This mine is not simply an open pit mine, it also has underground mines that experience water runoff as well.
The contamination of the water alone is astronomical and exponential as time goes on.
February 14, 2014
By Alistar Bland
A global campaign (click here) to boycott what activists are calling “dirty gold” gained its 100th official follower three days before Valentine’s Day.
The pledge was launched in 2004 by the environmental group Earthworks, which has asked retail companies not to carry gold that was produced through environmentally and socially destructive mining practices. Eight of the ten largest jewelry retailers in the United States have now made the pledge, including Tiffany & Co., Target and Helzberg Diamonds. The No Dirty Gold campaign is anchored in its “golden rules,” a set of criteria encouraging the metal mining industry to respect human rights and the natural environment....
...Earthworks estimates that, to produce enough raw gold to make a single ring, 20 tons of rock and soil are dislodged and discarded. Much of this waste carries with it mercury and cyanide, which are used to extract the gold from the rock. The resulting erosion clogs streams and rivers and can eventually taint marine ecosystems far downstream of the mine site. Exposing the deep earth to air and water also causes chemical reactions that produce sulfuric acid, which can leak into drainage systems. Air quality is also compromised by gold mining, which releases hundreds of tons of airborne elemental mercury every year....
...“What we have left in most mines is very low-quality ore, with a greater ratio of rock to gold,” Septoff said.This, he explains, makes the energy required to mine that gold—and the waste and pollution produced in the process—proportionally greater and greater. In other words, dirty gold is only getting dirtier....
I have a conscience. The mine no longer produces wealth. Yet, the people have reestablished a life worth living without the mine. Why didn't that happen in the first place. This is disgusting.
