The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday refuted reports that it had issued permits to the Canadian-owned Aurora Gold Mines (AGM) to begin underground mining, saying that a permit was issued for data collection works and testing of the site.
“They were given a permit recently, but that permit is not for mining, it to conduct testing,” EPA Executive Director Dr Vincent Adams said yesterday.
The Department of Public Information on Thursday quoted Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman as announcing on a tour of AGM’s Region Seven operations with a visiting South African delegation that AGM was given its licence to mine. “I am happy the government was able to issue the final permits for the underground mining…last week the EPA issued that,” the DPI quoted Trotman as saying.
The EPA believes it is important for the public to know the difference in permits, so they would understand the requisite due diligence processes that the EPA has to undertake, particularly for the first underground mine, before it is constructed and begins operations. “It is a process and it is important that that process be understood,” Adams said.
Last week Wednesday, in an interview with this newspaper, Adams had informed that AGM was granted a permit to conduct underground testing, after which and pending meeting all requirements, they can apply for the actual mining license.
Adams said that he wanted to be clear that the permit given and a mining permit are not the same and, therefore, the one issued is basically for data collection, to be used in the design process for the actual mine, and which will be attached in the documents when submitted to the EPA for a mining permit.
“We had some issues with the permit, with them applying for an expansion of the mines to do underground mining, something which we have never done in Guyana before. After the publicised issue in the newspaper, that AGM were expanding without our consent [from the EPA], we stopped the operations, we sent in a team, reviewed exactly what they did. We had several meetings afterwards and we came to a common understanding as to what they should be doing. What they are doing right now is not developing the mine itself, what they are doing is some hydro-geological types of work to collect data to design and construct the mine. They are building the facility to go in and collect data, which is necessary for them to design that underground mining operation,” he said.
“With these things, they can’t just go in and start excavating and constructing a mine. They have to know ground strength, the hydro-geological setting and those types of things. In essence, [know] the geological and hydrological data. This phase is just collecting data. After that, they are going to have to come back with an application for a permit to mine. In terms of depth and structure to ensure it is safe and environmentally sound for operation, and they will use the data and design to submit to us an application for a permit for construction of the mine. All that they collected will be in the application,” he added.
On the day of Adams’ interview, AGM issued a carefully-worded statement informing of the permit given. The company said that the authorisation to resume operations followed its provision to the EPA of additional information concerning the application of internationally accepted codes concerning the environment, health and safety practices being proposed.
“The EPA also conducted a routine compliance inspection of the Aurora mine and camp facilities in December 2018. The EPA requested the company modify some aspects of its current waste management plan, camp waste water treatment circuit and upgrade the waste oil containment facility. The company has addressed all the matters raised by the EPA during its inspection which will be further assessed during the next site inspection. At the time of the December inspection, the company was compliant on all other environmental conditions of the operating permit,” the statement said.
The company said that the recommencement of work on the underground decline will begin immediately. The underground decline is intended for exploration and definition drilling in support of planned underground production.
