With Lafayette mine reopening:
Gov’t Unleashed Environmental Time Bomb, Group Says  

“The mine will only aggravate poverty among the people. DENR has started to unleash an environmental time bomb with the full commercial operation of Lafayette.” – Trixie Concepcion, Defend Patrimony spokesperson and geologist

BY LISA ITO
Bulatlat

In complete disregard of the technical findings and recommendations of the Rapu-Rapu Fact-Finding Commission (RRFFC) issued last May 2006, Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes gave the go signal for Lafayette Mining to resume full commercial operations in its base metals plant in Rapu-Rapu, Albay. The Pollution Adjudication Board (PAB) signed the Final Lifting Order (FLO) last Thursday, February 8, claiming that Rapu-Rapu Processing Inc. (RRPI) has fully complied with all conditions set by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and authorizing it to immediately resume production of copper and zinc concentrates in its base metals plant. Secretary Reyes, who also heads the PAB, said that the lifting order “still comes with stringent conditions”, such as the implementation of operational control measures and the immediate expansion of the existing Multipartite Monitoring Team (MMT) to include representatives from the academe, non-government organizations, and other interested stakeholders.

Kalikasan chairperson Clemente Bautista, Jr. lets his hair be shaved off in protest against the reopening of Lafayette’s mining concession, Feb. 9, in front of the DENR office in Quezon City.

Lafayette Mining’s permit to operate was suspended following two mine tailings spills in October 2006 and fish kill incidents shortly after.  

Vehement objections

Rapu-Rapu folk, church leaders, and environmental activists alike quickly registered their condemnation and sounded the red alert over the resumption of mining operations in the island.

"I vehemently object to Secretary Reyes' decision. I believe that everything about the Lafayette project is still defective and disadvantageous not only to the residents of Rapu-rapu but to the entire Filipino nation,” Sorsogon Catholic Bishop Arturo Bastes said.

Bishop Bastes, who headed the Rapu-Rapu commission, said that the PAB’s decision is tantamount to throwing away all technical findings and recommendations issued by the RRFFC. 

Among the RRFFC’s findings was that Lafayette Philippines Inc. (LPI) is guilty of irresponsible mining having started operations prior to the completion of environmental protection infrastructures; that the LPI Group violated 11 out of the 29 conditionalities in its Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC); and that RRPI has been operating without an ECC.

The Bastes Commission recommended that a mining moratorium be imposed on Rapu-Rapu island and that existing mining permits in the area be suspended in order to comprehensively study and address the issue of ecological conservation and the problem of acid mine drainage (AMD) found present in the island ecosystem.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the DENR’s decision to allow Lafayette to continue its mining operations. It has completely ignored the community displacements, cyanide contamination, fish kills, landslides, human rights violations, and environmental scourges experienced by the local people as a result of Lafayette’s entry and operations,” said Clemente Bautista, Jr. National Coordinator of environmental activist group Kalikasan-Peoples Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE).

Failure of transparency

Environmental NGOs likewise remain unconvinced by Reyes’ assurances that all will be well after the FLO is implemented, citing the lack of transparency on the part of the company and of the DENR all throughout the duration of the two test runs granted to Lafayette.   

"Secretary Reyes has been speaking of a Technical Working Group and of a Multipartite Monitoring Body, (but) who and where are these people? How independent are they from Lafayette and the Chamber of Mines? Where are their reports and outputs?” asked Center for Environmental Concerns-Philippines (CEC-Phils) Executive Director Frances Quimpo.

“The CEC itself has asked for copies of the DENR's monitoring reports since October 11, 2006 and to this day we are still waiting for these reports," lamented Quimpo.

Quimpo noted that Lafayette has yet to open the mine site to independent scrutiny by oppositors.

"If Lafayette finally has an honest to goodness "state of the art" mining facilities in Rapu-Rapu, they should be flaunting it most especially to local folks and its critics. Yet, the folks in Rapu-rapu have complained of harassment from Lafayette guards all throughout the ‘test run’,” she added.  

Quimpo said that Secretary Reyes, upon his decision to grant the Lafayette Mining a "test run" last July 2006, promised outmost transparency over the Rapu-Rapu Polymetallic Project.

However, what ensued since then was far from it, she said.

Quimpo noted that Reyes issued a memorandum in July 2006 ordering his officials to closely monitor and evaluate all mining activities and critical mining facilities. Among the important directives of the memorandum were 1) immediate reporting for proper action of any impending danger or damage at the tailings ponds and waste dams, 2) identification and determination of the magnitude of the damages caused by geo-hazards such as landslides and floods; 3) geo-hazard mapping; and 4) close coordination with RDCC regarding geo-hazards to forewarn the population of any impending catastrophe.

“The absence of these reports amid continued publicities about Lafayette's claims, and DENR's similarly-sounding press releases, makes the [FLO] decision suspect,” Quimpo said.

Since the issuance of the memorandum, the Rapu-Rapu project has sustained damage from two major typhoons. Landslides occurring in the direct impact areas of the mine in the aftermath of these storms have also resulted in fatalities among the local populace.  

The Lafayette FLO reflects a serious failure of transparency and serious failure of governance for the people and the environment, she said. “It is but another decision that the current administration has been forcing on the people without sound reason and scientific basis,” Quimpo concluded.

Gov’t courting more disasters

Kalikasan-PNE said that the Arroyo administration was opening its arms to more environmental disasters with the reopening of RRPI’s mining operations.

“The Arroyo administration and the DENR are courting more disasters with such decisions. Like what happened before in Rapu-rapu and other mining-affected communities in the country, Bicolanos should brace for more frequent and widespread soil erosion, toxic contamination, mine wastes, water depletion and marine degradation as a result of Lafayette Mining’s open-pit operations,” Bautista said.

Defend Patrimony, an anti-corporate mining alliance, asserted that Lafayette Mining would exacerbate the current environmental damage left by other mining operations in Rapu-Rapu, Defend Patrimony spokesperson and geologist Trixie Concepcion said.

Open-pit and tunnel-type mining operations by Hixbar Mining Company in Brgy. Sta. Barbara in Rapu-Rapu from the post-war period up to the 1970s left at least three rivers contaminated and tracts of land severely barren and unproductive. Rapu-Rapu as also been subjected to environmentally-degrading explorations by Benguet Consolidated, Inc, Toronto Ventures, Inc. Sfinix, and Lafayette.

“The local peasants and fisher folk are already so traumatized and deprived by the damage left by the HIXBAR mining company and the recent mine spills of Lafayette. The DENR is dangerously toying with an environmental time bomb in its decision to allow Lafayette’s large-scale mining operations to continue in the island’s fragile ecosystem,” Concepcion said.  

“The mine will only aggravate poverty among the people. Rich opportunities for agricultural development will be obliterated by open-pit mining, forest denudation, landslides, and massive soil erosion. Rapu-Rapu’s abundant marine life will also be gradually destroyed as the cyanide contamination and fish kills demonstrated, and the people’s livelihood will be eventually wiped out. DENR has started to unleash an environmental time bomb with the full commercial operation of Lafayette,” she continued.  

Concepcion noted that Lafayette Mining, even with the FLO, has yet to publicly prove how it intends to resolve the problem of AMD, especially in light of objections from RRFFC commissioners that Lafayette’s existing technology is useless against AMD and in fact could enhance it.

Defend Patrimony vowed to mobilize wider opposition to the Lafayette Mining’s commercial operations in the coming weeks. Bicolanos will be also holding a community action on February 11 and 12 in Rapu-rapu and Legazpi City to protest the Rapu-Rapu mine reopening. Bulatlat

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