CYANIDE: The Gold Mine’s Killing Device!

Cyanide is the most dangerous chemical element known to mankind. Yet it is the chemical of choice for mining companies to extract gold from crushed ore. In 1998, the mining industry released over 3.5 billion pounds of toxic chemicals, such as cyanide, arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium and sulfuric acid. According to EARTHWORKS’ report, published in 2004, a non-profit organization that watchdogs the worldwide mining industry, more than 90% of the 2500 tons of gold produced annually around the world is extracted through the use of cyanide leaching techniques.

One teaspoon of a 2 percent cyanide solution can kill a person, but only a microscopic amount of cyanide in water is lethal to fish, birds, and other wildlife species. And, although chemically it can break down, it can also take on altered forms capable of wreaking havoc on plant life, animal life and human beings.

This Is An Overview Of Cyanide Related Mining Cccidents In The Past Two Decades.

Thursday, December 29, 2011 – Kazakhstan Hambledon Mining, British mining company has been fined $1.8M by Kazakh government over a leak at one of its waste dams into Sekisovka River in eastern Kazakhstan. Dead fish found, according to Kazakh authorities. In October 31, 2011, downstream water tests found that cyanide levels exceede 516 times the legal limit, the ministry of emergency situations said, and warned local residents to stay away from the river.

October 8, 2009, Denver-based Newmont Mining Corporation, the world’s second biggest corporate gold miner. negligently spilling cyanide at its Ahafo Gold Mine in Ghana. causing a huge impact to the people’s livelihood, pollution, health problems and loss of aquatic life in surrounding communities.

In May 2009, Tanzania, operated by Barrick Gold, toxic sludge from mine seeped into the Thigithe River. A report from the surrounding villages alleged that the toxic material led to the deaths of 20 people and to fish, crops and animals dying from the contaminated water.

April 6 – July 11, 2007 Toronto Ventures Incorporated (TVI), a Canadian mining company in Zamboanga, Philippines. During a heavy rain the TVI’s sulphide dam collapsed, the toxic mine tailings it flowed down to Siocon river and into the sea. Two days after have been found out the silt it reached up to 3 meters thick.

January, 2006. a cyanide leak in the central Czech Republic has killed several tonnes of fish in the river Labe (Elbe) flowing to Germany.

OCTOBER 11 and 31, 2005, PHILIPPINES: Lafayette Mining’s Rapu Rapu polymetallic project in the Philippines had two spills of process treatment water allegedly causing cyanide contamination of nearby waters with the first causing a small fish kill. Accounting to 16 gold tailings dam have collapsed in the Philippines in recent years.

JUNE 20, 2005, LAOS: A cyanide spill occurred at the Phu Bia gold mine in Laos, operated by Australian company Pan Australian Resources. The cyanide killed fish in the nearby rivers and poisoned villagers within at least 3km of the mine site. Numerous sources in Laos, including government officials have reported that at least 60-100s of villagers fell ill as a result of poisoning after eating contaminated fish and drinking contaminated water. Despite confirmation by the government owned media that hundreds of villagers were poisoned from the cyanide spill, the company has claimed that no one suffered illness as a result of the incident. Read Mineral Policy Institute’s report at: http://www.mpi.org.au/campaigns/cyanide/phubia_cyanide/

JANUARY 11, 2005, GHANA: Wexford Ghana Limited at Akyempim in the Western Region, a subsidiary of Bogoso Gold Limited and owned by Golden Star Resources spilled cyanide into River Kubekro.

OCTOBER 23 2004, GHANA: A cyanide spill occurred from a new tailings dam of Canadian company Bogoso Gold Limited into the river Aprepre, which serves as drinking water for surrounding communities, as well as other rivers including Egya Nsiah, Benya and Manse. Villagers downstream found hundreds of dead fish, crabs, shrimps and other life forms floating on the river. Some members of the community harvested and ate the fish before they received information about the spillage. http://www.ghanadot.com/news.ghanadot.kunatehg.html

OCTOBER 2004 WESTERN AUSTRALIA: A report commissioned by the WA Government into the tailings dams at the Kalgoorlie Gold mine confirmed that the mine has been leaking cyanide into the surrounding groundwater which was contaminated by cyanide and heavy metals. Surrounding community members have been complaining of impacts for over a decade but the company had previously denied the allegations.

