The menace of mining and water pollution

By: Daniel Owusu-Koranteng and Hannah Owusu-Koranteng

An environmental buzzword,” Water is Life” has been used to describe how essential water is to the sustenance of life. It is also common knowledge that mining is a major contributor to water and environmental pollution. Mining operations destroy both surface and ground water. Among the human activities that threaten water, mining is counted as most common culprit.

According to the European Environmental Bureau (2000), problems related to mining waste may be rated as second only to global warming and stratospheric ozone depletion in terms of ecological risk. The release to the environment of mining waste can result in profound, generally irreversible destruction of ecosystems.

In many cases, the polluted sites may never be fully restored, for pollution is so persistent that there is no available remedy (EEB, 2000). One major polluter of water in mining areas is mine waste generation and management.

Surface mining has many facets of water pollution. Mining activities such as processing of ore depends on heavy use of water in addition to the problem of dewatering, which depletes ground water.

In the end, some effluents from the processed ore, which contains cyanide and heavy metals, spill into the environment and community rivers in the form of cyanide spillages or the seepage of pollutants into the environment.

Sometimes, cyanide spillages occur at the blind side of regulators. Ghana has recorded a good number of cyanide spillages by multinational mining companies.

The increasing incidence of Cyanide spillages, which were hitherto uncommon with underground mining, has become associated with surface mining operations and some of the incidences of cyanide spillages in the country include but not limited to the following;

• Cyanide spillage at the Obenemase mine, which contaminated the Owerri River.

• The cyanide spillage of Billington Bogoso Gold in 1991

• An accident involving a truck conveying sodium cyanide to Billington Bogoso Gold at Samahu in 1994 causing cyanide to spill into the environment.

• Cyanide spillage of Teberebie Goldfields on 18th June 1996 causing cyanide solution to flow into Angonaben stream, a tributary of the Bonsa River.

• The cyanide spillage of Ashanti Goldfields Company, Obuasi Mine, which occurred in 1999 and affected many communities. The spillage affected two major rivers, Supu and Fina and other small rivers in the Obuasi area. Some communities were forced to relocate to new settlements.

• Cyanide spillage of Goldfields Ghana Limited (GGL) on October 16th, 2001 which polluted river Asuman.

• Cyanide spillage of Satellite Goldfields Limited into wetlands at Akyempim on 28th October, 2001.

• The cyanide spillage of Goldfields Ghana Limited (GGL), which occurred on 18th May, 2003. GGL claimed that the spillage was contained and did not spill into the environment.

• The cyanide spillage of Bogoso Gold Limited (BGL), a Canadian Company, which occurred on Saturday 23rd October, 2004. The spillage was from the new tailings dam of Manse. The affected rivers flow into the big river Ankobra. The cyanide spillage affected Dumase town, and other communities like Goloto, Juaben, Kokofu, Egyabroni

• Newmont Ghana Gold Limited (NGGL) Ahafo Mine spilled cyanide from its processing plant at Kenyase into river Asunua, which flows into river Subri. The spillage was identified on the dawn of Saturday 10th October, 2009 by community people when they found many dead fishes floating on their river. They then reported the incident to officials of the Company immediately.

Handling of mine waste is a major problem of mining operations and rock-waste dumps become sources of effluent and pollutant generation that seep into water bodies. Acid Mine Drainage(AMD) describes how the excavation of rocks that contain sulphides when exposed to weather conditions of water and oxygen ends up producing sulphuric acids, which are carried by rainwater and surface drainage to nearby streams and rivers.

Through this, acidic rivers and water bodies polluted by heavy metals enter the food chain through the fishes and other aquatic life that absorb the heavy metals, as well as the long term ingestion of the acidic water by people in the host mining communities. These have serious health implications on host communities and the society.

The Third Gold Rush (Third Jungle Boom)

Ghana is currently experiencing a third gold rush, which is sometimes described as the third jungle boom, which started in the early 1980s to date. The gold rushes are marked by foreign investment and control of gold mining. Though artisanal mining by indigenous people pre-dates the period of contact with foreigners, who landed on our shores to trade in gold, ivory and slaves, it was carried out as an off-season economic activity on marginal lands by people who were mainly farmers.

The indigenous methods of gold mining used then have been described as superior because of the zero usage of chemicals and the absence of heavy machinery.

