A recent visit by a Stabroek News reporter to Arau near to the border with Venezuela presented a disturbing picture of the mining damage that is being done in this isolated community mainly inhabited by Amerinidians. Particularly troubling from a regulatory perspective was the fact that the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) sent in someone to investigate some of the claims that had been made by persons living in the area at the same time that the SN reporter visited but the ensuing report was unresponsive to the main concerns. The report for the GGMC failed to adequately address the damage that had been done and the urgency of swift action. If the regulatory body is not getting sufficient information on the parameters of the problem it won’t be able to act.
From the photographs taken by our reporter it was clear that the creek in the area had been fouled by sedimentation generated by mining operations. The sedimentation muddies the drinking water and inevitably impact on the flora and fauna. The fish that the people have been heavily reliant on has migrated.
There were clearly signs that the creek had been diverted in several places. River and creek course diversions are a naturally occurring phenomenon. However, when these diversions have been instigated by poor mining practices that clog waterways and dig up the creek bed these practices are completely unacceptable and must be stopped. Drums, wood and other waste have been dumped and left in the waterway. Alluvial mining has historically caused serious damage to rivers in the interior and should not be tolerated on any scale.
It was also evident from the photographs and the narrative from the visit that the banks of the creek have been despoiled: trees have been mercilessly uprooted and left there and large pits gouged in several places.
Worryingly, a resident in the area was able to retrieve a sizeable amount of carelessly discarded mercury used in gold processing. The mercury, as should be well known by all miners, is deleterious to health and will build up unremittingly in food chains posing a lifetime of problems.
Miners in the area also seem to be a law onto themselves and have terrorized residents who know no other existence but Arau.
Aside from the burning issue of the demarcating of traditional foraging grounds for Arau residents, the environmental concerns require urgent and immediate attention. It is apparent that this small community of 190 persons so far removed from Georgetown will have a difficult time being heard in the corridors of power. In the meantime, however, real damage is being done to the landscape and to the lives of these people living according to age-old rules and traditions. One wonders, in addition to the GGMC, where are the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, the Local Government Ministry and the Environmental Protection Agency in this mix.
For sometime now – particularly since the expansion of mining and recently fuelled by the high international price for gold – it has become apparent that miners play hide-and-seek with the GGMC and attempt to influence their decisions or lack of decisions. An inspector might go into some part of Arau today and be promised that remedial steps would be taken only to have this immediately reversed by the time the officer has left the area. The GGMC needs to have greater reach and to stiffen its resolve to bring miners in line. Too often we hear at cushy conferences in the city the politic chatter of how the miners and the authorities are at one on what needs to be done. The situation on the ground tells a different story, however.
Going back last year to Salbora when an important artery was torn up miners and a water network destroyed, the government and its regulatory agencies had pledged to rigorously prosecute the guilty and ensure no recurrence. This talk has been having no impact. And with under-resourced and ill-equipped agencies like the GGMC and the EPA we don’t see how the situation will begin to improve. More than likely, the high international price for gold will do the most convincing talking in the long run.
The same reporter, Mr Gaulbert Sutherland, who visited Arau had also visited Quartz Hill where he saw more mining excesses such as a breached tailings pond pouring its waste into the Omai creek and leaves being used to cover burning mercury when the standard instrument as drummed in by numerous seminars and programmes such as GENCAPD is supposed to be the retort. How in this day and age when the disaster of the Omai tailings pond breach should be uppermost in our mind are smaller operators being allowed to willy-nilly do the same?
Since then, there have been plaintive cries from the community of Micobie about the depredations of miners and in the Rupununi just this week word came of a vital bridge being destroyed by an excavator which was on its way to the Marudi area to do more mining excavating. This bridge was ripped apart since May 27 but not a word has come from the Amerindian Affairs and Local Government Ministries which are well known for issuing praise stories of their great successes in the interior via GINA.
With the infusion of Brazilian technology, mining is no doubt playing a huge role in the economy and generating thousands of jobs. However, no one can be oblivious to the damage being caused in the interior away from the prying eyes of the centre. Despite a recent high level conference in Georgetown headlined by the Prime Minister who has responsibility for mining, it is clear that no real heed is being taken of the damage to the terrain and the lives of those in the interior. A commendable exercise for those who arranged the recent exercise that the PM spoke at would be to fly out from Arau six of the leading community members and six of the miners for exchanges on the problems there. Or better yet, the Prime Minister and the representatives of the respective responsible agencies should be flown in there with the media so that a clearer picture can emerge on the plight of Arau.
