Philex mine spill massive, say Church probers

THE MINE spill in Benguet involving the country’s biggest gold producer, Philex Mining Corp., leaked “1,300 percent” more waste than the 1996 Marcopper accident in Marinduque province that left the Boac River “biologically dead,” a fact-finding mission has found.

“The 2012 Philex mine tailings spill is massive,” investigators from the National Secretariat for Social Action of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, and the Climate Change Congress of the Philippines (CCCP) said in a 26-page report on their mission.

They compared the amounts of sediment released into bodies of water in the Philex and the Marcopper spills using information from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB).

The mission noted that the MGB estimated the Philex mine spill to be 20.6 million metric tons.

This “is 1,300-percent higher than the Marcopper accident in Boac, Marinduque, of 1.6 million metric tons,” the mission said.

But MGB Director Leo Jasareno said his agency had yet to complete its impact assessment. “We want to be scientific about this,” Jasareno said. “We don’t want to romanticize it.”

The spills at Philex Padcal mine in Benguet began on Aug. 1 following days of intense rains spawned by two typhoons.

Michael Toledo, Philex senior vice president for corporate affairs, said in a phone interview yesterday that government and independent metallurgists had found the fish and water quality in areas near the company’s Padcal mine to be safe.

“There has been an ongoing study for about six weeks now and the data says the fish and waters are safe,” Toledo said.

“Metallurgists and other experts from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, Environmental Management Bureau, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, and the independent SentroTek (Sentro sa Pagsusuri, Pagsasanay at Pangangasiwang Pang-Agham at Teknolohiya) have all found the fish and waters to be safe,” Toledo said.

“Our own metallurgists and those of the government found the water and sediment discharge to be nontoxic. We are also thankful that there are no reports of injury or loss of life due to the breach and as we continue remediation efforts,” he said.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is fining Philex P1.034 billion for the pollution caused by the sediments leak in the company’s Padcal mine straddling Itogon and Tuba towns.

Week’s extension

Philex is contesting the penalty, citing “force majeure.” It has obtained a week’s extension to comment on the penalty.

Jasareno confirmed by text message yesterday that the agency had received a request from Philex for a seven-day extension to file a comment on the government’s decision to fine it for the spill.

Jasareno said the MGB gave Philex seven more days to file its comment, or until Oct. 10. The original deadline was Oct. 3.

Toledo said the request for an extension was “normal and usually granted, like in the courts.”

Renato Migrino, Philex senior vice president for finance, said in a report that the company had “controlled” the leak and was set to contest the fine sought by the DENR.

The tailings leak from the breached pond in Padcal has been “effectively contained” with the plugging of the sinkhole with concrete spheres of various sizes that also act as filtering medium to the small volume of water that continues to flow from the hole, Migrino said.

“This has allowed the pouring of concrete to bulkhead the underground tunnel of Penstock A, which, when completed, would eventually seal the tunnel and stop any level of tailings leakage from the pond,” Migrino said.

River cleanup

Philex officials informed Itogon town officials on Tuesday that the company would now undertake a comprehensive clean-up operation on Benguet’s river system.

In a disclosure report presented to the Itogon council, Philex officials explained the conditions that led to the accident at Padcal, which affected Balog Creek downstream of the damaged dam, said Eduardo Aratas, Philex legal officer.

Balog intersects with Agno River, which flows toward Pangasinan.

A damaged underground gateway, which channeled runoff rainwater out of the tailings dam, triggered the leaks and had been sealed, Philex said.

The leaks were first detected when water level in the dam began to drop on Aug. 1 during heavy rains dumped by a storm.

The subsidence developed into a sinkhole, which mine engineers plugged on Sept. 10 by inserting a concrete and steel ball 9 meters in diameter.

Marcopper spill

On March 24, 1996, Marcopper Mining Corp. accidentally spilled deadly mine tailings into the Boac River after a tunnel in the company’s Tapian pit collapsed. The spill was considered the worst mining disaster in the Philippines.

