Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 16:54:33 -0800 (PST)
From: Alice McCombs <amccombs@igc.apc.org>

Contents

1. ENVIRONMENT-AFRICA: The Mining Companies Rush In
2. New Contracts for Mining in Indonesia
3. PENNSYLVANIA: Valley Fill Suit
4. Regional News from INNU-L
5. Kerr-McGee quits coal mining
6. SIBERIA: Strip Mining on Indigenous Lands
7. GGEP on uranium mining

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1. ENVIRONMENT-AFRICA: The Mining Companies Rush In

Topic 204            IPS: ENVIRONMENT-AFRICA: The Mining
newsdesk                  News From and About Africa       2:42 PM  Mar  7, 1998

       Copyright 1998 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
          Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.

                      *** 04-Mar-98 ***

By Lewis Machipisa

ACCRA, Mar 4 (IPS) -- Communities located in mining areas are
paying a heavy social and environmental price for the increased
mining activities on the continent, according to reports from
African non-governmental organisations.

Commercial mining has led to environmental degradation, the
displacement of people from communities where they have lived for
years, and higher incidences of lung diseases among populations.

Often, mine sites are contaminated beyond restoration,
according to participants at a Mar. 2-4 meeting in the Ghanaian
capital of Accra on 'Mining, Society and Environment', organised
by the Africa office of the Third World Network (TWN-Af)  -- a
development NGO .

The effect of mining actitivies on the society and the
environment has received little attention from African governments
and mining transnational corporations (TNCs).

''Presently, the benefits from mining tend to stay with the
TNCs, while the negative consequences like pollution of water and
soil, which may threaten the livelihood of surrounding
communities, stay within the country,'' says a briefing paper
circulated at the meeting.

''In Sierra Leone, for example, mineral ore extractions by TNCs
destroyed the surrounding soil and soil formations. As a result,
large areas of land have been made useless for up to 50 years.''

Mining is one sector that has attracted huge sums of Foreign
Direct Investment (FDI) worldwide.

From 1985 to 1995, there were  3.5 billion U.S. dollars of new
investment in emerging- market mining projects, but in the last
two years alone, there have been eight billion U.S. dollars in new
deals, according to Christopher Chamberlain of the Bank
Information Center, a non-governmental organisation that provides
information on the projects, policies and practices of the
multilateral development banks.

This increased investment has gone hand in hand with
initiatives meant to encourage foreign investment -- by the end of
1995, at least 35 countries had radically relaxed their mining
codes.

''Indeed, so intense is the desire for Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI) that African leaders have literally fallen over
each other to create the incentives and establish the investor
confidence necessary to attract FDI,'' Charles Abugre of the Third
World Network told the meeting.

''The greatest concern over the mining rush is in the areas of
social development and the environment,'' said Abugre. ''There is
a growing perception of collusion between the state and mining
companies in a singular drive for investment... and that this
collusion has little sensitivity to social and environmental
accountability or responsibility.

''Social impacts are the most abused. Most often than not,
communities are not involved during the baseline studies, nor do
they have the capacity to conduct such studies independently,'' he
added.

''Consequently, the companies end up prescribing compensation
and relocation schemes, which usually do not take sufficient
account of socio-cultural circumstances.''

E. Kofi Arhin, an industrial relations officer with the Ghana
Mineworkers Union in Tarkwa, western Ghana, agreed.

''What we are seeing is that the relationship between the
communities and mining companies is going to be really nasty,''
Arhin told IPS. ''The mining companies are not doing anything to
help people.

''They are retrenching people and taking away people's farms.
We expect the mining companies to be indulging in activities that
help the communities. As more and more workers get retrenched as a
result of the poor gold prices, the situation will turn ugly and
government and the companies had better find ways of helping the
communities,'' warned Arhin.

''The companies have environmental and health policies, but
thay are doing nothing about it since the monitoring mechanisms
are not being enforced by (Ghana's) Environmental Protection
Agency, '' Arhin told IPS. ''The mine corporations are having a
field day, doing whatever they like. They are only interested in
ploughing back their profits to their countries.''

For Arhin, complaining to the government is a waste of time
because when ''we mention these things, the government says that
we are scaring away the investors.''

In South Africa, the situation is similar. ''The government  is
being driven by the Chamber of Mines. The community is under
pressure from the Chamber and is being locked out. What the
Chamber wants in South Africa is a situation where everything is
discussed by all except the communities,'' noted Matthews Hlabane
of the South Africa Environment Monitoring Group. ''In some cases
mining takes place within a hundred metres (of homes), blasting
and all. Houses are cracking.''

South Africa, which has the world's largest gold reserves, has
a Health and Safety Act, but, lamented Hlabane, it excludes the
community ''totally''.

''In most mining companies in South Africa, health and safety
issues remain within the fence of their mining operations. The
companies do not consider the environmental and health effects of
their mining operations,'' said Hlabane.

''What we want is that if a person from the community falls
sick say from the dust from the blast, the companies should assist
that person in getting medical treatment, rather than leave that
person to use her or his own money. The Act should make this
possible and the companies should accept responsibilities arising
from their activities,'' added Hlabane.

The current international regulatory system is seriously
flawed, sacrificing the public interest, noted Chamberlain. ''In
order for environmentally and socially sustainable private sector
development to become a reality, market leaders and regulators
must take their roles far more seriously.

