A couple weeks ago, I posted about the Pacific Rim Mining Company´s opperation here in El Salvador. A company representative contacted me about her disagreements. I invited her to send a response, in the interest of a balanced conversation. Regardless of your position on the issue, please take the time to read it and consider it attentively. I have not altered the body of the text in any way, but have added my own introduction and closing to fit the article format.
October 11, 2011
I read with interest your blog post regarding Pacific Rim Mining and your conversation with an activist opposing the development of the El Dorado gold mine. Many of the concerns you raise are unfortunately based not on science or fact, but on unfounded rumours and misunderstandings. I appreciate you allowing me the opportunity to clarify. First, some background information. Pacific Rim, through its US and Salvadoran subsidiaries, began investing in El Salvador in 2002, primarily to explore the El Dorado gold deposit where a small gold deposit had been outlined by a previous operator.
Before deciding to invest in El Salvador we undertook a thorough review of the country’s investment and mining laws and spoke to many government officials. At the time, the Government of El Salvador (GOES) was avidly seeking foreign investment and various officials were very encouraging with respect to development of the country’s natural resources. Although El Salvador did not have a robust metallic mining industry in the war years, after the war the GOES established modern foreign investment and mining laws to accommodate the industry. From our due diligence process through to early 2008, the highest levels of government invited and then encouraged investment in El Dorado. We were confident that rule of law would be followed. Over the next 6 years, over $70 million was invested in the project – money that primarily came from the proceeds of a gold operation in Nevada and from equity investments largely from US shareholders. This money was invested in good faith and in complete accordance with all of the country’s laws.
Through this exploration, the El Dorado gold deposit grew to over 1.4 million ounces. Only a small portion of the total exploration licence was explored and many additional prospective areas of the same system remain to be tested. Nonetheless, the amount of gold estimated based on the work that had been undertaken was sufficient to justify the application for conversion of the exploration licence to a mining licence. The first step of that process per Salvadoran law is to obtain an environmental permit, which requires submission to MARN (the ministry of environment and natural resources) of an Environmental Impact Study (EIS). The EIS for El Dorado was submitted in its final form in 2006, after having gone through a technical review by MARN and a public comment period. The final EIS incorporated changes to the mine plan based on the results of MARN’s review of the document and the public comments they received. If you are unaware, an EIS is a very thorough study that not only provides abundant baseline environmental data, it also includes a mine plan detailing how the deposit will be mined, how the ore will be processed and how the waste will be handled. The El Dorado EIS was prepared by a very reputable international environmental firm completely arms-length to the Company. It contains over 4 huge volumes of material and in their technical review of the submission, officials at MARN told us it was the most thorough EIS they had ever seen. I will come back to the El Dorado mine plan later on as this design has many key elements that are either not well understood by those opposing the operation or are blatantly ignored.
Unbelievably, 6 years on, the EIS continues to sit in MARN’s office. It has not been approved (despite absolutely all indications from MARN along the way that it would be) and importantly, it has never been denied. It is in limbo.
At first, we believed this delay was a result of a lack of infrastructure. As I’m sure you are familiar, lengthy bureaucratic delays are not uncommon in El Salvador. The President of El Salvador at the time, Tony Saca, continued to assure us that the application would be dealt with and the permit issued. We were repeatedly asked to be patient. This went on for 2 years when suddenly, in an abrupt 180, Tony Saca publicly announced in 2008 that he was opposed to mining and would never issue a mining permit. Suffice it to say we were dumbstruck. We had done everything according to the book and in many cases had far surpassed the guidelines and regulations we were required to follow, we had used our investment to build a sizeable asset that would have otherwise not have been recognized, and we had provided an opportunity for El Salvador to bring jobs to an impoverished region of the country with virtually no economic opportunities. In the international mining industry El Dorado is a no-brainer, in no small part because of its extremely low environmental risk, so the benefits of this proposal far, far outweighed the risks. We were flabbergasted. A few months later we made the very difficult decision to stop investing in El Salvador. We had to lay off the 200+ employees we had in Cabanas, which was truly heart-wrenching, and most of our administrative staff. We had to cease our many community programs – again, heart-breaking. These programs had included: set up of a tree nursery from which over 60,000 trees have been planted in the region and provided free of charge to any resident; funding of free eye health clinics and the provision of free glasses to those who needed them; the construction of a laundry center to help keep harmful chemicals out of the local streams; various construction projects to improve accessibility and safety at local schools and hospitals; funding and construction of housing projects (similar to Habitat for Humanity); sponsorship of local football teams and events; establishment of a free training center for seamstresses; the removal of tons of refuse from the local river system; establishment of a literacy program for employees; and establishment of the first recycling center in northern El Salvador. There are others that escape my recollection. We believe we have the moral obligation to help alleviate some of the challenges facing the communities where we work. We are far from a corporate bully trying to pillage El Salvador’s gold and leave nothing behind.
