As European mining moves to places like Romania, Serbia and Turkey, it's time to evaluate the best and worst practices

By Justin Hyatt

	JUST SAY NO: Miners from the Bor mine spent two days blockading a highway 150 km south of Belgrade in July. They were protesting bad working conditions and poor salaries. Photo: PRESSPHOTO BTA

Over the centuries ore mining has been gradually shifting from the continent’s centre towards its peripheries. In today’s Europe, most large-scale mining takes place along a ring that passes through Sweden, Spain, Romania, Serbia and Turkey. A fair amount of activity is now taking place in Central and Eastern Europe, making it critical that people of the new member states examine mining practices and the trends in regulatory oversight.

Intense excavation has always been necessary to get raw materials for metal products. Today, rare metals are mined on a gargantuan scale to meet the needs of the modern IT industry. In order to satisfy an ever-expanding demand for microchips for computers, cars, mobile phones and other everyday devices, large amounts of ore must be mined. Among the metals needed are iron, copper, zinc, gold, molybdenum, and such rare earth elements as metallic tantalum, which is derived from the ore coltan (short for columbite-tantalite).

Mining’s toll on the earth can be conceptualised with the “ecological rucksack,” a measurement of the amount of material that a product consumes over its lifespan minus the mass of the product itself. As an example, to produce a 5 gram gold ring, two to three tonnes of rock must be excavated and reduced. It is not likely that the demand for metals will abate anytime soon, therefore better mechanisms are needed for safer, more environmentally sustainable mining. It is also crucial that people who live in mining areas are informed of developments in the region.

In Rosia Montana, Romania, a considerable amount of gold sits underground. The Canadian company Gabriel Resources, which owns the Rosia Montana Gold Corporation, hopes to turn it into Europe’s largest open pit mining operation by opening up four pits and creating a massive tailings dam. The project would involve a vast expansion of the mining already being carried out by the state. Even though no official permits have been granted, the new developer has already been buying up local farms and relocating residents to a replacement village.

It has been only four years since the trans-boundary mining disaster at Baia Mare, Romania. In that catastrophe, 100,000 cubic metres of water laced with cyanide and heavy metals spilled from a tailings pond and into the Lapus, Szamos, and Tisza rivers, and eventually into the Danube. It has not gone unnoticed that the proposed mine at Rosia Montana would also employ cyanide-leaching technology and a tailings pond connected by waterways to the Tisza.

The company, however, has pledged to use a somewhat safer process. Whereas in Baia Mare cyanide was reused in the existing tailing pond in a plateau dam, the Rosia Montana mine promises to run a course of cyanide detoxification and make use of an engineered rock dam, located in a valley. Gabriel Resources claim the precautions will avoid a repeat of the Baia Mare spill, and the firm promises to abide by the strictest environmental regulations as well as certain voluntary codes. Yet local and international NGO opposition remains strong, and the Romanian Academy of Sciences has issued repeated declarations against the project.

Impact on the community

Apart from fears of a natural catastrophe, the social disruptions of relocating the local village have already been felt, and the company has experienced setbacks. Although Gabriel Resources has already spent USD 67 million to acquire properties and build a new village, only 38 percent of the villagers have sold their homes. The company is running behind schedule, having recently announced a one-year postponement of mine development until the second quarter of 2006.

In an earlier report, the company stated that waning political support for the mining industry coupled with Romania’s bid for EU accession may doom the project.

This prospect has eroded share values and dampened investor confidence. Nonetheless, the US-based Newmont mining company recently announced plans to buy a 10 percent stake in Gabriel Resources, with the possibility of gaining 18.6 percent ownership by the end of 2005.

Mines elsewhere in the region face similar issues. The Ovacik mine on the west coast of Turkey is being cultivated by the Australian mining company Newmont/Normandy. Located near the town of Bergama, the project began gold and silver excavation in May of 2001 after a nine-year wait for permits and environmental impact assessments.

Before getting the green light, a study was commissioned of the project’s mine waste management facility. The study lauded the planned rock-fill impoundment structure, which has a higher level of safety than dams in the area. The operators installed a composite liner which helps to prevent leakage from the reservoir area. The amount of cyanide in the tailings pond is well below the 1 mg/litre level required by the Turkish Ministry of Environment and the 50 mg/litre level suggested by the United Nations Environment Programme. Due to the reuse of tailings water there is no discharge to surface waters. This and other risk assessment studies led to the granting of all permits in 2001. Nonetheless, there has been fierce opposition from locals who fear the use of cyanide and believe that the region is under threat of grave contamination.

Successful closure

	DIGGING IN: The English firm Energy and Main Investments will exploit the world’s fourth largest store of manganese near the Bulgarian village of Obrochishte. The firm employs 250 miners. Photo: PRESSPHOTO BTA

In the Mecsek Mountains in the south of Hungary near the city of Pecs, an old uranium mine has been shut down and recultivated with flora specially selected to contain contamination. This mine operated from the 1960s through the 1990s. After its full closure in 1997, the operating company began recultivating the landscape and laying off workers. The company’s payroll shrunk from 8,000 employees to 220, although hundreds of others continued to work in spin-off businesses. The recultivation and other environmental protection measures have been of outstanding quality, according to Jozsef Hideg, of Mecsekerc Rt, the mine’s present day operator.

The Mecsek example showed how an operator could offset job losses by providing workers a lifetime compensation of 63 percent of their former wages while releasing them to pursue new jobs. Early retirement was also granted, and Mecsekerc contributed extensive knowhow about mine closures.

There are plenty of opportunities left after mines shut down. Robert Nemeskeri, head of the Business and Environment Programme at the REC, believes there are many such situations where dislocated mining professionals can transfer their skills to related fields such as recultivation and monitoring work, environmental consulting, geology and hydrology.

Legal work in the area of mining and other industries that affect the environment has seen progress in the wake of Baia Mare. The Protocol on Civil Liability and Compensation for Damage Caused by the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents on Transboundary Waters was signed by 22 states in May 2003 and is now going through the slow process of ratification. The protocol makes industrial operators liable for compensation to states or to persons damaged by accidents, and as such, it serves as a precautionary instrument for planned projects. A directive on waste produced by extractive industries is currently under debate in the European Parliament.

To urge the mining industry to take a more proactive approach to reducing risks and avoiding liabilities, a set of guidelines has been created called “Governance Principles for Foreign Direct Investment in Hazardous Activities.” It is hoped that with strong liability rules in place, companies and investors will familiarise themselves with risk reduction and will carry out their projects in an environmentally sustainable fashion.

The Baia Mare disaster also inspired the creation of a network of mining experts, environmentalists and academicians — the OMENTIN network. Initiated as an EU Fifth Research Framework project, the network became 100 percent financially sustainable just this year. The objectives of OMENTIN are to increase public understanding of ore mining technologies and act as a nucleus for dialogue among experts across the continent.

The OMENTIN network not only promotes preparedness for accidents but also preventative measures against environmental catastrophes. The network has had considerable success as it now spans Europe from Norway to Turkey. According to Kristina Vilimaite, the REC manager of OMENTIN, the responsibility for protecting the earth from mining hazards belongs to each individual: “Each project can be bad and good at the same time. There is always the dilemma between environmental and economic interest and the solution depends on the decision of each country and each individual consumer. Because increased consumption is what makes increased mining necessary.”