COSTA RICA AND NICARAGUA DISPUTE OPEN PIT GOLD MINING.
[The following article by Fabiola Pomareda is reprinted with the permission of Noticias Aliadas in Lima, Peru. It appeared in the Sept. 8, 2004, edition of Latinamerica Press.]
The development of gold veins in Costa Rica only 4 km from the banks of the Rio San Juan--on the border with Nicaragua--has sparked a dispute between the two countries because of the threat the project could pose for natural resources in the zone.
The Crucitas gold project is being developed a short distance from a small community called Coopevega in the northern province of Alajuela. There, Industrias Infinito SA--subsidiary of the Canadian firm Vanessa Ventures Ltd.--has 10 mining concessions lasting through 2012 on 305 hectares, where it plans to extract 88,000 ounces of gold a year.
Marco Tulio Anaya, a member of the Frente Nacional de Oposicion a la Mineria, said the company plans an open-pit mine using heap leaching, which employs cyanide to separate the gold from the ore.
"Open-pit gold mining is a devastating activity," Anaya said. "It is necessary to clear away all the vegetation to excavate and remove earth and ore that will be dissolved using water and cyanide. Toxic heavy metals are constantly released and, once the gold is extracted, thousands of tons of polluting waste remain."
Despite the fact that the Costa Rican government issued a decree in June 2002 establishing a moratorium on new open-pit mine projects, Crucitas could not be stopped because in December 2001 the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) had already approved the mine's development.
Thus, in March 2004 the company presented its environmental impact study to the Secretaria Tecnica Nacional Ambiental (SETENA). As part of the process of approval of the study--which should take 6 months to a year--the entity held a public hearing on July 31 to find out the community's position on the issue and to listen to the company's response to arguments by the mine's opponents.
Industrias Infinito, which will only be able to extract gold once SETENA approves the study, has acknowledged the impossibility of completely eliminating the risk associated with the possible rupture of the tailings dam, which could even pollute the Rio San Juan, Anaya said.
The Rio San Juan holds an important tropical wetland on its banks and species of flora and fauna threatened with extinction like the manatee, the green limpet, and the mountain almond tree.
The concerns also have to do with the felling of trees for...
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