On that note, one common misrepresentation repeated by those opposed to the development of El Dorado is the statement that 2% of the profits of the mine would remain in El Salvador. This is a gross misrepresentation. The mining sector is taxed at a higher rate than any other industry in the country. Sales are taxed at 2%. After that, earnings are taxed at 25%. Then there are employment taxes, value added taxes, import taxes, etc. We will be the greatest single contributor to the tax base in the country, not to mention the largest employer in the region.
Water accessibility and quality is a major concern in El Salvador as in most Central American countries. We recognize that and have planned for El Dorado to operate without cutting into the local water supplies, which is frankly pretty rare for a gold mine. In fact, the El Dorado operation will provide water to the area, not consume it. As you know, there is no shortage of water in this tropical country; rather a shortage of collection and distribution systems, and sewage plants.
El Dorado is designed to make use of very localized rainfall, not river or groundwater sources. The plan is to collect rain that falls on the tailings impoundment area and use it in the extraction process. (As an aside, the tailings impoundment area is a natural drainage basin that will be damned up at the end in order to create a reservoir to contain the ground rock or ‘tailings’ from which the gold and silver have been extracted. The damn is designed to withstand an earthquake 30% greater in magnitude than any earthquake ever recorded in this part of Central America.). The reservoir will hold water from the rainy season and use it in the dry season. The mine will need about 70,000 litres a day but has been designed to recycle the vast majority of the necessary water, so that water from the reservoir can adequately make up the daily shortfall. In fact, excess water can and will be occasionally discharged from the impoundment into a local stream, having first passed through a water treatment facility that will ensure it is safe to use. The water passing through the treatment plant will be far cleaner than the water currently flowing in local surface drainages. Sadly, the local rivers – the main source of water for most people in the area – are highly polluted with defoliates, detergents, pesticides and bacteria. So again, contrary to the anti-mining scare-mongering, El Dorado will not cut into local water accessibility. If anything, it will improve it.
What about water quality then. We repeatedly hear claims that cyanide, which will be used in the ore processing plant, will make its way into the environment and pose a serious health risk to people and the environment. Absolutely not. Most people know cyanide can be poisonous and recoil at the thought of its presence in their community, but the industrial use of cyanide is something most average people know nothing about. It is transported through every major city and highway in the US and Canada every day and is used safely by many industries in virtually every industrialized country – including the textile industry which is prominent in El Salvador. In fact the mining industry only uses about 15% of the cyanide used in industrial activity worldwide. While mining does not use the majority of cyanide in circulation, most gold mines do use cyanide to extract the gold from the rock in which it is encapsulated. That is to say, it is used in mining operations around the world, every day, in a safe manner. Modern technology ensures its safe transport and use, and an international arms-length body has been established to monitor its use in mining. Companies volunteer to have their cyanide use audited and publicly reported, and our intent is to submit El Dorado to this assurance procedure. It might interest you to know that there has never been an accidental death due to cyanide in the modern, western mining industry. In contrast, over 1,200 people die every year in El Salvador alone from handling farming chemicals.