JANUARY 30 2004, AUSTRALIA: A report commissioned by the Western Australia Government into the tailings dams at the Kalgoorlie Gold mine confirmed that the mine had been leaking cyanide into the surrounding groundwater. Surrounding community members had been complaining of impacts for over a decade but the company had previously denied the allegations. (Media Release by Robin Chapple, MLC, WA Legislative Council).

AUGUST 7 2004 PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Cyanide was discharged from the Misima mine, a subsidiary of Placer Dome, during decommissioning of the minesite, polluting oceans around the small island. The discharge resulted in poisoning of marine life, with reports of dead fish found floating in the oceans confirmed by the company as linked to the discharge. (The National, PNG, 11 of August).

JUNE 25 2004 CHINA: The State Council of China reported seven cases of leaks of lethal chemical products in the past week, which claimed a total of 21 lives across the country. The latest was a hydrogen cyanide gas leak from a gold mining plant in Beijing’s suburban district of Huairou that killed three people and left another 15 hospitalized. (Source: People’s Daily Online, 25th June 2004).

MARCH 21 2004, GHANA: Villagers near Prestea Sankofa Goldmine, a concession own by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) in the Western Region spotted a cyanide spillage in their river and reported the matter to the mine. http://www.modernghana.com/news/52509/1/controversy-brews-over-cyanide-spillage.html

MARCH 24 2004, NEW ZEALAND: About thirty-five people were evacuated from a Lower Hutt transit depot as emergency services mopped up a toxic chemical spill. Two 180-litre drums of cyanide solution were damaged inside the Mainfreight depot, possibly by a forklift.

MAY 29 2003, GHANA: A cyanide spillage occurred at Tarkwa gold mine in the Wassa West District, when the dangerous chemical spilled from one of three newly constructed pipelines. http://www.miningwatch.ca/canadian-mining-companies-destroy-environment-and-community-resources-ghana

JANUARY 14 2003, NICARAGUA: A cyanide solution spill took place at the Canadian gold-mining company HEMCONIC and/or Greenstone in Bonanza, in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region, dumping cyanide into the Bambana river. Health workers from local Indigenous communities reported the deaths of twelve children who are suspected of having been poisoned by drinking water from the Bambana River.

JANUARY 2003, WESTERN HONDURAS: A massive cyanide spill at the San Andrés mine, department of Copán, Western Honduras, contaminated the Lara River, which feeds into the river providing drinking water for the town of Santa Rosa de Copán. Even though local inhabitants reported witnessing company employees hauling away evidence, they managed to amass some 18,000 dead fish, a testament to the environmental destruction caused to the now lifeless river and to the ecosystems it nourishes. The chemicals killed off fish in the Lara River, which flows into the Higuito, the main supply of potable water for the Santa Rosa de Copan region, one of the cradles of the ancient Maya civilisation. Minosa was slapped with a 54,000-dollar fine for contaminating the environment after a cyanide spill was discovered.

DECEMBER 2nd, 2003 USA: A cyanide spill was reported near the Briggs Mine in Balleratt.

JUNE 18th 2002, GHANA: The residents of Togbekrom, a farming community near Akyempim in the Wassa Mpohor East district of the Western Region, appealed to the Minister of Environment and Science to come to their aid immediately. Due to the closeness of the mine to the village, the cyanide being used by the company in its operations is giving them a lot of health problems.

JUNE 9 2002, NEVADA, USA: Leaching process solution used at the Denton-Rawhide Mine, located in Mineral County, Nevada, overflowed containment structures from a ruptured pipe triggering the mine’s Emergency Response Plan. Approximately 40,000 gallons of dilute cyanide process solution spilled into the environment. The spill was caused by a failure of a weld on a 16-inch diameter pipeline that was carrying process solution from a lined storage pond to a lined heap leach pad. The process solution is at a concentration of about 140 parts of cyanide per million parts of solution, resulting in a spill of approximately 47 pounds of cyanide.

