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CONTENTS 1.
Land dredging threatens
Kaieteur Falls' beauty...
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1. Land dredging threatens Kaieteur Falls' beauty By Gitanjali Singh, Stabroek News- 22 November 1998 Murky waters now cascade from the internationally famed heights of one of Guyana's natural wonders, Kaieteur Falls, as a result of large scale land dredging upstream of the Potaro River. A tour operator yesterday predicted that if the land dredging continues for much longer, the natural vegetation around the waterfall will perish--acatastrophe for the fledgling tourism industry in Guyana. "I have never seen anything like this in my life [as a tourism operator]. TheKaieteur Falls is red, red, red," the operator who preferred not to be named said. A pilot who flew the area with the tour operator a few days ago described the water from the falls as resembling that of the Demerara River. "Thefalls is not its usual lovely Pepsi colour. It looks a lot like the Demerara River... It is filthy and absolutely horrible," the pilot who also preferred anonymity said. The pilot reported that he saw four to five land dredges in the Ikarak River, which is some 30 miles upstream from the Kaieteur Falls. This area is believed to be in the extended boundary of the Kaieteur National Park. He said he observed tons of silt and sedimentation flowing into the IkarakRiver which flows into the upper Potaro River. "Right now the Potaro isfilthy red with very high levels of sedimentation and it is flowing directly over the falls into the lower Potaro River," the pilot stated. The pilot said that only once before had he seen the discolouration of thePotaro River and that was when land dredges were in the Maikwak area and sedimentation was dumped into the Maikwak River. "But this is the worst I have seen and it is getting worse daily. The water has been losing its colour [for] about a month now," the pilot said. Residents of the area cannot use the river water for drinking purposes. But apart from this, pollutants from the mining activities and the sedimentation being poured into the Potaro River and its tributaries are threatening the natural vegetation of the area. "It will mess up the entire eco-system," the pilot predicted, alluding to the green moss under and around the Kaieteur Falls which will be killed eventually if the mining activity continues. Questions abound as to what the government is doing about mining in the 'head water' of the Potaro River and its tributaries which will always threaten the eco tourism potential of the area. Stabroek News was reliably informed that Prime Minister Sam Hinds and the Office of the President have been notified of the dredging activities and its effects on the Kaieteur Falls. However, Hinds was at a PPP/Civic (ruling governments party )meeting yesterday and could not have been contacted for a comment.
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2. Top team in emergency check of Kaieteur Falls Mining signs seen 11 miles upstream Stabroek News, Georgetown-23 November Evidence of mining has been seen 11 miles upstream of the world famous Kaieteur Falls and a team is being dispatched overland to verify the source of sediment which has fouled the waters gushing from the tourist attraction. A government team yesterday paid an emergency reconnaissance visit to the Kaieteur National Park in response to reports of land mining contaminating the internationally famed falls. The visit followed a report in yesterday's Sunday Stabroek which quoted a pilot and tour operator assaying that the heavily silted flow over the falls was the worst state they had ever seen it in. The duo expressed grave concern about the danger the siltation posed to the ecosystem in the area. A press release from the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) yesterday confirmed that evidence of mining was observed about 11 miles upstream of the Falls in the Ikarak River area. "It appeared as though mining is taking place on the land, but the tailings are being pumped into the Ikarak river, which is murky with sediment," Brian Sucre, the GGMC Commissioner was quoted as saying. The GGMC is to meet today to confirm whether the observed miningoperations are authorised or illegal. A technical team is also beingdispatched overland to take samples, verify the true source of the sediment and to take the appropriate steps to ensure that the situation is corrected. However, the release said that after the Ikarak joins the Potaro River, the Potaro maintains its normal colour and only as it approaches the Kaieteur does the murky hue reappear. The release added that the park ranger a tKaieteur has also indicated that the intensity of the discolouration varies every few days. Chairman of the National Parks Commission (NPC), Andrew Bishop called for downstream impacts on the Kaieteur Park area to be mitigated inspite of the fact that the mining operations observed are outside of the established Park as well as the proposed enlarged Park. Bishop, according to the press release, also expressed deep concern at the impact of "irresponsible mining activities on the integrity of the Falls and the Park". The reconnaissance team which comprised representatives from theGGMC, the Environmental Protection Agency and the NPC will be meeting shortly to agree on a way forward with respect to mitigating the downstream effects of mining in the enlarged park, the release said. According to the release, it has been agreed that legislation would soon be passed to establish the enlarged boundaries of the Kaieteur National Park, and for the enlarged area within the boundaries to be closed to mining. The GGMC said that since the enlarged area of the Park had been proposed, it had not issued any new licences within the extended area. In an invited comment, Prime Minister Sam Hinds told Stabroek News that if the reports are confirmed steps would be taken to halt the activities causing it. "Certainly, we could not allow the Kaieteur (Falls) to be disturbed by mining or by any other activity," he said yesterday. Hinds who said that he had heard reports of the turbidity of the Kaieteur waters only on Friday night, expressed his disappointment that the news had not been communicated to the relevant agencies