Rivers and sacred sites were adequately protected through religious beliefs and the conflict between mining and other land use systems was very minimal because the Farmer-Miners did not want their off-season mining activities on marginal lands to destroy their capacity to sustain their farming activities.

The third gold rush has been different in terms of technological change from mainly underground mining to surface mining in addition to the use of heap leach method of gold extraction by using cyanide and reliance on heavy machinery for excavation.

The surface mining operations create a major land use conflict between farming and mining, where large tracts of fertile farmlands are ceded to mining companies for surface mining operations. For example, AngloGold Ashanti (Obuasi Mine) control almost 400km2 land as its concession.

This leads to displacement of community people, who are paid low compensations that do not restore their livelihoods, leading to the worsening of poverty in mining communities. Apart from the illegal mining operations, it is estimated that about 70,000 landlords have been displaced by multinational mining companies in the third gold rush.

With the loss of livelihood, some of the economically displaced people, especially the youth who do not have the skills required for permanent employment in mining companies, are compelled to undertake employment in mining companies on contract basis. The introduction of mining in farming communities has worsened the unemployment situation in mining communities and the hitherto farming communities are compelled to abandon farming to undertake mining activities, mainly ‘Galamsey’ mining, with its attendant environmental problems, especially pollution of rivers.

Water as a casualty of mining

James Lyon describes water as “mining’s most common casualty” indicating that the decision to mine should be considered alongside the associated high price that the society has to pay in terms of water pollution.

Sadly, section 17 of the Minerals and Mining Act, Act 703 of 2003 grants that a mineral right holder upon receiving requisite approvals or licences under the Water Resources Commission Act, 1996 (Act 552) “may for the purposes of or ancillary to the mineral operations, obtain, divert, impound, convey and use water from a river, stream, underground reservoir or watercourse within the land the subject of the mineral right”. This is a carte blanche for water pollution and destruction by mining operations of multinational mining companies.

We do not have adequate provisions in the Minerals and Mining Act to protect water bodies and to hold the mining companies to strong environmental standards based on the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP). Quite disappointingly, companies that violate the Minerals and Mining Act are required to pay a fine of not more than the cedi equivalent of $US 5,000 and the law permits that if a defaulting company is unable to pay the penalty, it must be treated as a civil debt owed to the State (Section 108 and 109 of Minerals and Mining Act, Act 703, 2006).

The penalty as provided in the Minerals and Mining Act, Act 703, 2006 does not prescribe strong provisions to make mining companies responsible for paying the clean-up cost.

However, in other jurisdictions a mining company could pay as much as US$ 100 million as clean-up cost for cyanide spillages because they have stringent environmental laws. It was only a strong advocacy by NGOs such as Wacam, that exposed the cyanide spillage by Newmont Ahafo Mine in 2009 and compelled the Government to impose a fine of about US$ 5 million on the Company.

Newmont exploited the weakness of the Minerals and Mining Act and argued that the fine imposed on the Company for the cyanide spill had no legal basis.

As a nation, we have permitted official mining lease for mining companies like Newmont Akyem Mine to mine the Ajenua Bepo Forest Reserve when we know that the Ajenua Forest Reserve protects about 12 rivers including Afosu River and other rivers such as Yaayaa; Alotosu; Adenkyem; Aboabo; Adentem; Akrawasu among others.

The mining operations of Newmont Akyem Mine has sounded the death-knell to these rivers that were of importance to the people in the area. A research commissioned by Newmont before commencing surface mining operations in the Ajenua Bepo Forest Reserve showed that the forest reserve contains 10 plant species, which are new to science.

It amounts to lawlessness by the State to strip the forest reserves of its protection and permit surface mining operations in such an important national heritage site, which protects our water bodies and biodiversity.

Water pollution has become a systemic human rights violation in Ghana. According to the report of CHRAJ (2008), 22 out of 28 mining communities had polluted rivers. Again in 2009, Wacam commissioned Centre for Environmental Impact Analysis (CEIA) to analyse 250 Rivers and water bodies in the Tarkwa and Obuasi areas, which had been listed by Wacam.

The baseline study revealed that out of the 156 streams/rivers in Obuasi mining area, 145 are polluted by the operations of mining companies and “Galamsey” operators. Similarly, all the 114 rivers/streams in the Tarkwa mining area are polluted by mining companies and “Galamsey” operators. Most of the alternate sources of water provided for residents of mining communities by mining companies were not of good quality.

