VARIOUS: Controversial gold mine project at Kremnica raises environmental and community fears

Record ID: 810735

  • Title: VARIOUS: Controversial gold mine project at Kremnica raises environmental and community fears
  • Date: 10th August 2006
  • Summary: JOZEF FRANZEN, GEOLOGY EXPERT OF THE MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC, WORKING AT THIS DESK GEOLOGICAL MAP OF SLOVAKIA ON WALL (SOUNDBITE) (English) JOZEF FRANZEN, GEOLOGY EXPERT OF THE MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT SAYING: "I think I am not afraid, I know that for sixteen years cyanide was used in Kremnica and I think it is no problem here and it is some surprise
  • Embargoed: 25th August 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Environment / Natural World,Industry
  • Reuters ID: LVABF3XUJELGXFKG2JDK47LDECH9
  • Story Text: The quiet town of Kremnica in southern Slovakia used to be called Golden Kremnica for its rich gold reserves and mining traditions in the Middle Ages. The mining and coin making industry brought much wealth and glory to Kremnica, and it had the highest gold production in the former Hungarian Empire.
    By the late 1990s all high-grade gold was extracted from the hills and the mine was closed in 2002. The people of Kremnica would like to keep it that way and make tourism the main source of income for the town.
    But a new Canadian company has different plans. Tournigan Gold Corporation is working to re-open the gold mine using modern mining with a vast open pit instead of the former underground mining, and applying a cyanide technology.
    They obtained a license to drill last year and they found a deposit of 19 tonnes of gold and 95 tonnes of silver. Tournigan would mine these minerals in an open pit in the place of the present site of the former mining pit but enlarging it considerably. The open pit would be on the hill above Kremnica, about 1 kilometre from the town by air, two kilometres by road.
    Tournigan's Kremnica Gold company would mine with constant blasts during 24 hours, six or seven days a week for about 8-10 years. They would use large trucks taking the ore (raw gold or silver) from the open pit to the top of the mountain away from the city at a plant they would build, and treat the ore at the plant with cyanide leaching. They would then put the waste materials in a waste-fill or tailings pond.
    The investment would cost about 50 million USD and a further 215 million USD as operating costs over 8 years. But the extracted gold would bring in large profits. The company would mine most of the gold and silver and recover most of it. The profit margin they quote is about 150USD to 350/oz and the mine could produce 600,000 to 700,000 oz over the ten years of mining.
    "We chose this site because it is the site... it had 800 years of mining, it had a large gold deposit here at one time. There's still gold here but it's just in a lower grade form, there's not as much of it per ton of ore, so you have to have a new method. This is a new technology this cyanide leaching, so we can come in here and mine on a bulk basis and still make good money. So that's the reason why we're here, it's a good deposit, it has about a million ounces in it, and it's very highly economic," Stephen Stine, mining engineer and Kremnica Gold Project Manager said.
    But most of the town opposes the mine project. The main concerns are the environmental risks of cyanide leaching, the sight of the open pit ruining the natural surroundings, the noise from the constant blasts, the impact of the vibrations on the historic buildings (many with extensive caves and labyrinths), and the impact of the mine on tourism. Kremnica recently received EU funds to develop tourism further and the town would like to attain a UNESCO cultural heritage title.
    But all this could be endangered with the mine project, says the local civilian protest group, Kremnica nad Zlato (Kremnica over gold). Its leader, Zuzana Balazova, has so far collected more than 2,500 signatures in the town of 7,000, against the mine, and the number of signatures is rising each day. She says that if the mine opened many people would leave the town, becoming refugees from their own home.
    "The citizens of Kremnica do not have any reason to respect this kind of mining industry in this town. The problem is that there are no benefits for the inhabitants, especially regarding the fact that the mining industry will pose environmental risks and problems for this town; the tailings, the open pit would be very close to the town," Balazova said.
    But Tournigan says its mine will be safe. The company insists they will strictly adhere to the new EU rules on mining waster issued in March 2006 after the Baia Mare gold mine accident in Romania in February 2000, when most of the wildlife in and along the river Tisza in Hungary was poisoned.