MAY 16 2002, NEVADA, USA: Twenty-four thousand gallons of cyanide solution were spilled at a mining facility, Twin Creeks Mine, owned by Newmont Mining Company. A Nevada official said 10,000 gallons entered a creek. In recent years, the owner of the proposed Crandon mine spilled cyanide twice, including a 13,000 pound spill of cyanide in Arizona. In another accident, 300,000 cubic yards of mine wastes were spilled into an Arizona creek. (Source: Humboldt County News – 16 May 2002)

NOVEMBER 2001, CHINA – Eleven tonnes of liquid sodium cyanide leaked into a tributary of the Luohe river in Henan province, China over the weekend after a traffic accident. The Luohe river is a shallow tributary of the Yellow River, the cradle of Chinese civilisation and a major waterway in northern China. Livestock Animals were poisoned and at least one person sickened by contamination.

OCTOBER, 2001, GHANA – Villages in the Wassa West District of Ghana’s western region were hit by the spillage of thousands of cubic metres of mine wastewater contaminated with cyanide and heavy metals when a tailings dam ruptured at a mine operation owned by the South African company, Goldfields.. Virtually all life forms in the River Asuman and its tributaries were decimated, and people’s livelihoods are endangered. Scientists fear the cyanide and heavy metal residue from the spill could remain for decades posing a health and environmental threat to the people and wildlife in the area.

OCTOBER, 2001, GHANA – Two weeks after the previous cyanide spill in Ghana, a second cyanide spillage occured in Ghana again, this time in a swamp area that provides the local people with mud fish, local medicines and bamboo for a wide range of uses.

JUNE 30 2000, PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Rio Tinto’s Lihir mine spilt cyanide into the ocean. The Australian Government’s Export Finance and Insurance Company (EFIC) provided $US250 million in finance guarantees to this mine. (The guarantees were provided after the United States Export Credit and Investment Insurance Agency OPIC rejected the Lihir project on environmental grounds.) The Lihir proposal approved by EFIC used 1800 tonnes of highly toxic sodium cyanide annually to extract gold at the mine site. The process leaves considerable cyanide concentrations in the tailings.

Baia Mare Gold Mine, was partly owned by the Australian company Esmerelda Explorations.


JANUARY, 2000, ROMANIA/HUNGARY – Thousands of tons of fish died in the Tisza and Danube rivers from a cyanide spill last year near Baia Mare in northwestern Romania. 130,000 cubic yards of cyanide-tainted water was discharged from a gold mine reservoir into river systems in Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia. The incident is described as Europe’s worst river pollution disaster in a decade. Biologists estimate that at least 5 years is needed to restock fish there, and 10-20 years for most river life to return. The upper Tisza was one of Europe’s cleanest rivers and was home to at least 20 species of protected fish. Rare Osprey, river otters, fox, many other birds, mammals and wildlife are known to have died from ingesting poisoned fish. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/feb2000/cyan-f15.shtml

DECEMBER, 2000, GUYANA: The Essequibo region of Guyana is again the victim of mine pollution that has caused widespread harm including rashes, diarrhoea, and vomiting among the residents after using the river water. This latest incident comes five years after the August 1995 gold mine disaster at Omai, where 3.2 billion liters of cyanide tainted waste contaminated the Essequibo river which also lead to discoloration and health problems. Communities downstream from the Omai gold mine have reported a “reddish, silty” discharge in the Essequibo making the river, which is the main or only source of water for many villages, unfit for use.
AUGUST 1995, GUYANA – More than 3.2 billion litres of cyanide-laden tailings were released into Essequibo river in Guyana when a dam collapsed at the Omai gold mine. Studies by the Pan American Health Organization have shown that all aquatic life in the 4 kilometer long creek that runs from the mine to the Essequibo was killed.

December 6, 1993, the Marcopper Mining Corp / Placer Dome Inc’s earthen dam collapsed, four million metric tons of toxic mine waste/tailings contaminated with cyanide and heavy metals spilled into the 26 kilometers river. To this day people are suffering a horrifying diseases. (to follow the whole story, please watch the documentary film ‘Bleading Heart’). Since 1967 – Grasberg Mine is the largest gold mine, and the third largest in the world. Owned by Freeport – McMoRan, New Orleans, but recently moved its headquarters to Phoenix, Arizona, it is on the island of New Guinea Irian Jaya (now called West Papua) estimates that it generates 700,000 tons of waste a day. http://www.npr.org/2011/11/16/142346962/in-indonesia-anger-against-mining-giant-grows.