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Newmont Mining Corporation: Toxic Waste and the Real Price of Gold Skirting
Responsibilities The self-proclaimed "gold standard for the 21st Century," Denver-based Newmont Mining recently became the largest gold mining corporation in the world following its acquisition of two other major international mining companies. With operations in Australia, Peru, Indonesia, New Zealand, North America, Turkey and Uzbekistan, Newmont had revenues of $ 1.66 billion in 2001 and $1.82 billion in 2000. Newmont claims to be committed to corporate responsibility by "building trust through partnerships with stakeholders, and demonstrating integrity, creativity and excellence in all behaviors." The company also claims to be committed to "excellence with regard to environmental matters." Yet its history involving toxic waste belies these claims. In June 2000, almost 300 pounds of mercury from the company's Yanacocha mine in Peru accidentally spilled from a truck onto the road. Newmont had failed to warn local residents in advance of the danger of the mercury shipments through their communities, and many of them picked up the metallic liquid after the spill and took it home, thinking it was valuable. Within three weeks, between 200 and 300 people were hospitalized with mercury poisoning. The community of Choropampa is still feeling the devastating aftermath of the spill and many residents believe that Newmont has not adequately compensated them for the economic and social costs that the community has incurred. In fact, Newmont's Yanacocha mine - spotlighted on the company's website as an example of the company's commitment to social development - has been a longstanding focal point for concerns about the mining giant's toxic waste. Located at a high altitude near the city of Cajamarca in northern Peru, Yanacocha is the second largest gold mine in the world and Latin America's largest. The mine's equity is owned 51.35 percent by Newmont, 43.65 percent by Buenaventura of Peru, and five percent by the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group. In 2001, Yanacocha produced 1.9 million ounces of gold. As at Newmont's other mining sites, the Yanacocha operation uses "cyanide heap leaching" to extract gold from the ore. Local residents allege that toxic releases generated by the mining process have entered the streams and rivers in the Cajamarca region around Yanacocha. According to a study by the Peruvian government's Technical and Scientific Commission in 2000, levels of aluminum, zinc, copper, iron and manganese significantly exceeded World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines at multiple river and stream sites in the area. At one site, aluminum concentrations exceeded WHO limits by more than 15 times. Newmont has failed to disclose critical information about its toxic releases to the Peruvian public, but information concerning the company's operations in the U.S. underscore the likely extent of its toxic impact in Peru and elsewhere around the world. Under the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA), Newmont has been forced to tell the American public that the company released 260,600,210 million pounds of arsenic compounds, 9,920,143 million pounds of lead compounds and 1,363,000 million pounds of mercury compounds in the United States alone. Yet Newmont has thus far failed to respond to a request from Friends of the Earth in April 2002 to release comparable data for its overseas operations, including the Yanacocha mine. Because this information is not being disclosed, it is simply unknown how many millions of pounds of toxins Newmont Mining Corporation - and the entire mining industry for that matter - are releasing outside the United States. The Need for International Right to Know International Right to Know legislation would require corporations like Newmont Mining to:
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