    The new directives require cyanide to be destroyed in the processing plant with none remaining in the production operation. Tournigan expects to consume about 500 to 600 tonnes of cyanide per year, for a mine life of 10 years that is about 5000 to 6000 tonnes of total consumption. The company claims that it would be transported according to a very strict transport plan from the factory to the plant, and stored on site in a restricted area. It would all be consumed and destroyed, with none left at the end of the mine life.
    "What we will do is that we'll use cyanide in the plant according to EU directives, - the best available technology-, but then we will make sure that every bit of cyanide is destroyed before it leaves the plant," Stephen Stine said.
    Tournigan insists that another Baia Mare type of accident cannot happen in Kremnica. Kremnica Gold would only use cyanide in the process plant, and residual cyanide in the tailings would be of very low levels. The tailings pond would be built of rock instead of sand like in Baia Mare. Tournigan also cites similar mining examples that exist in Canada, Sweden, and Finland.
    But locals and environmental groups still say that there is no such thing as safe cyanide use and warn that a disaster like Baia Mare could happen again if any accident or leak occurred at any point of production. This time, though, the cyanide would also reach the Danube and endanger Budapest's water supplies and the contamination could travel further down river. Greenpeace and 70 Hungarian civil organizations sent a protest letter earlier this year to the Slovak government saying the mine would pose serious environmental risks for Hungary too.
    "However closed circuit this cyanide will be used in, some cyanide will still get out into the air from this closed system, otherwise they wouldn't be building a waste storage (tailings). We think that if they are planning a 16 million tons of cyanide waste then even if just 1% of it gets out then it would endanger the Garam river, the Danube and the drinking water base of Budapest," Balazs Tomori from Greenpeace Hungary said.
    Up the Danube from Budapest, in the Slovak capital of Bratislava, government officials do not share the concerns. The Environmental Ministry, which will have to give its approval, says that if all EU and Slovak safety and environmental regulations are met they would grant the permission for the mine. Its geological expert and director of Geology and Natural Resources Division, Jozef Franzen says that cyanide had been used in Kremnica before and there were no problems.
    "I think I am not afraid, I know that for sixteen years cyanide was used in Kremnica and I think it is no problem here and it is some surprise for me that now there is very big storm in small cup of water," Franzen said.
    But the people of Kremnica still recall an officially unreported cyanide accident from the Kremnica mine back in 1971 when the tailings dam broke because of heavy rainfall and they are not reassured by being told that this cyanide method will be a safe one. They would like to have mining as a historical memory best stored in a museum and shown for visitors as the old mining era is in the local mining museum.
    Most gold and other mineral mines were shut down at the end of communism but recently across Central Europe mines are a new attraction to overseas mining companies. Tournigan Gold Corporation also holds a license for uranium mining in south-east Slovakia, they have been drilling near Kosice, and hope to become Slovakia's major miners.
    ""The mines of the Carpathians that were closed at the end of Socialism will become attractive targets, it seems, for the North Atlantic Mining companies as they offer very quick and very vast profits. The only one chance to lower the source of danger of these mines is to stop these in time and start developing the countryside, offering some alternatives for the people who live there, " Balazs Tomori from Greenpeace Hungary said.
    Conflicts will keep evolving from the local inhabitants' wish to put an end to heavy industry and instead tap into their natural resources and develop tourism. And although Tournigan tells the locals that the new mine would actually bring tourism, a kind of mining tourism, so far few people seem to be buying the idea.
    The inhabitants of Kremnica and environmental groups say the safest would be not to have any mine at all, or at least to avoid cyanide completely. Greenpeace Slovakia campaigns for a complete cyanide ban as was done in the Czech Republic after the Baia Mare accident.
    The region's biggest similar conflict is taking place in Rosia Montana, Romania where a Canadian firm calls for extracting 300 tons of gold and 1,700 tons of silver from a 20-square-kilometre (eight-square-mile) area. The project will see half of the local area destroyed and some 2,000 people forced to move from their homes as well as the removal of several churches and cemeteries.
    The Kremnica Gold Mine project is at present at a pre-feasibility study phase that would be followed by a detailed feasibility study. The Slovak government will have to approve it before it could go ahead. The town has no legal say or veto in the matter of what would happen in its close vicinity.
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