Eyewitnesses Report on Rainforest Cyanide Disaster

http://www.albionmonitor.com/9-18-95/eyewitness.html

Eyewitnesses Report on Rainforest Cyanide Disaster

by Jan Roberts

"This mine cannot be allowed to ruin our river"

(AR) LONDON, England -- "Last week I saw the waters flowing past my town turn a filthy brown. The cyanide waste came like a great brown slick covering the water from the mine 80 miles upstream. The whole river turned brown," Leon Carrington, one of the few eyewitness to the Omai gold mine cyanide disaster in Guyana, told American Reporter News Bureau on his arrival in London last night. The river before the spill "was so rich," he said. "It is about a mile wide. It was full of fine fish. Its waters were naturally black from the rain forests. It had giant otters, dolphins, porpoises. It flowed down between the mountains through the forest. Jaguars, deer, monkeys, all drunk from it." "When I traveled by boat towards the mouth of the river on my way to the airport, there were dead fish everywhere. It made me sick to see it," he continued. "Others told me they had seen dead pigs floating belly-up down the river and even a dead crocodile, all poisoned by the mine." Carrington comes from the Guayanese town of Bartica on the Essequibo River, 60 miles south of the Omai gold mine, the source of the cyanide. "Please help us," he appealed. "This mine cannot be allowed to ruin our river." His appeal for help was backed by Brennel Archer, the political leader of Bartica, a town of 15,000, and of Region 7, a local government entity that includes the Omai mine.

Cyanide River Disaster in Guyana

http://www.albionmonitor.com/9-2-95/guyana.html

by Roy S. Carson

Shoals of dead fish and hogs floated downstream

GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- The leaking dam that poisoned a vast river system in central Guyana was plugged August 24th, but only after hundreds of millions of gallons of deadly cyanide-laced slurry drained for five days from a gold mine's tailings pond into a 50-mile stretch of the Essequibo river, killing fish, domestic animals and wildlife by the thousands. The 600-mile Essequibo was polluted with about 825 million gallons of cyanide-treated wastewater from the huge pond. Cyanide is used to separate fine flakes of gold from other materials in the second stage of the mining process. The solid hydrogen cyanide salt used in gold processing is highly toxic, and the Associated Press reported that it can be deadly in concentrations as small as 2 parts per million. The mine's owners said there was no major damage done to the river and no evidence of loss of animal or aquatic life in the Essequibo, a claim that few took at face value. A report in the English-speaking nation's major daily newspaper, the Guyana Chronicle, and earlier reports carried by the Associated Press, say shoals of dead fish and hogs had floated downstream on the Essequibo to Bartica, a mining village of 15,000 people some 50 miles south of the mine, South America's largest.

[Editor's note: The Albion Monitor has followed the "Cyanide River" disaster since it occurred last August, with the most recent report in May. Earlier stories can be found by following links in that article or by using the search options available from the front page.]

"Cyanide River" Company Makes Big Promises

by Bert Wilkinson

(IPS) GEORGETOWN, GUYANA -- Just about this time last year, production machines at the Omai Gold Mines, the glittering jewel in the crown of Guyana's revitalized economy ground to a halt. This was three months after a dam holding 3 million cubic meters of cyanide-tainted mining waste broke at its seams several months after the firm had applied to the government for permission to deliberately contaminate the waterway, saying its waste dam was full. More than three million cubic meters of the slurry spilled into the Omai and Essequibo rivers. For members of the local environmental movement, their worst fears were realized and for the Canadian-run company, Omai Gold Mines, its credibility with the government and Guyanese people was at its lowest ebb. The spill killed fish and other marine life and discolored the larger Essequibo river for several weeks, forcing thousands of residents along the waterway to discontinue use of the rivers for domestic and commercial purposes.