We have taken extra pre-cautions in the El Dorado mine plan to ensure that the cyanide used in ore processing remains safe. Firstly, the processing plant is designed to be a closed system where the processing fluids (including the cyanide) are recycled internally. The vast majority of the fluids will therefore be removed prior to the tailings leaving the facility. Some fluid will remain in the tailings however and this material will be subjected to an industrial process known as the INCO process, which in a nutshell involves the conversion of cyanide into cyanate (a harmless compound) through oxidation. The tailings that leave the plant are therefore devoid of any cyanide. Cyanide can not exist in a normal environment because it is readily broken down by natural processes such as sunlight exposure. Whatever miniscule amount of cyanide that may be left in the tailings, having escaped recycling and INCO process oxidation, would therefore naturally and quickly break down once it was exposed to sunlight. Nonetheless, the tailings impoundment area will be double-lined to protect the substrate from any theoretical cyanide leakage. I might point out that this ‘belts-and-suspenders’ approach far exceeds Salvadoran environmental regulations and even exceeds both Canadian and US regulations. The El Dorado mine is being designed as a ‘top of class’ facility that we hope will set new standards in the Americas for environmental protection.
As I mentioned earlier, El Dorado had been in operation in the 1950’s, at which time cyanide was used to extract the gold, but without all of these modern protections. No INCO processing, no tailings linings, no water treatment plant. Today, 3 generations have lived and farmed on top of the old tailings area (remember, these tails were not treated like they would be today) with absolutely no ill effects.
We don’t just bill ourselves as an environmentally and socially responsible company; we are environmentally and socially responsible by design. We explore only for a specific type of gold deposit that by nature has the lowest environmental risk of any. El Dorado is one such deposit. The deposit consists of underground gold- and silver-bearing veins consisting entirely of quartz and calcite. There are no other minerals that can cause environmental harm by virtue of the extraction of these veins, unlike many other kinds of gold deposits. Acid rock drainage can not occur because there are no sulphide minerals in the veins. In fact, the El Dorado veins have less deleterious minerals in them than the surrounding rocks in which they are contained. Because it will be an underground operation, El Dorado will have very little surface impact. The only surface expression of the operation will be the processing facility (with a total footprint of less than half a square kilometre) and tailings impoundment. No families will be moved, no highways diverted, no streams or springs impacted.
I would like to address the issue of several murders which have occurred in Cabanas in the past several years. Various individuals and organizations have falsely and libellously accused Pacific Rim of having a role in these homicides. We abhor violence of any kind and have publicly stated that on many occasions. We acknowledge every stakeholder’s right to their informed opinion about mining and have publicly pleaded on numerous occasions for non-violent expression of these opinions. We have absolutely never engaged in any kind of violent action and have instructed our employees to conduct themselves accordingly. Despite our consistently professional behavior throughout our time in El Salvador, the complete and utter lack of even an iota of evidence suggesting our involvement, and formal investigations clearing us of any role, those opposed to mining in general and/or El Dorado specifically continue to insist these particular murders are linked to Pacific Rim and/or the issue of mining. We joined the chorus of pleas calling for the proper authorities to investigate each of the murders that we were accused of having a role in, and cooperated fully in these investigations. We were also publicly exonerated (in response to these rumours, not because we were being officially investigated) by both the National Police and the Attorney General’s office. I would also like to point out that we have never blamed anyone for these murders, including “local men desperate for jobs”. Unfortunately, many of the anti-mining and anti-development groups that protest Pacific Rim and the El Dorado mine do not have the same standard of behaviour; our employees in El Salvador and the US have been directly threatened with their lives and our property has been damaged. Armed bands of thugs representing one of these groups held several of our employees hostage on one occasion during which time they threatened to rape our Salvadoran environmental engineer, and have cut down swaths of the trees we planted in our reforestation program. These are not environmental protectors – they are criminals and rogue activists. In their unscrupulous way, they have undertaken a campaign of misinformation that does nothing to serve the interests of the people they are supposedly trying to protect.
I can not get into a discussion regarding the CAFTA action as it is an ongoing legal process. I can clarify your assertion, however, that Pacific Rim “purchased a dead US company in order to exploit the advantages of CAFTA”. The CAFTA action was filed by Pac Rim Cayman, LLC (“PacRim”) a US subsidiary of Pacific Rim Mining Corp. PacRim has been in existence for nearly 2 decades. It was originally domiciled in the Caymans but was repatriated to the US in 2007 as part of a re-organization of the corporate structure, well before the Company commenced the CAFTA action and well before there was any event that could have formed the basis for an action.
