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Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Osmeña: Environmental impact of mining
By Antonio V. Osmeña
Estatements
The extensive use of non-renewable metallic and nonmetallic minerals, such as copper, lead, mercury, zinc, sand and stone and mineral fuels (coal, oil, natural gas and uranium) is the reason most people in industrialized countries enjoy high standards of living.
These resources provide materials for building and powering transportation and communication networks for homes, factories, office buildings, dams, roads and other infrastructure. They are used in heating, cooling and lighting systems; in labor-saving industrial and agricultural machines; and in most medicines, fertilizers, insecticides, paints, ceramics and other materials.
The mining, processing and use of any energy or non-fuel mineral resource causes some form of land disturbance as well as air and water pollution. Most land disturbed by mining can be reclaimed to some degree and some forms of air and water pollution can be controlled.
But these efforts are expensive and also require energy, whose production also generates pollutants.
The processing and refining of ores produce large quantities of waste materials that pollute the air and water. Large surface mining operations disturb land by directly removing materials from one place and depositing it in another.
Strip mining is usually the most destructive surface mining method, primarily because it disrupts a large area. Environmental problems associated with surface mining include: (1) disposal of mine spoils; (2) pollution of nearby rivers and streams from runoff of sediments, acids and toxic metals; (3) pollution of groundwater from leaching of toxic materials from mine spoils; (4) air pollution from dust and (5) land disruption.
There is no question that advances in mining technology in the past few decades have allowed the mining of low-grade deposits without significant cost increases. For example, the grade for “mineable” copper ore has been reduced by a factor of 10 since 1900.
Despite such successes, we will eventually run into geological, energy, and environmental restrictions.
Only six metals are found in large amounts in the earth’s crust: iron, aluminum, magnesium, manganese, chromium and titanium—in deposits ranging from high to low grade. Other important metals, such as copper, tin, lead, zinc, uranium, nickel, tungsten and mercury are relatively scarce.
People of Cebu should take note that the copper ore in Cebu have a low metal concentration. The cost of digging, transporting, crushing, processing and hauling the waste rocks was, more or less, the main cause of the closure of Atlas Mining and Consolidated Development Corp. mine in Toledo City.
The continuing rise in energy prices may become a limiting factor in the successful operation of the Atlas mine in Toledo, which is expected to re-open 18 months from now. Insufficient supply of water may also limit its operation because large amounts of water are needed to extract and process the copper ore.
Critics claim that industrialized nations are exploiting our country’s mineral resources by controlling international trade so that our mineral resources are forced to sell at a price far below their value. In effect, most developed countries are accused of stripping the world of its non-renewable mineral resources without sufficient regard for the future needs of less developed countries.
Will the income from copper ore sale in Toledo be more than enough to pay for the environmental damage caused by the mine’s operation? It must be pointed out that cyanide is used to process copper concentrates. There is a risk that chemical wastes from the process will overflow to streams and kill plants and other aquatic resources as well as health risks on mine workers.
Some analysts argue that the copper mineral exported by Atlas is not assigned a fair price. They also say Toledo may not have enough of the resource left to sustain its own development in the future.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 7, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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