“After 10 years of the [Marcopper] accident, the Boac River is still dead. Recent studies showed that coastal sediments near the river outflow contains high amount of copper, manganese, lead and zinc,” the fact-finding mission said in its report, quoting CCCP’s resident scientist Esteban Godilano.

But the MGB’s Jasareno said the comparison might not be fair. He said he could not yet draw any conclusions just from comparing waste discharges from the Philex and the Marcopper incidents.

In its recommendations, the mission said an immediate and impartial investigation was needed to assess the full impact of the Philex mine spill, as its effects might be worse than reported.

Jasareno said the mission presented its findings to him recently, but added that he could not yet act on any of its recommendations.

“What we can do at this point is to take all these new information into consideration,” he said.

The fact-finding mission conducted its work from Sept. 16 to Sept. 17, talking to local government officials, engineers, scientists, and villagers in the affected communities.

Among other things, the independent mission concluded that the integrity and safety of Philex’ Tailings Pond 3 (TP3) structure were “questionable.”

“Engineer Virgilio Aniceto noted that the Tailings Pond 3 was commissioned in 1992. With a life-span of 18-20 years, it should have been decommissioned as early as 2010, especially because the dam crest went beyond the permitted elevation of 600 meters above sea level,” the report said.

Fault lines

It also said the Philex mining area of operation was “crisscrossed by fault lines.”

“The most notable of the fault lines are the Albian and Sta. Fe faults. Thus, it is not surprising for Philex gold and/or copper production to be associated with geohazard risks vis-à-vis volcanic or earthquake activity,” it said.

“This already occurred during the Philex mining accident in 1992, when the foundation of the TP2 [Tailings Pond 2] collapsed and reportedly discharged 80,000 metric tons of mine waste, affecting large tracts of prime agricultural lands in Pangasinan,” the report said.

The report also questioned a claim by Philex that chemicals used in ore processing were biodegradable, and that the amount of reagents (substance causing chemical reactions) carried with the tailings during actual operations were “extremely small or negligible.”

“Negligible? The question is, ‘How much kilogram of reagents are used for every ton of ore they are processing?’” the mission said.

Metals used

Philex, the report said, also needs to disclose the associated heavy metals in the Padcal pro- duction. “This is very important. If they do not, it is assumed the other heavy metal effluents include lead, arsenic, cadium, mercury, sulphur, etc.,” it added.

It further noted that Philex proceeded with its construction of its three tailings ponds after being issued with the environmental compliance certificate (ECC), “without securing the necessary building and safety permits and the payment of accumulated taxes to the LGUs.”

The mission also cited environment damage and livelihood losses resulting from the Philex leaks.

“The MGB declared that anything discharged through the Agno River goes to San Roque Dam in Manuel, Pangasinan. The Balog (Creek) and Agno River are heavily polluted. Fishers and residents complain of lost fishing and mining grounds, of foregone earnings and the loss of safe food and water,” it said.

Another concern was the safety of fish catch in San Roque Dam, the mission said.

No harmful chemicals

But Philex said that an independent science and technology laboratory reported that no harmful chemicals had been detected in a fish sample taken from the waters near the Padcal mine.

In a report following tests, SentroTek said there was no detection of cadmium, lead and arsenic in the tilapia fish it analyzed in early September.

The yardstick used for detection in the report is 0.05 mg/kg for cadmium, 0.10 mg/kg for lead, and 0.005 mg/kg for arsenic, Philex said in a statement.

Small-scale miners

Philex said it had not used mercury in its milling operations, although SentroTek detected the element at 0.04 mg/kg, which is below the detection limit of 0.57 mg/kg in the fish sample taken from Camp 3 in Tuba, Benguet.

Metallurgists at Philex said the presence of mercury could be due to a number of smallscale and illegal miners who have operated gold panning in Benguet.

Besides not using mercury, Philex said it also had not applied any harmful amounts of chemicals used in its operations at Padcal.