We, like you Nanelle, made the decision to invest in El Salvador with the aim of starting a legitimate, sanctioned business that would employ local people and use El Salvador’s resources in a productive, mutually beneficial manner. We, like I assume you, followed all of the country’s laws and conducted ourselves in a professional, responsible manner. Image that you saw an opportunity in El Salvador, looked into the laws and business climate and saw that your ideas were viable, sold your house and your business and invested everything into a new venture in El Salvador, perhaps in the coffee industry. Imagine that you needed a permit to start your business and doing everything required of you to obtain that permit. Imagine your frustration as your permit sat, waiting, for approval. Imagine your shock when you were told that despite your following the rules and investing everything into your venture, you heard the President one day say that no new coffee roasters would be allowed because he didn’t like coffee, and besides, it was bad for you and would cause massive harm to the people of El Salvador. Despite the fact that coffee roasters were legally allowed and neither harmful nor destructive, despite the fact that your coffee roaster met or surpassed all of El Salvador’s specifications and protections and despite the fact that you did everything the law required of you to obtain the permit. Now scale that up by several orders of magnitude and you have an inkling of the predicament we are in.
The fact of the matter is, El Dorado is an environmentally safe deposit and the mine plan is wellplanned, well-designed and will be operated safely and conscientiously. It will bring much-needed jobs to a very poor area with no other economic opportunities. The El Dorado mine will be a far less damaging and environmentally-risky industrial activity than many others currently in operation in El Salvador. It has the potential to positively impact many people’s lives for the foreseeable future, with sustainable benefits that will last long past the mine’s ultimate life. Pacific Rim is an upstanding company, run by reputable, ethical people. We work hard to ‘build bridges’. Sadly, they keep getting metaphorically torn down by rogue, foreign-funded anti-mining and anti-development organizations, to the detriment of not just Pacific Rim but the many Salvadorans this operation will benefit. Thank you again for the opportunity to respond to your article. I am always available to answer any questions you or your followers may have.
Kind regards, Barbara Henderson,
M.Sc., P.Geol.
VP Investor Relations and Corporate Secretary
Pacific Rim Mining Corp.
And there you have it. I thank Ms. Henderson for her detailed response. There is much more to discuss about the matter. Please take advantage of the opportunity to put forward your questions and concerns, or ask for further details about specific matters brougth up, all within the intention of an open conversation among people concerned about the most positive long term outcome for the area.
Commerce Group, San Sebastion, Gold Mine, El Salvador, a nearby stream
October 12, 2011 at 1:29 am
I still supporting my goverment, and the people that is oppossing to this proyect until an independent agency can surely afirm that pacif rim, later wont change his versions. there is nothing in writing, to force Pacific Rim to acomplish all their promises ? . If the goverment change his mind their reason may have, and I am very glad that pacific rim trhu his representative deny anything to see with the murder of the people that opposse to them.
if we as citizens of ES have a idea why this murders are happening in cabanas is not because we directly saw Pacific Rim doing such thing, but judging the facts of what this people has been doing and why they are reciving treats and those treats are becoming a reality to the people that oppose to the mine proyect.
October 12, 2011 at 8:14 am
Well said Juan Carlos. I am not convinced of many things about the project, and have questions still. It would be frustrating for the president of a country to promise a permit that never came through, but it is also, in my opinion, incorrect for a president to promise a permit that is reviewed and issued by a government office removed from his. It wold be a little bit like the president promising either the conviction or acquittal of a person on trial. It may happen, but it shouldn't. I'm not fully educated about how and when the permit process stalled or reversed, and its relationship to the timelines of other political changes. but if it is actually the president who makes the decisions about mining permits, well….. there is a new president at this point, and it should be his prerogative to make decisions independent of illegal obligations laid now on him and his administration by the previous one. I don't think it would have been legal for Saca to issue the permit. I could be wrong. I frequently am.
I doubt that every single portion of the movement opposing the mine has completely benevolent motivations. I'm sure there are those who would seek the denial of mining rights in order to benefit from it later on down the road. But on the other hand I am convinced there is a huge body of true believers out there risking their necks, and it is not out of ignorance. Their interest is not supported only by theories or possibilities, but by the effects existing and past mines have had on their surrounding communities and environments. Every mine is different. It would be interesting to look at the long term results of similar mines, possibly in different stages and afterward. The information I have read so far, would convince me to vote, "No" for a mine in a region where I lived.
