Sep 14, 2004 (The Denver Post - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX)
-- A water shortage was just one reason why hundreds of farmers invaded
Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp.'s Yanacocha gold mine in Peru earlier this
month and showered police with a storm of stones fired from slingshots.
The farmers oppose a proposed mine expansion because they fear it could reduce
and contaminate water supplies they need for growing potatoes and watering
livestock.
Newmont executives at Yanacocha have suspended exploration at the proposed
expansion area, called Cerro Quilish, and point to a two-year water study
recently completed by Boulder-based Stratus Consulting.
"The outcome of that study was very clear," said Nick Cotts, Yanacocha's
communications director who has worked for Newmont in Peru since 1993. "In no
way has Yanacocha affected water for human consumption." The Sept. 3 attack by
farmers, and an ongoing roadblock, has become a financial and public-relations
headache for Newmont, majority owner of Yanacocha, the world's second-largest
gold mine.
The problems at the Peru mine come at an especially bad time for Newmont, the
world's largest gold producer. Last week The New York Times published a scathing
account of water pollution at Newmont's gold mine in Indonesia, and the company
is also butting heads with environmental groups as close to home as Nevada and
as far away as Turkey.
At the heart of Newmont's Peru controversy is Cerro Quilish, a pyramid-shaped
mountain that Newmont executives have long wanted to mine for its 3.7 million
ounces of proven gold reserves.
But local farmers oppose the expansion because they revere Cerro Quilish as an
apu, or sacred mountain, that they say supplies necessary water. They blame the
gold mine for their water woes, even though the entire region is suffering from
a three-year drought.
Protesters say that seven policemen and 27 farmers were injured during the
melee, which police brought under control by using tear gas fired from a
helicopter. Since then, the farmers have blocked all the roads leading into the
mine, and protests have mushroomed at Cajamarca, a city of 100,000 that lies 30
miles away from the mine.
As many as 10,000 people filled Cajamarca's main square Thursday, according to
Peru's El Comercio newspaper, and demanded that the government rescind the
permission it gave Yanacocha in August to begin exploring Cerro Quilish. Those
attacks turned violent when students began throwing rocks at government
buildings in downtown Cajamarca, which provoked police to fire tear-gas
canisters that sent 10 people to the hospital, according to El Comercio.
Marco Arana is a Catholic priest who is one of the leaders of the protest.
"When the campesinos (farm workers) take their burros to the river, the burro
does not want to drink because it is yellow and smells bad," Arana said. "The
burros know it is polluted even though the engineers of Yanacocha say it's not."
Cotts said Yanacocha is willing to launch another, completely independent, water
study to dispel doubts about the Cerro Quilish expansion.
"The issue is confidence and transparency or doing the study in an independent
way so that the community can trust in the results," Cotts said.
Cotts says the mine is operating at full capacity, even though only about 3,000
to 4,000 workers -- roughly half of normal -- are currently working there. The
company is renting two 24-person helicopters to shuttle administrators and key
workers to the mine each day, an estimated 500 people. Workers are living on the
premises and rotating through four-day shifts.
"It's expensive," said Cotts, who confirmed that the mine is spending hundreds
of thousands of dollars per day to stay in operation. He said that contractors
are unable to reach the mine.
Last year, Yanacocha produced 2.9 million ounces of gold at an estimated $527
million in profit, according to production figures and prices released by
Newmont. Cotts could not yet say whether the mine's stated 2004 goal of 3
million ounces would be affected by the ongoing blockade.
Newmont executives are hoping for a speedy resolution that Arana and others are
currently negotiating with Peru's Ministry of Energy and Mines. The latest
proposal, Arana said, would cancel Yanacocha's permit to explore Cerro Quilish
until another water study is completed.
Unless an agreement is reached, government leaders will launch a regional strike
against Yanacocha that will block not only local roads but national highways, as
of Wednesday.
By Ross Wehner
To see more of The Denver Post, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.denverpost.com.
(c) 2004, The Denver Post. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511
(U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail
reprints@krtinfo.com.
|