Wednesday, October 15, 2008
MGB fines mining company P15T
THE Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) 7 has fined the Carmen Copper Corp. (CCC) P15,000 for the recent mine tailings spill at the Sapangdaku River.
MGB 7 director Roger de Dios said the company failed to declare some facilities as part of its safety and health program, as well as in its environmental protection and enhancement program.
The CCC was fined P5,000 for the ‘misdeclaration’ of its safety and health program, another P5,000 for ‘misdeclaration’ of its environmental protection and enhancement program and another P5,000 because of the failure of its system, the ETP (emergency tailings pond), de Dios said.
Other violations
The CCC might face another fine if the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) 7 decides to penalize the company again for other violations under the terms of their department, said de Dios.
An inspection of the CCC facilities last week showed that the company failed to have 10 of its facilities declared.
“There are 10 facilities that did not have a Permit to install and a Permit to operate,” said de Dios.
A permit to install allows a mine company to install a facility within its premises. A permit to operate allows the company to use the newly-installed facility only after it has been thoroughly inspected by the MGB 7.
Inspection
It costs a mining facility P300 to have its permit to install processed. Once the facility has been installed, another P6,000 will be spent per day for the inspection of the facilities. The inspection will test if the new facilities pass MGB standards and if they are fully functional. If the facilities pass MGB standards, the company will have pay P1,000 for the processing of their operating permit.
Though the ETP falls under the company’s certificate of non-coverage since it is part of the CCC’s old facilities, de Dios said they required CCC to declare the ETP as part of their environmental protection program.
“The ETP is part of the old facility of the company, but we are requiring them to declare it in their environmental program,” said de Dios.
While the mine tailings are disposed in the mine company’s bigapit, the ETP is only used during system failure. Instead of flowing to the bigapit, the tailings would flow to the ETP.
Spill
However, during a test run last month, the ETP overflowed and spilled into the Sapangdaku River.
De Dios was assured, however, that the mine tailings will not have any adverse effects on the environment because no toxic chemicals were used in the process of extracting the copper.
CCC vice president and resident manager Rodrigo Cal earlier said that the environment was saved and that the company did not use any toxic material in the extraction of copper concentrate. (EPB)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (October 15, 2008 issue)
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