Dear Editor,
I refer to your headline ‘Gold rush could be stymied by EU, US mercury crackdown’ in the Stabroek Business of January 20, 2008 and specifically to the statement by your columnist: “The Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) which has spoken out against other environmentally unsound practices in the mining sector has not taken a similarly robust position on the use of mercury in the mining sector.”
For the record, the association’s position has been enunciated at several seminars and meetings, and on television, even as of Wednesday’s programme Miners World broadcast on June 11 on Channel 11 (NCN) at 19:30 hours.
Accepting that your columnist was not aware of our position on the use of mercury, they should have contacted the association to ascertain same before publishing the article.
The association reiterates its position:
1. It is against the mining laws to use mercury for processing; mercury is only legal for the purposes of amalgamation, whereby a retort must be utilized by the miner. This is supported by the association.
2. It is the association which fought for several years to have an approved retort for the mining industry. This project was eventually funded by CIDA via the GENCAPD programme, and these retorts are now available to the industry.
3. Despite general statements on the issue, the association is still awaiting the findings, specific to Guyana, from the several groups GENCAPD, WWF et al, which undertook several studies over the years on the mercury contamination of rivers, its impact on fish, the communities and miners, stating where this was found, and whether or not it is directly linked to the mining industry.
4. That the miners would immediately switch to an alternative, once it can be demonstrated that it can amalgamate the gold produced by the average miner.
Yours faithfully,
Edward Shields
Executive Director
GGDMA
Mr Shields makes a point about his organisation fighting for retorts to be made available to miners, and also that the retorts are now available to miners.
Could Mr Shields give an average on how many miners now use retorts?
I have been in the mining industry for sometime now and know that retorts are the approved equipment to use when burning mercury. But yet few miners actually use the retorts.
They claim that getting a retort is very difficult.
Mr Shields needs to lobby GGMC or apply for funding for a program where all miners are issued with retorts.
A lot of miners claim that mercury retorts are difficult to acquire.
GGDMA should pressure GGMC to make retorts available at all mining stations in the interior. When Mines Officers visit mining camps they could issue retorts to those operations that claim that retorts are difficult to acquire.
In such a way, all mining operations will have mercury retorts and then GGMC can properly implement the approved method of use of mercury.