Giant mining firm Sagittarius Mines, Inc promised a more sustainable operation, which, according to company manager Mark Williams, shall “engage with all our stakeholders in an open, transparent and culturally sensitive manner.”
The company’s operations cover nearly four towns in three provinces here in Mindanao.
“We maintain active, transparent and culturally appropriate engagement with them through various channels including consultations regarding our detailed plans for the project,” Williams said. Adding that the company has reached out to the stakeholders through update presentation, site visits and its mobile information system and its information center.
He also said that Sagittarius Mines, Inc has been trying to push its transparency about its project that its environmental impact assessment was a result of a two-and-a-half year consultation process that involved “17,511 individuals in 102 private and public consultation activities.”
These activities have continued as the company, last year engaged about 9,000 stakeholders during a 12-week disclosure period on the assessment for the project.
“This was one of the most extensive stakeholder consultation program of its kind ever undertaken in the Philippines and exceeded all regulatory requirements,” Williams said, explaining that those issues that the stakeholders have pushed for were incorporated in the planning of the project.
The mining area of the project is in Tampakan, South Cotabato but among those that will get affected by its implementation will be the towns of Columbio in Sultan Kudarat, Kiblawan and Malita in Davao del Sur.
Williams added that the mining firm has also been looking for ways “to mitigate the potential impacts of the project and used this information in developing our design plans as reflected” in its mine project feasibility study.
An example of this process, he added, is the preservation of water quality and quantity as the project “plans have to designed to ensure the proposed mine does not impact on water flow and quality downstream farmers.”
“We have planned to capture excess water and release it during dry periods to ensure downstream users of a reliable water supply – unlike their current water supply, which is seasonally affected,” Williams said.
The company has also dismissed the claim of some groups that it would “hazardous reagents” in extracting the metals as, Williams said, it would “produce copper-gold concentrate from the rock or ore through a process involving grinding and flotation.”
This process will only use water and a combination of lime, potassium anyl zanthate and methyl iso butyl carbonol and that this does not “involve any of the toxic chemicals that are often used by illegal small-scale miners to extract gold, such as mercury. SMI’s process takes place in a controlled environment using non-toxic chemicals.”
The company has been facing massive protests from some Catholic church-backed organizations and progressive groups that have been calling that the project be halted first so that risks that can be evaluated.
The provincial government has not also lifted its law banning the open pit mining process, which the company will use in its project. As a result, the Environment department has not approved its application for environmental compliance certificate even when the company presented an extensive study showing all aspects of the project.
The company has asked the government to reconsider its action on its application, pointing out that under the Constitution and other national laws, the open pit mining process is not banned.
Among those supporting the projects are mayors of those municipalities within the project and Jesuit priest Emeterio J. Barcelon who said that in the present setting, big mining companies have been known to comply with all the requirements imposed on them by their host countries.
