Mine concerns threaten already battered Masbate economy
AS though dealing with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the aftereffects of the August 18 earthquake that struck Masbate were not stressful enough, residents of that province’s Aroroy town are now worried that concerns raised over the safety of the massive tailings pond of the Filminera Resources Corp.’s ( FRC) gold mine there might shut down their biggest industry and largest employer.
The 6.6- magnitude earthquake did not cause significant damage in Aroroy — its epicenter was near Cataingan, about 150 kilometers to the south, at the other end of Masbate island — but it was evidently a wake- up call for Masbate Gov. Antonio Kho, who expressed fears that the tailings pond at the FRC mine might have been compromised by the quake, and could collapse if another strong one occurred.
The tailings pond, according to documents filed by FRC in 2018 in connection with a proposed expansion of the mine’s processing plant, covers an area of about 217 hectares, has a depth of about 39 meters at its deepest point and is impounded by a 42.3- meter- high earthen dam. As the mine tailings accumulate ( at a rate of about 7.3 million metric tons a year), the dam will eventually reach a height of 62 meters, according to FRC’s documents, at which point the mine would be presumably exhausted, or another safe location to create a tailings pond would have to be found.
According to Kho, who has a background in civil engineering, the tailings dam is rated to withstand a 7.0- magnitude earthquake, but the Cataingan quake raised enough questions to reevaluate whether it is actually safe. The Cataingan quake, after all, was only slightly less intense than the dam was designed to handle[ and the Central Philippine Fault Zone, along which the quake, and hundreds of smaller aftershocks, occurred, lies about 30 kilometers to the east of Aroroy.
In an August 25 meeting with representatives from FRC and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources ( DENR), Kho expressed concern that the large tailings dam might have suffered unseen fatigue from the August 18 quake, even though initial assessments of the mine facilities — carried out between August 21 and 26, with mine operations suspended for the inspection — determined no apparent damage had occurred in the area. In that same meeting, the governor also questioned whether the dam was already too big to be located close to a populated area. No amount of caution was excessive, he stressed, because there are roughly 40,000 people in the four villages of Aroroy directly downstream in the event of a flood from the tailings pond.
Kho proposed that the provincial government hire an independent engineering consultant to conduct a thorough analysis of the tailings dam, and said he would forward a resolution to that effect to the provincial assembly. He also proposed — but did not make a firm decision yet — to request that the Mines and Geosciences Bureau ( MGB) of the DENR suspend operations at the mine while the detailed inspection and analysis were being carried out, a process that could take several weeks or more.
That is the part that has residents of Aroroy worried, because it would be economically disastrous, coming at a time when the town is already struggling with the impact the pandemic has had on livelihoods. Many of Aroroy’s overseas workers and residents working in Metro Manila or other parts of the country have returned unemployed — and brought with them the only cases of coronavirus infection the town has seen so far — and the area’s modest tourism industry has been completely out of action for months.
Without the mine in operation, economic activity would drop to nearly zero: of the nearly 1,900 workers at the mine employed by FRC and its joint venture partner Philippine Gold Processing and Refining Corp., which operates the mine’s processing facilities, about 1,300 are local residents.
In addition, FRC’s Social Development and Management Program has provided well over P400 million to the eight villages surrounding the mine reservation — on an annual basis, an amount that is almost double their internal revenue allotment and nine times their development funds — as well as about P68 million for Aroroy’s other 33 villages and P43.5 million for other areas in Masbate. The mine operations also account for an annual average of about P200 million in local taxes and P562 million in taxes paid to the national government. The mine also made a modest contribution of P5.3 million in cash, plus a stockpile of rice, shelter materials and other relief goods to residents of Cataingan in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Kho’s concerns about the mine, or more specifically, the potential threat posed by its massive tailings storage complex, are completely justified. While FRC is, in the official judgment of the MGB and DENR, a model of propriety in terms of operation, management and community relations, and while prior analyses of the tailings facility by the government, the mine operators and the latter’s own outside consultants have found no problems with the dam, it is also true that the structure has not until recently been tested by the stress of a relatively nearby large earthquake. Kho would not be doing his job, particularly on behalf of the 40,000 of his constituents who could be affected by an accident, if he did not raise the issue.
Suspending the mine’s operations while a detailed analysis is being carried out, however, would create more immediate problems, particularly since the Aroroy mine is one of the few in the country that is actually productive at the moment. The combined effects of the pandemic and the global downturn in the metals market has, according to the MGB, cost about 138,000 jobs in the mining industry, at least temporarily, and along with those a badly needed tax revenue stream has dried up.
As there is no indication that there are any defects in its tailings facility at the moment, the mine should be allowed to operate as normally as possible, working around whatever inspections need to be carried out. If the analysis does discover significant problems, that would be another matter, and appropriate action — including closing the mine at that point, if it comes to that — would have to be taken. Allowing the mine to operate in the meantime, however, would provide the local community and the government time and resources with which to prepare for that possible outcome, should it become necessary.