Sunday, August 31, 2008 Mercado: Replaying 'Minamata'? By Juan L. Mercado Sidebar
DEATHS from clashes with MILF "rouge units" dominate today's headlines. But the more lethal threat is less visible---and could decimate well into the next decade.
Heavy metals pollute major water ways, says the new report on the 1st Scientific Conference on the vital Agusan Marsh. Toxic mercury is seeping into the food chain: thru irrigation channels and from rivers that empty into fishing grounds. Tainted silt is plowed into rice paddies
Are we seeing the nightmare of Japan's Minamata slowly uncoil here?
In 1956, fish and mussels, contaminated by mercury, poisoned 2,252 men, women and children in the fishing village of Minamata. Photos of over 1,043 victims afflicted by brain lesions, tremors, paralysis and miscarriages, startled the world.
"Mercury pollution is a threat," Mindanao State University's Elnor Roa told 106 scientists. Mercury-tainted water from gold mines in Diwalwal drain into the Agusan River. Tests on weekly rice, fish and mussel diets in mining areas revealed presence of mercury thrice permissible levels, she said.
A Mindanao State University survey detected mercury in sediments "from seven stations that stretched from the mouth of Agusan River to approximately 10 kilometers away. Mercury turned up in fish and aquatic plants collected from (the) river..."
Roa's study buttresses the "Heavy Metals Contamination in the Davao Region," report written by University of Southeastern Philippines’ Ed Prantilla and Carmelita Martinez.
Over 13.5 metric tons of toxic mercury slosh yearly, thru rivers, into the Davao Gulf. Lead and cadmium overloads led to ecological collapse of the 194-hectare Lake Leonard--or "Crocodile Lake"--in Compostela Valley.
The Department of Health's Region XI office, found: "fish samples from Davao Oriental, Davao del Sur and Davao City markets had mercury content higher than the allowable limit of 0.3 microgram per gram." It was kept under wraps since the study didn't pinpoint where those fishes were caught.
Drs. Nelia Maramba and Cristina S. Dablo found elevated mercury levels in the blood and urine of 114 schoolchildren and 70 miners they examined. And in the 1990s, carabaos keeled over mysteriously in Barangay Naboc. Mercury and cyanide, in irrigation water, may have caused those deaths.
Illegal mercury supplies seep through Davao's porous borders. "The one major source of mercury pollution is gold-ore processors," they write. They cluster in Compostela Valley and Tagum City, Davao del Norte.
Most of 796 operations get mercury illicitly. But this can be curbed from "the user side," i.e. government imposing strict compliance with environmental laws. That'd include small miners.
Government could clamp a condition: polluters pay for damage they incur. Pollution taxes should underwrite treatment for victims. There is a need, too, of cleansing polluted seas and water systems. Heavy metals ought to be factored into wastewater discharge fees.
Agusan Marsh is one of the country's most ecologically important wetlands. The river basin stores 15 percent of the country's freshwater resources. Now, pollutants cause fish kills, reduced oxygen levels, and health problems, Roa writes.
"(Mercury) level in Lake Dinagat does not reach pollution thresholds. But it was already double background value," Prantilla and Martinez fret over the failure to track mercury seepage into aquifers, recharged within mining areas. Cebu never bothered to track if sudden fish kills in Tañon Strait stemmed from mine waste seeping from Toledo.
Minamata underscores the heavy costs from failure to take the long view. Today's wishy-washy attitude turns a blind eye on effects of heavy-metal pollution. (But) available studies already cause alarm.
