lost rivers lost lives
lost rivers, lost lives
marcopper spill on marinduque island, the philippines
corporations: placer dome (canada)
© rod harbinson Upstream from Mogpog town the poisoned river runs multicolored with toxins. In the background lie the remains of one of many failed dams, constructed by the Mancopper mining company.
On December 6th 1993, the mine siltation dam on the Mogpog River on Marinduque Island in the Philippines was overwhelmed by floodwaters and burst. A toxic deluge swept through the valley, submerging villages, farmland and the town of Mogpog where two children were swept to their deaths.
Ten years on, affected residents have not received compensation either from the Marcopper copper mining company or from its biggest shareholder, the Canadian mining giant Placer Dome. The response of the Asian Development Bank, which had facilitated Marcopper with a total of US$40 million in loans for the mine on the strength of a Placer Dome guarantee, was to chase after its money and ignore the plight of the people of Marinduque.
lost rivers, lost
lives
The legacy of that day remains profound.
The Mogpog River winds through lush
tropical forest and once plentiful
farmland. Previously the centre of social
activity, food and livelihood, residents
have learned through rashes, sores,
sickness and death to stay clear of the
river's toxic waters, which are still a
multicolored cocktail of chemical waste in
which nothing lives. “This place was
paradise before Marcopper arrived,” said
Manong Fred of Magapua village, as he
described how the floods had washed away
his ground floor kitchen and poisoned his
crops.
Unbelievable as it may seem, the spill was neither the first nor the last on the island. Calancan bay had previously been poisoned by 84 million tons of waste sludge ‘tailings’ dumped there between 1975 and 1988. When the furore by local residents finally put an end to this practice (outlawed in Placer Dome’s home country Canada), the mining company started using the disused Tapian mine pit as a ‘temporary’ way to contain its waste without undertaking any environmental assessments.
In March 1996, sludge tailings started leaking from a badly plugged drainage tunnel from Tapian pit into the Makulapnit and Boac Rivers. Over the next five days, three million cubic metres of sludge tailings had completely clogged the rivers, killing all aquatic life. A United Nations expert assessment mission declared that the “Makulapnit and Boac River system has been so significantly degraded as to be considered an environmental disaster”. Investigation into the toxic spill revealed that Placer Dome had ignored industry standards, expert advice, environmental laws and government directives.
compensation woes
In 1997, Placer Dome attempted to dodge
its creditors and liabilities by
transferring its Marcopper shares to MR
Holdings, a shadowy company it registered
on the offshore tax haven of the Cayman
Islands. Later, it transferred ownership of
all Marcopper’s assets to MR Holdings
including the mining rights – with the
intention of re-opening the mine once the
fuss has died down.
Frantic not to see its loan vanish into
compensations for disaster victims, the
Asian Development Bank twisted arms in
order to receive its money from MR
Holdings. With Marcopper effectively
bankrupt, Placer Dome and MR Holdings are
playing hard to find. On several occasions,
LRC-KSK/Friends of the Earth Philippines
has unsuccessfully tried to serve a court
summons on the companies’ ‘letterbox’
offices in Manila. Villagers are in
agreement about their priority of getting
the river rehabilitated. One of the
plaintiffs at Candahon village said “I
think that Marcopper and Placer Dome should
rehabilitate all damage that they have
caused and restore the river to the state
that it was in before they came. They
should compensate everyone that they caused
damage to.” What the villagers want is
modest: payment for the loss of their
animals, crops and possessions. Most of
all, however, they hope for the
rehabilitation of their lost river.
more information
:
Friends of the Earth Philippines:
www.lrcksk.org
Mines & Communities:
www.minesandcommunities.org/Company/pl
acerdome1.htm
