Pollution caused by mining will not be tolerated

Feb 06, 2017 News

– Min. Broomes

Mining activities which adversely affect the livelihoods of residents will no longer be tolerated by authorities, particularly the Ministry of Natural Resources.
Junior Minister of the Natural Resources Ministry, Simona Broomes said that although the “Environment” portfolio is now with the Ministry of the Presidency, her agency will be working closely with the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission to address the issue.
“We are going to be working closely with GGMC to ensure that we have the solution, and corrective measures put in place, it will not be tolerated going forward.”
Broomes on Saturday held a meeting with miners in Bartica to address the issue. She said that the aim of the meeting was to educate miners to operate in a safer and environmentally friendly way.
“We don’t want to start and say okay you move here and then they say there is no alternative. We are putting the alternative first; giving you the solution, so that we would be able to clean up the sector.” She said that it is one of the biggest inherited challenges for the Ministry within the sector.
Prior to her meeting with the miners, the Junior Minister had officiated over the opening of the first water well in the Amerindian Village of Karrau, Region Seven.
Addressing the media, Broomes said that the village had serious pollution problems. “You have persons mining here who have been given permission by the villagers themselves and persons from the community were mining in this area for several years.”
According to Broomes, a creek, the village’s main source of water, became contaminated. “That is why I was one of the drivers behind the collaboration, being the Minister within the Ministry of Natural Resources and knowing the situation, to push to see the completion of this well, so that the residents here can have safe and reliable water.”
In April last year, tests done at the creek confirmed that contamination was at an alarming level. The turbidity of the water was very high, muddy and unfit for human consumption. However, protest action initiated a process towards providing safe water to villagers.
Mining activities have affected a number of hinterland communities especially in the contamination of water ways. Late last year, Major General (Ret’d) Joseph Singh had penned a letter in this newspaper highlighting several instances of pollution caused by the activity.
Singh said that based on his assessment of mining in Regions Seven and Eight, the situation has worsened. He said that as of November 27, 2016, there was heavy sediment loading off the Cuyuni River from the cumulative impact of mining activities in the upper Cuyuni located in Venezuela and in the middle and lower Cuyuni River in Guyana at its confluence with the Mazaruni River at Kartabu Point.
He admitted that the contribution of the gold mining community to the development of Guyana and Guyanese is undeniable. However, he stressed that mining operations in Guyana’s rivers or contiguous land areas have to be compliant with the regulations, including those relating to the health and safety of mining crews and downstream communities and for the sustainability of ecosystems and services.

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