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Namibia: landmine of a decision
By Michael McCrystal
June 8— In central Namibia, an enormous uranium mine sprawls
across 5,600 acres of arid desert 40 miles inland from the Atlantic
Ocean on Africa’s southeastern coast. The mile-long, 2-mile-wide
pit dwarfs even the goliath 25-foot-tall, 180-ton Komatsu haulers treading
along roads hewn into the pit walls 1,000 feet below the rim. The operation
is run by Rossing Uranium, whose parent company, Rio Tinto, is the world’s
largest mining conglomerate, with annual profits of $1.4 billion. It
is one of the world’s largest open-pit uranium mines, supplying
unenriched yellowcake uranium destined for power-generating facilities
in France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan.
It is also steeped in a legacy of environmental, political, and human
rights controversy that began when the mine opened in 1976. Initial
investors included Iran as well as the Apartheid regime in South Africa—both
of whom reaped significant material and financial benefits from the
mine’s illegal exports during the UN sanctions against those nations.
In the 1980s, the company was accused of employing an armed militia
to enforce hostile working conditions. In the 1990s, the company faced
a lawsuit from a former employee and cancer victim who claimed the company
provided inadequate protections for its workers.
Now Rossing is making a decision that will affect not only its employees,
but people in the surrounding region, as well as the Namibian economy
and the environment. The company is deciding between spending $100 million
for a 20-year expansion of the mine or ceasing operations entirely by
the year 2007. According to officials at Rio Tinto, falling uranium
prices and a weak US dollar are altering the economic formula that has
kept the enterprise profitable. Either way, much is at stake for Namibia.
Peak production at this single facility accounts for roughly three percent
of Namibia’s GDP and ten percent of the country’s foreign
exports, while offering employment to 800 Namibians in a region where
jobs are as scarce as fresh water. However, Rossing’s impressive
annual contribution to the Namibian economy is accompanied by an equally
impressive level of environmental destruction. Each year, the mine produces
a waste stream of 20 million tons of crushed, sulfuric-acid-soaked,
and slightly radioactive alaskite rock. In a region that collects fewer
than three centimeters of annual rainfall, the plant consumes between
two and three million cubic meters of fresh water annually.
Given Rio Tinto’s legacy of environmental and public relations
disasters at mines such as Lihir and Freeport in Indonesia, Jabiluka
in Australia, Capper Pass in the United Kingdom, Bouganville in Brazil,
Kelian in Borneo, and most recently along the Madagascar coastline,
Namibians aren’t convinced their best interests will be part of
Rossing’s decision about the mine.
Erich Beukes, chairperson of the Rossing branch of Mineworkers Union
of Namibia, calls the potential closure a “very emotional issue.”
He worries that the outlook is bleak for the many unskilled, semiskilled,
and mine-specific workers who would have very limited opportunities
for alternative employment.
The mine’s employees and concentric circles of goods and service
providers sustained by the mine must now confront an uncertain future.
“We cannot forget that our employees also employ people at their
homes. Closing down the mine would take away their purchasing power.
The impact is going to be major,” Rehabeam Hoveka, manager for
business services at Rossing told the Namibian (Namibia’s national
newspaper) when the closure plan was first announced.
Rossing officials emphasize that the closure is only one possible scenario
but refuse to provide details before they make a final decision, which
might not come until later this year. Nevertheless, the company has
begun a $3 million grant program to promote economic sustainability
in the nearby mine-dependent company town of Arandis.
Rossing scientists also point to dramatic reductions in fresh water
usage at the mine as evidence of Rossings’ commitment to environmental
mitigation and protection. Significant investments in water recycling
systems and improved ore-processing technologies have cut annual consumption
at the mine from ten million cubic meters in 1980 to just under three
million last year. Eckart Demasius, municipal CEO of nearby Swakopmund,
which oversees a large portion of Rossing’s water supply, says
Rossing’s water conservation “sets the standard... for the
responsible handling of water.”
But it is unclear if life after Rossing would be as rosy. Rossing Managing
Director David Salisbury acknowledged earlier this year that a trust
fund established for environmental remediation projects had been plundered
to compensate for recent operating losses.
If mining is a dirty business, mine closures often prove to be even
messier. Although Rossing has not revealed its remediation plan in the
event of a closure, the industry-standard practice of covering decommissioned
tailings ponds with a layer of gravel is proving to be a porous—and
ineffectual— barrier to airborne erosion of contaminated particles.
The procedure also fails to prevent gaseous exhalation of highly carcinogenic
Radon 2-2-2 and Radium 2-2-6 generated by the sludge. On the arid, windy
Namib desert landscape, these hazards are troubling possibilities. The
US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates the lifetime excess
lung cancer risk of people living near a tailings pile of 80 hectares
at two cases per hundred. Rossing’s tailings ponds cover 730 hectares.
