Troubled-Waters final

PHOTO: SARAH KNUCKLEY
nearly impossible to control or monitor the
movement and chemical transformation of the
tailings.
River dumping has a long and notorious
history around the world:
q In the United States, companies mining for gold,
silver and copper dumped tailings in streams
and rivers in states such as Montana, Louisiana,
and Nevada into the 1970s. 10 Some of those
watersheds now are among the most polluted
Superfund sites in the country, and the practice
of using streams as waste dumps continues in the
United States today.
q In Papua New Guinea, the Bougainville copper
mine of Rio Tinto dumped eroding waste rock
and more than 500 million tonnes of tailings into
the Kawerong and Jaba Rivers, before protests
and civil war forced the company to abandon the
mine in 1989. 11
EARTHWORkS AnD miningWATcH cAnADA | 2012
q In Peru, Southern Peru Ltd. (now Southern
Copper/Grupo Mexico) dumped more than
100,000 tonnes of tailings daily from the
Toquepala and Cuajone mines into the Locumba
River between 1960 and 1996. 12
q In Japan, the lead-zinc Kamioka Mines (Mitsui
Mining and Smelting Co.) dumped cadmiumladen
tailings without containment near and into
the Takahara and Jinzu Rivers until the 1950’s,
causing painful bone and kidney diseases for
people downstream. 13
River dumping has caused extensive damage
to rivers and associated ecosystems and
resources. Tailings clog river channels and change
their courses, cause floods, destroy vegetation
ABOvE: Local community members are forced to risk their lives
crossing makeshift bridges across a river of tailings waste that is
dumped by Barrick Gold’s mine in Porgera, Enga Province, Papua
New Guinea.
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