by the persons who had known of the contamination for some time prior to Friday. "I am a little bit disappointed that some people seemed to have known about it - the people in tourism, the people who fly, the people who mine -they are all much the same people and I regret that they could not get together on it. As far as I know the GGMC didn't seem to know about it." Brigadier Joe Singh, however, is concerned about the delay in enacting the legislation which would establish the expanded Kaieteur National Parkwhich would extend from the foothills of the Ayanganna to the headwaters of the Potaro River but excluding the areas occupied by the Amerindian villages around Chenapau. The Army Chief of Staff told Stabroek News yesterday that the turbidity of the waters flowing over the Kaieteur Falls was a manifestation of the mining and activities in the tributaries of the Potaro River. He noted that a similar problem had developed in the Kurupung River in the area of Garraway Stream where people had thrown caution to the wind either because of the low prices for gold, to do as much now before the anticipated effects of the La Nina weather phenomenon, or to mine as much gold as they could before closing down their activities for the Christmas holidays. Roraima Airways' managing director, Capt Gerry Gouveia, however,described the Sunday Stabroek report as alarmist, explaining that while he had not been in the Kaieteur area for the past two weeks, he did not believe the waters were as "red, red, red" as reported in the article. But he said that he would have been in a better position to comment when he received a videotape of the area later in the day. Capt Gouveia said that the Tourism Association of Guyana had been concerned about the dredges in the area and had been trying for some time to get the GGMC to ban mining upstream in the area.
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3. Kaieteur Warnings- Editorial Stabroek News - 30 November 98The government's decision to seek international assistance in ascertaining the origins of the recent sediment flow over the Kaieteur Falls and working out the parameters for the use of space around the majestic site is commendable. Speed is of the essence if this step is to yield tangible results Reports of the sludgy flow over the falls show up how incapable we are as a nation in treating with environmental priorities which in other parts of the world would be grounds for localised or even national emergencies. It also brings to the surface a number of fundamental issues. Firstly, it is evident that though there has been tinkering and grandiloquent rhetoric, early warning systems - whether via the nascent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission(GGMC) are completely absent. This has been profoundly borne out inseveral ways. Prime Minister, Samuel Hinds, who has responsibility for mining and natural resources was quite riled that he had not been notified of the torrents of sediment coursing over the Kaieteur Falls. That is quite clearly an immediate vote of no-confidence in the petrified systems that are in place at some of the agencies that come under his office, the Office of the President and the Local Government Ministry. Why didn't he hear of this long before from the presidential adviser on the environment, Navin Chandarpal? Additionally, if there was any type of ranger system that deployed trained persons who knew what to look for, some warning would have been sounded long before. Secondly, the incapacity of the EPA in this matter must be cause for considerable alarm. A new Executive Director has been recently appointed and officers are being recruited for various key areas. This newspaper has been on record as saying time and time again that the EPA should be accorded paramount priority in relation to its role as a watchdog. Just weeksago, we argued in these columns that the executive director would have toget a grip on interior mining operations relative to their possible impact on the environment. This unreadiness on the part of the EPA was quite ominously revealed in the way that this situation has been handled. TheGGMC - whose primary function is to oversee mining and the natural resources sector - has played the lead role and all press releases have been issued under the hand of its commissioner instead of originating from theEPA which has (or should have) the pre-eminent responsibility for environmental matters. The lessons of the Omai Gold Mines Limited cyanide waste spill were apparently not compelling enough to the government for decisive action in the area of environmental protection and heightened alertness. The EPA needs people on the ground within hours of problems and access to well-equipped laboratories for the necessary assays and analyses. In the 1999 budget, the government would do well to take account of this. Thirdly, the fear of the fouling of the Potaro River impinges on two othe rissues: the pressing need for the mapping and securing of protected areas and the tug of war between competing economic interests. The major part of the Potaro River watershed - notwithstanding the US$5M that Chandarpal says is needed to institute a Protected Areas System - should be declared one such area immediately and technical advice sought on the minimum perimeter required to forestall any threat to it. The government has for too long deferred confronting tough questions of priorities in interior areas and the weighting to be given to the highly vaunted tourism, mining and protection of the environment. If the hype over tourism is to mean one whit, then the breathtaking Kaieteur Falls must be the showpiece of policy in this area and any other activity must be secondary and therefore expendable. There can be little argument for the unchecked continuation of alluvialmining or any extractive exercise that culminates in the dumping of tailingsand chemicals into fragile river eco-systems. Rivers are living and throbbing aquatic expanses which can quite easily be poisoned beyond redemption. The scare over Kaieteur should be a wake-up call for the government and it must lead to the instant elevation of the profile of enviromental policing. The time has also come for more serious consideration of the addition of an environment minister to the Cabinet line-up.
