ready to run. look at the depth.., page-7

not to happy with laf YES, the Lafayette mining firm cheated in reporting the volume of its mined metals on Rapu-Rapu Island. Yes, it may have cheated on its tax payments. Yes, it violated mining rules. No, it did not have enough safeguards. Yes, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) was negligent in monitoring Lafayette’s mining operations.

All of these Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Angelo Reyes admitted at last Monday’s Kapihan sa Manila (Hotel). But the repercussions of closing down Lafayette and abandoning the open pit mines could be worse, he said. If the mine is closed and the pits are abandoned, small-scale miners would invade it like they have done on Mount Diwalwal in Mindanao and the result would be much worse. They would dig into the mountainside and tunnels would collapse and kill miners.

Small-scale miners use mercury to separate the metal from the ore. Mercury is a very stable poisonous metal that does not break down. It accumulates in the body and is transferred from body to body. It is ingested by fish and when you eat the fish, you ingest the mercury which increases in your body until you are poisoned and you suffer the very painful Minimata disease that wastes away your limbs and body until you die. Rapu-Rapu would be another gold-rush site where crime and chaos would reign. After the mines are exhausted, the miners would leave and nobody would cover up the pits and plant trees and put the site back to its former condition.

With a big mining company operating it, you can impose controls in the mines and when they are exhausted, the company, under our mining laws, is mandated to put it back to its pristine condition, Reyes said. And anyway, the 30-day testing period does not mean the mining firm will be allowed to continue operating permanently. If the tests are unsatisfactory, Lafayette will be closed.

The testing period, Reyes explained, would be done in three stages to find out the efficiency of Lafayette’s operations. If at any stage it is discovered that there are flaws in the operations and the safeguards, the mines would be permanently closed. Only when everything is in perfect working condition would the firm be allowed to reopen, he said.