2024-07-10 13:39:20
From our correspondent in Abidjan – In Côte d’Ivoire, 3,000 litres of sludge contaminated with heavy metals and cyanide accidentally flowed into the Cavally River in the west of the country on June 23. The cause: a ruptured valve in an evacuation channel at Ity Mine, the country’s oldest gold mine. Nearly 200 people were poisoned. In a country grappling with the environmental and health threats posed by clandestine gold mining, an industrial accident has raised questions regarding the booming mining industry.
When the residents of Ouyatu collectively felt vomiting, headaches and severe body pain, they immediately thought of the gold mine adjacent to the village. Hundreds of dead fish were later found on the river bank.
According to a government press release issued a week following the accident, 185 people were “mildly poisoned” and noted that “the source of the pollution has been controlled by the mining company.” However, more than two weeks following the incident, village chief Célestin Balla confirmed that many residents still suffer from symptoms.
The mine’s director initially denied the river was polluted but was forced to admit it following the Ivorian Anti-Pollution Center (Ciapol) confirmed it. Three days following the incident, the company’s technicians were sent to the site to take preliminary samples from the water, and work will continue this week.
“Cyanide is extremely toxic, but it degrades relatively quickly, and as far as the river pollution is concerned, we expect everything to return to normal next week,” Ciapol director Bernard Yapo said in a telephone interview on Thursday, July 5.
A controlled event?
Endeavour Mining, which manages the mine, quickly replaced the damaged valve that caused the incident. She has since confirmed it was “restricted”.
The Canadian company continually downplayed the situation to the media, first explaining that the symptoms observed by residents might also be caused by malaria and that the mass die-off of fish was just a rumor.
Celestine Barra’s comments angered the village chief, who claimed that the mining company took more than two weeks to agree to reimburse residents’ medical expenses and did not conduct medical examinations on residents to predict possible long-term health effects. “We are really questioning our health,” he sighed.
The village has no water and is forbidden from eating fish. “But it is essential for the village’s food supply,” said Célestin Balla, explaining that one child’s mouth was covered with sores following he ate fish following it was contaminated.
The relationship between residents and the mine has been up and down over the years. Many buildings in the village have been blown apart by the explosives used in the mine, and dust has been everywhere.
However, the company has also invested heavily in the local area, and many villagers have been able to find work there. Previously, the negative impacts had been minimized. “Today, for the first time, we are aware that they pollute water and nature and put our health at risk,” concludes Célestin Balla.
A legal and fiscal system that favours industrial mining
Will such a serious accident lead the Ivorian state to review its active policy towards the development of the mining sector? This seems unlikely, as the sector has helped to increase state tax revenues over the past decade (nearly €600 million in 2023, almost 20 times as much as in 2012).
Under the 2014 mining law, Ivory Coast encouraged large foreign mining companies to invest in the country and exempted them from VAT. As a result, committed funding increased sixfold in a decade. Between 2012 and 2023, the number of research licenses increased from 120 to 189, and operating licenses and currently operating projects increased from 9 to 28.
“The legislative and fiscal framework is very favourable. Côte d’Ivoire is an ideal country to do business in,” added an executive at Montage Gold, which is building the country’s largest mine, called Project Koné.
“Here, projects are set up very quickly and can be completed within one or two years, whereas in other parts of the world such projects often take up to five years to complete,” he stressed.
The industry prefers gold panning to exploit the gold-rich underground soil
The state wants to exploit the country’s underground resources, which are rich in gold, because it knows that this might turn out to be a curse. There is a name for this: clandestine gold mining, which is practiced on a large scale in the country.
This illegal mining of profits not only evades tax, but is also very dangerous for population health and the environment. “The government wants to encourage the development of industrial mines because they set real social and environmental standards, and we adhere to those standards,” said the Montage Gold executive.
In other words: with such fertile soil, it is better to leave it to professionals and let them operate within the legal framework.
“The environmental, health and social consequences of clandestine gold mining are well known,” said Yassante Konan, a researcher with extensive field experience at the University of Korhogo. “Accidents are common, especially landslides, which often destroy villages, while cyanide is used in large quantities with almost no precautions to ensure it does not end up in the environment.”
“Around the sites I was able to visit, everything was burnt and you might clearly see the contaminated soil,” Hyacinthe Konan assures. The fields are no longer arable, but the landowners don’t care as long as they get a share of the gold mined locally. “The pull of gold is stronger than anything else.”
The impact on population health is clear. The researcher explains that in several studies carried out in the Shire region, he found a large number of recurring cases of bronchitis and skin infections, even among those who did not work in the mines.
But it is its social impact that the geographer speaks most passionately regarding: “Illegal gold prospectors come to relatively poor villages with large amounts of money. It is common for women to leave their husbands to follow the gold prospectors, which offers them the opportunity for better living conditions, which creates tensions with local residents.
Formalize the sector
It’s a problem the authorities are trying to curb. Sometimes through repression, actions to drive out gold miners and destroy their mines. But most importantly, efforts to formalize the sector, whether by encouraging local employment in industrial mines or developing artisanal mining, also known as “semi-industrial.”
“School camps” have been set up across the country to train people living in areas where clandestine gold mining is most prevalent. Their goal is to teach good practices to gold miners so that they can formalize their activities and subsequently apply for semi-industrial mining licenses.
As a result, the state has significantly relaxed the rules for obtaining these licenses, making many gold miners legal. However, according to Hyacinthe Konan, we often see practices very similar to those observed in clandestine mines.
Especially since a large part of these permits are resold to unethical operators who pay no attention to social or environmental requirements. “The state issues many permits but there is almost no control behind them, so the priority is competition for profits,” the researchers conclude.
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