The alternative prospect of extended operations at Rossing is a perplexing
mix of pros and cons. The central government appears unwilling to exercise
meaningful regulatory control over the powerful minerals extraction
sector, going so far as to openly indict international environmental
standards as “...specifications that create problems for developing
countries [like Namibia].”
New technical requirements are currently under consideration at Namibia’s
Ministry of Mines and Energy, but for now Namibia is one of only a few
countries that does not require mining operations to submit industry-standard
environmental impact assessments or environmental management program
reports. Environmental stewardship has, in practice, been left in the
hands of mining interests themselves. Perhaps not surprisingly, the
federal government reports it is saddled with cleanup costs at more
than 240 abandoned mines throughout the country.
It is debatable whether the lack of federal environmental regulations
is the result of profit motives contaminating public affairs, a national
pro-development economic policy, or classic political ineptitude. However,
minerals extraction is plainly Namibia’s biggest private-sector
industry, depositing nearly half of the country’s annual tax receipts
and generating 40 percent of foreign exchange.
The question for the company right now, however, has more to do with
economics than government regulations. The sagging uranium prices that
prompted Rossing to consider decommissioning the mine are now making
dramatic reversals, with the spot market leaping 61 percent to $17.60
a pound in the last nine months. Analysts speculate that global uranium
production (92 million pounds in 2003) is now being outpaced by demand
by a factor of nearly 2 to 1—a trend fueled by a growing global
fleet of 450 commercial nuclear power plants coupled with an expected
six-fold increase in Chinese nuclear power generating capacity over
the next 20 years.
Although an official decision on the mine’s future won’t be
announced until the fourth quarter of the year, remaining in Namibia
to capitalize upon these trends may be just too attractive an opportunity
for Rossing to pass up. In any case, the company’s legacy will
be with Namibia for a very long time to come.
Source: Guerrilla News Network
How Shell’s thirst for oil is devastating
Nigeria
By Nick Mathiason
June 13 — The full extent of environmental devastation
to areas around Shell’s Nigerian oil interests is revealed in a
new series of pictures showing contaminated land, forests, lakes and
communities in the immediate vicinity of Shell refineries and pipelines.
Evidence amassed by a team from Friends of the Earth (FoE) and passed
to The Observer will place further pressure on the beleaguered oil giant.
According to eyewitnesses, significant oil spillages close to communities
have not been cleaned up by Shell or the Nigerian authorities, despite
promises of action.
“Substantial layers of crude oil” were found in mangrove forests
but have received no attention, say campaigners. And community water
pumps which were polluted by oil spillages have not been cleaned up
for a year. The evidence threatens to debunk claims by Shell that it
is committed to acting in a socially responsible manner.
“We saw pipes clearly corroded and spilling. They were all over
the place,” said Brian Shaad, FoE’s parliamentary campaigner,
who returned to Britain June 11 after three weeks in Nigeria. “Communities
repeatedly say their grievances are dealt with by security forces rather
than the company itself.”
The previous day a Shell report was published in which the company admitted
that it has inadvertently fueled strife, poverty and corruption through
its activities in Nigeria. “Sometimes we feed conflict by the way
we award contracts, gain access to land and deal with community representatives,”
the company said.
Nigeria accounts for 10 percent of Shell’s global production and
has some of its most promising reserves.
Next week the company will face renewed criticism with the publication
of a FoE report detailing the experiences of people living close to
Shell’s operations in Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa and
the US.
A leaked section of the report alleges that Shell failed to act on promises
made by former chairman Philip Watts to clean up the South African Petroleum
Refinery (Sapref), the largest crude oil plant in the country.
It claims Sapref, jointly owned by Shell and BP, dumps 19 tons of sulfur
dioxide a day into the air, six times the amount emitted by modern refineries.
“Feelgood projects” such as academic scholarships and playgrounds
“divert attention from serious health and environmental impacts,”
says FoE.
Shell, the report will state, ignores residents’ demands for relocating
faulty pipelines, which have leaked 1.3 million liters of gas beneath
their homes.
“Shell’s top executives say they take environmental concerns
seriously, but the reality is different lower down the company,”
said Simon McRae, who wrote the upcoming FoE report.
Shell said it responds to “legitimate issues” raised by communities,
which it encourages. But “the Niger Delta is a difficult place
to operate.” Two-thirds of oil spills are due to sabotage, it claims.
In the Sapref refinery, Shell said it has spent more than $40 million
in three years on initiatives to halve sulfur dioxide emissions. Emissions
are typical for a refinery of its configuration. It claims it is actively
monitoring air quality, which is improving the situation, and that its
pipeline management is being independently assessed. The firm will follow
any recommendations.
Source: The Observer (UK)
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