''Instead of stressing voluntary standards and enforcing only
vague, ad hoc policy interpretations,'' Chamberlain says,
multilateral entities such as the World Bank need to ''develop
systematic guidelines that are transparent and unequivocally
enforced.''

''Without this safeguarding of the public interest, the market-
fix-all approach of the World Bank and its counterparts will fail
to achieve sustainable development and the mining projects will
continue to have the potential to produce disastrous results for
developing country citizens and environments,'' Chamberlain told
the meeting.

Such results are already visible. According to Abugre, the case
of Ogoniland in southeast Nigeria  -- where environmental
pollution by the Shell multinational has been opposed by the local
community -- is a dramatic manifestation of a poorly managed
environmental and social outcome of a mining operation.

''Yet, indications are that the social and environmental
implications of mining operations receive poor attention by
governments and miners, in some cases governments consciously
sacrifice these concerns in a desperate bid to attract capital.''

Countries appear to be underbidding each other in a desperate
scramble for foreign investement. Tax systems have been modified
to include incentives such as duty-free imports and freedom to
remit foreign currency earnings.

''The recolonisation of Africa is going on,'' remarked one
delegate, ''and if we don't stop this, we are in trouble again.''
(end/ips/lm/pm98)

Origin: Harare/ENVIRONMENT-AFRICA/
                              ----

       [c] 1998, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
                     All rights reserved

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  contact the IPS coordinator at <online@ips.org>.

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2. New Contracts for Mining in Indonesia

pet                             act.indonesia              8:15 AM  Feb 23, 1998
(at web.net)

From: "Sharon R.A. Scharfe" <pet@web.net>
Subject: New Contracts for Mining in Indonesia

>Ottawa Citizen
>February 23, 1998
>F5
>
>"New Contracts for Mining in Indonesia"
>
>JAKARTA -- The Indonesian government has announced a fresh round of 38
mining contracts that will allow foreign firms to develop gold, silver,
nickel and diamond deposits in this sprawling mineral-rich archipelago.
>        "The event is a strong signal that Indonesia is open to foreign
participation in this important sector," said Canadian Ambassador Gary Smith.
>        "Of the 38 contracts, 15 directly involve Canadian mining and
exploration interests," he said.
>
********************************************************************************
  For more information on Parliamentarians for East Timor, Please Contact:
  Sharon Scharfe, International Secretariat
  Parliamentarians for East Timor
  Suite 116, 5929-L Jeanne D'Arc Blvd., Orleans, ON  K1C 7K2  CANADA
  Fax: 1-613-834-2021
  E-Mail:  pet@web.net

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3. PENNSYLVANIA: Valley Fill Suit

Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 16:47:07 -0800
From: "J. Turner" <jturner@voicenet.com>

Raymond Proffitt Foundation

NEWS RELEASE               NEWS RELEASE

Contact:  John Wilmer, Esq.
Phone:    610-565-2736
E-mail:   jwilmer@RayProffitt.Org

                  VALLEY FILLS LAWSUIT

     On February 11, 1998 the Raymond Proffitt
Foundation, a non-profit environmental organization,
filed a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection (DEP) and its Secretary, James
Seif, in federal court to stop the state from issuing
illegal valley fill permits.  The lawsuit was filed
under the citizens lawsuit provision of the federal
mining law, and seeks to hold DEP's valley fill program
illegal until the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM)
has made a decision on amendments to Pennsylvania's Coal
Refuse Disposal Law .

     In particular, the Proffitt Foundation opposes the
issuance of a valley fill permit to Vesta Mining Company
in Washington County to construct a coal refuse disposal
site for 21.6 million tons of coal refuse from a deep
longwall mine.  The site would obliterate 2 miles of
perennial stream and seeps, three and one-third acres of
wetlands and 225 acres of woodlands.  In addition, the
site is located over a previously deep-mined area that
is supported only by coal pillars.  It is a disaster
waiting to happen.

     Over two and one-half years ago the Proffitt
Foundation issued a Notice of Intent to sue DEP if it
did not submit its valley fills program to the federal
government for review and if it issued any permits under
its illegal program.  DEP submitted its program to OSM
and that office is still deciding on the legality of
Pennsylvania's valley fill law.  But with the issuance
of the Vesta permit, the Proffitt Foundation was forced
to file its lawsuit.

     The Proffitt Foundation's main argument against the
Pennsylvania Coal Refuse law is that it allows for the
destruction of streams and wetlands.  Yet, other federal
and even state laws prohibit the elimination of existing
uses of waterways.  Why should there be one law for
sewage plants and factories, and another law for mining?

     It was the Proffitt Foundation that in 1996-1997
forced the federal Environmental Protection Agency to
promulgate strong antidegradation laws for Pennsylvania.
Those laws prohibit the elimination of existing uses of
a stream, and protect high quality and exceptional
value waterways.

     The Proffitt Foundation also has appealed the Vesta
permit to the state Environmental Hearing Board on
behalf of members who live adjacent to and at the bottom
of the site.

     Opposition to valley fills  has come from U.S. Fish
& Wildlife Service , the federal Environmental
Protection Agency, Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission,
Pennsylvania Game Commission, and numerous citizen and
environmental groups.  Only DEP supports this practice.

     For further information, contact John Wilmer (610)
565-2736.

e-mail:  jwilmer@RayProffitt.Org

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