Aussie mining venture suspended

LEGAZPI CITY — The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) ordered an Australian mining company yesterday to suspend its operations on Rapu-Rapu Island in Albay and compensate villagers after waste water was suspected of killing fish.

"We have already directed the company to implement certain measures," Reynulfo Juan, regional director of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, said in reference to Lafayette NL, which owns the open pit mine on Rapu-Rapu Island.

"They will have to suspend milling operations until measures are in place and are validated by independent experts that we will commission. They are still discharging waste water that should not be discharged," he said.

The modest-sized gold, silver, copper and zinc mine is only the second foreign-financed mining project to reach production stage in the country in a decade.

President Arroyo is pinning her hopes on massive foreign investments in the resources sector to bail out millions of Filipinos from desperate poverty.

Islanders accuse Lafayette of discharging water containing dangerous levels of cyanide into creeks near the mine.

Lafayette country manager Rod Watt denied the contamination claims, but said the company was under investigation over the matter.

Watt insisted that the company made a "normal discharge" of water from the mine’s tailings pond on Oct. 31 after processing it to remove the cyanide, the main chemical used to extract gold from the crushed ore.

Juan said government inspectors on Nov. 5 found the level of cyanide in the Ungay and Hollow Stone creeks to be at least twice the government standard, though the readings had since dropped.

Villagers had complained that they collected two sacks of dead marine species from the immediate shoreline shortly after the discharge, the official said.

"We told the company to compensate the affected fishermen," Juan added.

Watt said Lafayette has yet to receive a formal government order over the P1.4-billion mine, which began production in July.

In 1996, a leak from the tailings dam of a copper mine operated by a Canadian company spilled 1.6 million cubic meters of mine waste into the Makulapnit and Boac Rivers in Marinduque.

The accident led to hefty fines and a major revision of the country’s mining law that led to a stricter regulatory framework. — With Celso Amo, AFP