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4. Mining caused falls fouling Stabroek News - 23 December 1998 Mining operations have been established as the cause of the recent discolouration of Kaieteur Falls and systems are to be put in place to ensure there is no such recurrence. A joint press release issued yesterday by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), the National Parks Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said cease work orders were issued to two mining operators on December 4, and the Kaieteur is back to its normal state. "At the present time, the cease work order is still in effect. Before it is lifted, the GGMC and the EPA will have to inspect the provisions made for settling ponds and other aspects of the method to be used to ensure that no undesirable or illegal discharge will be made into the river and the subsequent operations must so demonstrate," the release stated.A technical team was sent into the Kaieteur area to investigate the source of the turbidity after it was reported in the Sunday Stabroek on November 22. A high level government team visited the site on the same day this newspaper broke the news to get a first-hand look at how the Kaieteur Falls was being affected. The release noted that the miners had stopped their operations before the technical team reached the site, as news of the team's visit had already reached the camps. The team comprised a mining engineer and senior mines officer from the GGMC and an environmental officer from the EPA. They spent nine days carrying out various tests to determine the cause of the discolouration.It was discovered that two land dredging operations on the Ikarak River, some 11 miles south of the falls, as the crow flies, were discharging effluent directly into the waterway which flows into the Potaro River, and over the gorge to create the falls. The release said the two land dredges were not working at the time the team arrived but on the basis of the investigations it was concluded that these operations constituted the source of the discolouration seen at Kaieteur Falls. Water quality tests were done at 13 strategically spaced sample sites above and below the mining operations, the release said, and information on dissolved oxygen, turbidity, salinity, temperature and colouration were taken and analysed from each site. The conclusion arrived at by the team was based on the following: (a) The visual confirmation of the government team from low aerial reconnaissance that material was being dumped into the river. (b) The proximity of the sluice boxes to the Ikarak River at the time of the team's visit. (c) The quality and quantity of material being mined at these operations. (d) The amount of tailings found accumulated in the Ikarak River at the discharge area of the sluice boxes. (e) The number of workers at the camp. (f) The link between the date when the operations stopped to the date when the discolouration disappeared. The release noted that the operation is located outside the established Kaieteur National Park, and also out of the area being considered for the enlargement of the park. Although the mining operation was legitimate, the release said, GGMC Commissioner, Brian Sucre, disclosed that the method of dumping directly into the river constituted a violation of the Mining Act. Another illegal aspect of the mining method was that the operation was taking place within 66 feet of the bank of the Ikarak River. A regulation recently enacted states that no mining on a land claim should take place within 66 feet of the bank of any river. Sucre explained in the release that the required practice is that the sediment-laden water from the sluice boxes should first be discharged into a settling pond, and after the sediments have settled, the water is either recycled for 'washing' of gravel or is discharged into the river. "If miners follow these standard procedures, water discharged into any river will have a level of suspended solids that would not have any adverse impacts, such as was observed at Kaieteur Falls," the release stated. |
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5. Kaieteur Falls sediment pollution Stabroek News 23 Decemeber 1998 Although the mighty Kaieteur Falls has returned to its former glory, there are concerns that technical compliance with regulations by miners in the area may not be enough to permit continued operations in that particular zone. Cease work orders were served on two mining operations along the Ikarak River, some 11 miles from Kaieteur, after it was found that they were in breach of regulations. The operations were found to be the cause of the discolouration of the Kaieteur Falls after a technical team visited the area and carried out investigations. In a joint press release issued yesterday by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Parks Commission (NPC), it was stated that if the Kaieteur National Park is enlarged, the boundary is likely to fall close to the Ikarak River. The release said the Office of the President is expected to publish the order enlarging the Kaieteur National Park shortly. Andrew Bishop, land use specialist in the Office of the President, revealed that buffer zones will be created around protected areas to restrict activities which could have a negative impact, the release said, and the Ikarak River is likely to fall in such a buffer zone around the enlarged Kaieteur National Park. "If this turns out to be the case, then the mining activities in the Ikarak River will be required to meet more stringent environmental requirements," the release stated. It said not only will the enlarged area be closed to mining, but areas which are close to the proposed boundary will be hit with more stringent environmental requirements. According to the release, Bishop, in his capacity as chairman of NPC, also gave a commitment to place another ranger at the Kaieteur National Park next year. The GGMC and the EPA are pursuing efforts to provide transport and communications equipment to park rangers at Kaieteur, and to train new staff in environmental monitoring. They will also be trained in essential knowledge in the Mining and Forestry Acts, the release said.Bishop added that the thrust will be toward greater inter-agency collaboration in a given geographical area. There is a distinct possibility that the Guyana Forestry Commission's assistance may be sought in an effort to help conserve the forest resources in the Kaieteur Park area, the release stated. The joint statement said the park ranger at Kaieteur confirmed that the water of the Potaro River has remained normal since the mining operations ceased. It revealed that the EPA has been working closely with the GGMC in all its investigations and the EPA's Executive Director, Per Bertilsson, disclosed that officials of the two agencies visited the area on December 15, and found everything back to normal.
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