Gold Mining

We should all be familiar by now with the controversy surrounding diamonds. Blood diamonds brought the abhorrent activities taking place in Sierra Leone to the world’s attention. I’m now going to bring your attention to the issues creating by gold mines. It is not quite as extreme a case as diamond mining in Sierra Leone but it is an issue nonetheless. Gold has always been the ultimate symbol of wealth and success. It fuels our greed even more than things that are necessary for our survival. This greed has a distinct tendency to make people disregard consequences that are not immediately relevant.

The environment feels many of the consequences of mining first and foremost. Mining practices are not sustainable and involve water pollution, deforestation and cyanide and mercury contamination. Both mercury and cyanide are chemicals used to separate gold from the ore and the waste is often left to runoff into our water systems. You can read about the effects of cyanide here and the effects of mercury here. Deforestation is an obvious detriment to our planet’s health so instead of explaining I will supply you with a link to learn more about it.

Recently Argentina has been working to pass a bill that would protect glaciers in the area around the country. Opposing this bill is Canadian company Barrick Gold. They have plans to relocate three glaciers in the Andes in order to gain access to gold and other minerals that lay beneath them. This is an undeniably harmful act that will threaten global ecosystems and it is a demonstration of the lengths these companies will go to for some mining privileges.

Many of these companies hope to exploit the labour in South America but the indigenous people are putting up a fight. Protestors are making a difference and shutting down mines all over the continent. Governments are doing what they can to support the people but the Central America Free Trade Agreement is making it hard. A portion of the agreement allows corporations to sue these governments for lost economic opportunities. How can developing countries fight for what they want when these transnational corporations can sue them for all they’re worth?

There are many reasons that mining practices are unsound for the environment but for those who need more convincing there is the fact that mines are just not safe. There’s the infamous incident in Chile last year where 33 miners were trapped underground and the mining company could not even afford to get them out. If they can’t afford to save the people they are endangering they shouldn’t be allowed to mine at all. This kind of thing occurs across the globe.

Here are some statistics for mining casualties in the United States- a country with all the latest technology and resources required for keeping people safe in the workplace.

All Mine Safety and Health

                                                                     

	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010*
Number of mines	14,478	14,666	14,885	14,871	14,907	14,631	14,264
Number of miners	329,008	344,837	363,497	378,123	392,746	355,720	360,563
Fatalities	55	58	73	67	53	34	71
Fatal injury rate1	.0184	.0183	.0220	.0199	.0156	.0115	.0234
All Injury rate1	4.05	3.92	3.64	3.43	3.25	3.01	2.81
Total mining area inspection hours/mine2	51	45	43	44	56	59	63
Citations and orders issued3	120,588	127,766	140,082	144,192	173,932	174,354	172,035
S&S citations and orders (%)	33%	32%	32%	30%	29%	32%	35%
Dollar amount assessed (Millions)4	24.8	28.1	42.8	129.4	142.4	137.0	146.4

We have to start asking ourselves why it is that we risk so many lives and so much of our planet –which is essential to our well being – for something that is so trivial to our existence?