The report confirmed that the rivers and water bodies are polluted with elevated levels of heavy metals and the continuous ingestion of water from these polluted rivers by community people has serious health implication. Further research by CEIA based on the results of 2009 of Wacam to establish the effects associated with ingesting contaminated water bodies on human health of residents of mining communities in Tarkwa and Prestea areas gave a startling result, which in summary indicates that eight out of every hundred adults in the Tarkwa area were prone to cancers.

Though Wacam has been sounding the alarm-bell of the connection between mining and water pollution for almost two decades, it is only recently when the problem has reached catastrophic proportions that there is public outcry on the issue. Probably we looked at the short-term economic benefits of mining and overlooked the long-term social, economic and environmental costs of mining.

The blame game being played between the so-called legal and illegal (Galamsey) on water pollution rages on. The simple truth is that both legal and illegal mining operations have contributed to the pollution of our river bodies. Indeed, artisanal mining especially “Galamsey” has seen tremendous change in the period of the third gold rush.

Artisanal mining, which used to be a pickaxe and shovel activity with the use of mercury for gold extraction on a lower scale has become a medium to large-scale mining operations based on heavy machinery and the use of the heap leach method, which goes with the use of cyanide, has become the standard practice for “Galamsey” operators.

The lessons on the use of cyanide for processing of gold and heavy machinery for excavation have been learnt by artisanal miners from the operations of large surface mines by multinational mining companies.

The level of displacement of indigenous people from their lands and the payment of low compensation by mining companies, have served as push factors for many agrarian based communities, especially the youth, into illegal mining operations.

In effect, the scale of destruction of water bodies caused by “Galamsey” operations have been born out of our liberal laws to attract mining investment and our failure to regulate the mining companies.

Conclusion

The extensive damage to our river bodies alone in the third gold rush is an indication of our inability to compute the cost of mining, which outweighs the benefits gained from mining. It is time to have a comprehensive look at our mining sector laws, policies, benefits and costs through a national consultative forum. The World Bank, which advised the country to increase dependence on our minerals for development and poverty alleviation, turned around to make the following statement in 2005:

“It is unclear what gold mining’s true benefits are to Ghana. Large-scale mining by foreign companies has high import content and produces only modest amounts of net foreign exchange for Ghana after accounting for all its outflows. Similarly, its corporate tax payments are low due to various fiscal incentives necessary to attract and retain foreign investors.

Employment creation is also modest given the highly capital intensive nature of modern surface mining techniques. Local communities affected by large scale mining have seen little benefits to date in the form of improved infrastructure or services provision because much of the rents from mining are used to finance recurrent, not capital expenditure.

A broader cost-benefit analysis of large-scale mining that factors in social and environmental costs and includes consultations with the affected communities needs to be undertaken before granting future production licences.

As a way forward, Ghana should place a moratorium on the granting of mining lease to mining companies for the country to undertake a cost-benefit analysis, which would consider the full cost of mining including social, environmental and economic costs of mining as against the benefits.

According to a report of Ministry of Finance (2015), the contribution of mining to GDP in 2014 was 0.8%.

Illegal mining constitutes a crime, a social problem and an economic crisis of the third jungle boom. The fight against it should be a mix of strategies. Undoubtedly, there is a powerful network of politicians; traditional rulers; security agencies; business people that serve as a strong backbone for illegal mining operations.

The captains of Galamsey operations are the people, who sometimes fund political parties. It takes a strong political will to deal with the crime associated with the illegal mining activities. The legal solution should be combined with sensitisation, provision of alternative livelihood and skill development programmes.

This would equip the host communities, that had lost their lands to mining, to generate some income and thereby restore their livelihoods. The state should be prepared to make substantial investment in the alternative livelihood programme, which can attract and sustain community people that had been exposed to the cash economy of “Galamsey”.

Active participation of communities where “Galamsey” operations are prevalent is important in ensuring the sustainability and ownership of solutions to the “Galamsey” problem. Government must invest in environmental education in the country, especially among the youth and students in mining communities in order to gain the support of community people in all programmes to address the “Galamsey” problem.

The entry of illegal immigrants especially Chinese into the country to carry out criminal activities of such magnitude against our country in the full glare of security agencies is an indictment on our security agencies and our immigration laws. Our nation is at the end of a cliff with mining and water problems and a step forward would be disastrous.