The formerly active mine in Sipalay Southern Negros is another such example, when it was being mined the local river ran with water the color of milk, this water went into a bay from which locals use to fish and when the tailings dam overflowed on one occasion it dumped tonnes of waste on local farmland. Visiting the site now is like visiting a moonscape filled with rusting machinery. Years after the mining ceased the increase in gold prices is making some people interested in reviving the mine, especially local officials who will make a buck issuing the permits; meantime nature is taking its course and slowly coral life is starting to rehabilitate itself while some mile offshore there are excellent dive sites providing the basis for a growing tourist industry centered on diving. Local people are convinced that the latter will provide them with the employment they need (whereas mining tends to import people in large numbers for relatively short periods of time) whilst leaving their other livelihood resources relatively untouched.
While there are technical issues, such as how to stop acid mine leaching from the tailings and, above all, from substrata that have been disturbed - and these usually demand the continuous application of lime over very many years, even after the mine has stopped producing; by far the biggest problem in the Philippines is the government's inability/unwillingness to ensure that mine-owners adequately protect local communities both during and after the mining activity. The problem is predominantly people and poor governance and not just technologies. On more than one occasion I have seen people like your son trying to assure communities that their area can be safely mined and saying to communities that there must be something they can do for the communities...and the answer has often been "yes there is something you can do, leave us alone"
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Arthur,
01. I'm not a miner - nor is my Son. But I look forward to being a responsible Miner - if & when I have the answers I await. I do not subscribe to your intimated proposition that the answer to Man's Greed, as demonstrated by Irresponsible Miners, is for God's Natural Endowment to Humanity - "...to be left alone". I am of the view that "Responsible Stewardship" does not espouse for present-day Man to re-live the "Dark Ages" - a period when the concern of his evolutionary ancestors was primarily the issue of Life or Death. As Scientific Discoveries has progressively given Man the know-how to pursue a better quality of life, let us not stop Science in its limitless Road-to-Discovery.
02. I opened up this Discussion purposely to seek Technical Answers to "Irresponsible Mining" - consistent with our shared view of "Responsible Stewardship". While Scientific Solutions cannot prevent a Miners' Greed, I do not believe that all miners are all irresponsible. With the help of Science, I am NOT about to conclude that Mining would necessarily be ecologically &/or environmentally damaging - unless all Moral Leaders have given up hope in the essential goodness of Man.
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Last August 8, 2015, I cris-crossed Agos River at 3 River Crossings to check on a proposed 250MWe Dam Site. Agos River originates from multiple River Tributaries of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range exiting eastward to the Pacific Coastal Towns of General Nakar & of Infanta, Quezon Province, Luzon Island, Philippines. Given the catastrophic flooding, causing great loss of Lives & Properties, of these coastal towns, some ten years ago, I consider a series of Run-of-River Power Station as a more appropriate alternative to high-risk Dam Structures.
On this trip, I came to meet an "Old Miner" who claims, as a Christian Lay Missionary, in his younger days, he would frequently hike up & down the mountains of Gen Nakar to spread the "Good News" among the Indigenous People - Natives of the area. In so doing, he came to know of places (in far-flung mountain Barangays of Gen Nakar) with ample Mineral Deposits of Copper Ore, of Manganese, etc. To establish "1st Claim", he submitted, with the Philippine DENR, the required "Exploration Permit Application" (EPA) covering a Mining Area of 500 hectares. Short-of-Money, he paid-out P100,000.00 - as Partial Payment of the EPA's Total Cost of P1.5 million. Meanwhile, he claims to hold "Small Mining Claims" (5-10 hectares each in the names of his relatives) from where he extracts small quantities of Copper Ore for sale to Copper Ore Traders picking up the goods - on a "Test-Buy" basis.
This "Old Miner" has asked me to co-venture with him - purposely to supply "Big Orders" of 3rd-party assayed Copper Ore valued at U$650/ton - ex Infanta Warehouse. Would anyone co-venture with me - perhaps, with a Seed Capital of P5 million?
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