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Rapu rapu Update: Mineral Policy Institute calls for responses on the future risks of Lafayette Rapu Rapu operations
The Mineral Policy Institute continues to await responses from Lafayette mining corporation on outstanding environmental and social concerns with their operations, and potential links to the disasterous mudslides that lead to deaths on the island. For a number of weeks MPI has requested disclosure surrounding ongoing risks of the company's operations and the disastrous typhoon that hit the island of Rapu Rapu earlier this month, but has not received responses to key questions regarding the operation.
The recent typhoon led to at least twenty deaths on the island. In its ASX announcements the company has stated that the mine area is 2km from the village where mudslides lead to loss of life. However information received by MPI following a recent investigatory trip to the island conducted prior to the typhoon by Netherland based Banktrack Secretariat indicates that the village of Mogabado, in which mudslides lead to numerous deaths is only around 200m from company infrastructure such as the loading station of the operations. The investigations also found there to be significant concerns and opposition to the operations amongst villagers on the island. Recent fact finding mission by civil society groups in the Phillipines indicate that local people believe that the company's activiites, including blasting and explosions from the mining activity are partially responsible for the mudslides, which they claim have occured only in areas of the island surrounding the mining activity.
Lafayette mining has refused to clarify the exact distance between the mine’s infrastructure and the location of the mudslides in requests made by via email correspondence with the company and over the phone with Lafayette managing director since the typhoon. They would only say that the mine pit was 2km from the village. MPI has sent Lafayette a formal letter and now continues to await for a meaningful response to these queries.
MPI has had ongoing concerns regarding Lafayette’s disclosure regarding the operations, and after being contacted by a shareholder of the company earlier this year, submitted a complaint to the Australian Stock Exchange over the company’s reporting of its social licence to operate and the findings of government agencies regarding cyanide spills at the mine.
The pollution adjudication board, the Philippines quasi judicial agency charged with making decisions on the company’s permit following the spills appears to have its own concerns over the company's corporate disclosure, and made the following statement cautioning the company in its decision in September to extent the test run for the Rapu Rapu operations “The respondent is strongly advised to exercise prudence and caution (bolded in original document) in making press releases which might unduly pre-empt the deliberations and decision of the board on this matter.”
MPI has also requested the public release of third party studies that Lafayette was required to commission as part of the conditions allowing it to temporarily reopen the mining operation earlier this year. The company refused to release them at this point, claiming that while they were willing to do so, they need to get permission from the government to do so.
MPI remains concerned over the appropriateness of Lafayette’s activities on the island, and is urging the company and its financiers, in particular Abn Amro, ANZ and Standard Charter bank to make a responsible evaluation of the operations in light of all the known risks associated with the project. In a letter sent to the company MPI stated:
“MPI shares many of the concerns expressed to us by Philippines organisations regarding the appropriateness of your mining operation on Rapu Rapu island. As I explained on the phone, it is our assessment that these concerns are reasonably held, based on the significant risks and impacts associated with operating a highly sulphidic and acid producing deposit in a high rainfall area in the typhoon belt, and the important ecological values that are a basis for local people’s livelihood. We are eager to see transparency and disclosure on the company’s short term and long term evaluation of these risks and impacts as a means of promoting discussions on a responsible way forward.
While we are pleased to hear that your environmental management systems withstood the impacts of the typhoon this time, it is our understanding that they were operating with a mandated freeboard and at initial stages of operation, not anywhere near full capacity at the time of the typhoon. We are gravely concerned about the possible implications that a typhoon of similar intensity as we saw last month could have in the later stages of mining operations, when were your tailings dams will be operating at a higher capacity and thus under greater pressure and much more susceptible to overflow or collapse.”
In an incident that has no known links to Lafayette’s operations, but highlights the human rights problems associated with operations, a human rights lawyer who represented community members in a class action against Lafayette’s Rapu Rapu mining operation following cyanide spills at the mine has been shot dead, together with his driver in the city of Sorogoson. Atty. Gil Gujol, the lawyer of Sorsogon-based complainants who filed a class suit against Lafayette last year, demanding compensation for the damage allegedly brought about by the Lafayette mine spills has been killed in what is believed to be a politically motivated killing.
The killing is the latest in a spate of political killings and disappearance that have been condemned by international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, and the subject of diplomatic pressure from other nations at a recent ASEAN meeting in Manila.
The Mineral Policy Institute maintains a watching brief on the Rapu Rapu project, sharing concerns with Philippines institutions including the Catholic Church in the Philippines and international organisations such as Greenpeace that the operations of an inexperienced miner on Rapu Rapu island, located in a typhoon prone region with high rainfall and containing highly acid forming materials in the deposit presents unacceptably high risks to local people and to the environment. Irregularities in environmental management of the mine as well as corporate governance and tax arrangements were highlighted in early 2006 by a number of reports commissioned by Philippines government agencies, including a series of breaches of environmental management protocols and conditions.
For more information, please contact:
Techa Beaumont
Executive Director
Workphone: +61 2 9557 9019
Mobile: +61 (0) 409 318 406
Created: 18 Dec 2006 | Last updated: 18 Dec 2006
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