Monday, October 01, 2007 Mining company seeks clearance to dig Lake Sebu coal deposits
KORONADAL CITY--A mining firm has applied for an environmental clearance certificate for the excavation of coal resources in Barangay Ned in Lake Sebu town, South Cotabato , officials said on Wednesday.
Datu Tungko Saikol, director of the Environmental Management Bureau-Central Mindanao, an attached agency of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said Daguma Agro Minerals, Inc. applied for an environmental clearance certificate.
"Their application filed last month is still under review," he said.
An ECC will allow a company to go into production stage, which in the case of Daguma can fully dig the coal resources under a given area in Ned.
However, granting of an environmental clearance can only happen if the proponent submitted a Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) clearance from the National Commission on Indigenous People.
Essentially, the FPIC is a process where indigenous people are consulted whether they like or not the project within their area.
Saikol said Daguma has not submitted an FPIC clearance, and efforts to confirm with the company officials if they have secured an FPIC clearance or still in the process of obtaining it proved futile.
Ramon Ponce de Leon, acting head of the newly created South Cotabato Provincial Environment Management Office, said Daguma applied an environmental clearance certificate for Lot number 10, which straddles 80 hectares.
"The production or excavation of coal deposits has been projected to last for 15 years," said Ponce de Leon, who went to Barangay Ned on Monday for an ocular inspection of the development area.
Citing sources from Daguma, Ponce de Leon said the application area contains coal deposits of more than one million metric tons.
He added the firm plans to dig the resources using the strip mining method, where deposits will be taken and afterwards the hole will be filled again by the soil.
Ponce de Leon observed that the 80-hectare application area "will not cause economic dislocation" as corns barely grow in the area due to the significant sulfuric contents of the soil.
Moreover, if the company will exhume the coal in the application area, "it would dislocate only about three households that we've seen there."
Daguma's project is situated in "an isolated and economically depressed rural area within the Department of Agrarian Reform resettlement project in South Cotabato," an earlier company briefer said.
Economic deposits are confined within 300 hectares. Deposits occur near surface, flat-lying, and three seams with aggregate thickness averaging 11 meters, it added.
Daguma holds a 2000-hectare license area under Coal Operation Contract No 126 and consists of two Coal Blocks No. 380 and 381 granted by the Department of Energy.
Aside from Daguma, its sister company Bonanza Energy Resources, Inc and MG Mining and Energy Corp are also eyeing coal deposits in Barangay Ned.
Hundreds of residents, backed by the local Catholic Church, earlier expressed stiff opposition to the coal development projects of these companies.
Saikol said that Bonanza and MG Mining have not applied for an environmental clearance certificate.