I agree that farm chemicals do tremendous damage, Though it is universally agreed they kill people when mishandled, and have cumulative effects from season after season of over-use on both the environment and the people in it, they are legal and pervasive. Pointing to the fact these chemicals are poorly regulated and overused, yet legal and everywhere is an important thing to do, but I do not see it's relationship to the question of of the right of the Salvadoran government to regulate an unrelated industry. It also does not address the fear that your portrayal of cyanide as harmless and easily gotten rid of without ill effects sounds curiously like arguments put forward by Monsanto about the safe and beneficial nature of those same chemicals which you just stated killed an alarming number of people here in El Salvador last year. Im just saying….the companies selling them sell them based on how safe and beneficial they are (when properly handled), not based on how many people they kill annually. And their literature is all supported by scientific study, normally accompanied by pictures of a lovely green field and a smiling child.
I think the Insane Clown Posse said it best in their unfortunate work, "Miracles" … Seconds 1:50 through 2:00. DO NOT watch the whole thing, it's the WORST video I've ever seen, but the tiny excerpt says exactly how I feel when scientist tell of the safety of poison. Clearly it's a miracle of some kind. (seriously terrible song. very sad to see)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-agl0pOQfs
Fuckin Magnets, how do they work?
BBBWWWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA
October 12, 2011 at 1:32 am
May be Pacific Rim is not paying people to kill those that oppose to the mine proyect, but people has been kill in ES and is not people that is in favor of the mining proyect. and belive me I wont be happy if the oppositive happen and are the pacifc rim company amployees the one get hurt.
How I say I apreciate that this company reyects such way of intimidate to the people that opposse to thier proyect. or may be I need to remember that in el salvador you dont need to have a reason to kill somebody, that based on news people kill them self because they hate each other. and always there is a justification for that in my country.
I will be happy that the goverment and pacific rim get in to an agreement and left everything on paper, to dissipate all the fears and all the doubt that we salvadorans at the and of the proyect will get only empty promisses and carrie all the cost of fix anything that the mining company do not honor to do.
October 12, 2011 at 1:16 pm
It seems to me that this company took a gamble with a corrupt government and lost. I think that trying to compare their situation to yours is a bit of a stretch. The coffee bean industry has been an established form of income for this country for decades where mining is an unchartered territory. Outside investors coming in and buying local coffee beans boosts the economy and helps local farmers, there are no guarantees that mining would do the same.
October 12, 2011 at 9:24 pm
Thank you nanellenewbom, is completly true everything you express. could you add to your blog a spell corrections for those like me that english is not the first lenguage, it will be so easy and practical to express our opinion, some times I feel like if I run out of vocavulary and I have to use the diccionary alot. and take me long time, jajajajaja thank you. your blog is wonderful.
October 12, 2011 at 10:14 pm
My goal is to write the blog in Spanish next year. Then you can correct my spelling!!
October 12, 2011 at 11:28 pm
NOOooOOOOO I can practice english here, I like it in english. and for sure I will be happy to help you with any word that get on your way and hold you back like happen to me, I have to re-write everything back some times, but is fun I learn and I love the Shakespeare lenguage.
October 12, 2011 at 9:34 pm
what a long justification…still, it should ultimately come down to the people, the "sovereign" people of el salvador to decide if they want this project or not. personally i do not agree and do not support it. regardless of the amount of gold laying under ground, the environmental damage done to the land and its geologic and hydro systems will be catastrophic. el salvador is a very small, impoverished country, the levels of pollution and environmental damage is already severe as is. i hope the people at the MARN are smart enough to deny those permits once and for all. el salvador does not need pacific rim. if anything el salvador should nationalize those gold deposits and extract them for themselves, it could go toward paying off the national debt. but still, even for that, let's not completely destroy el salvador. let's retard its demise for a few more years. i just wish the government and the people, as a society, invested more in education, health and human development. a small country like el salvador with such a small population should be too difficult to uplift from poverty if people, both in government and the common folk, take responsability for their actions and make the right decisions. greetings : )
October 17, 2011 at 1:45 am
They shound nationalise their gold deposits? That sends a great message to the international community. Why would any international company ever want to invest in them again? Besides, what’s the point in nationalising the deposits when you have no experience and a lack of technology to ever extract it in a proper environmental way (what this whole ordeal is supposedly about).
“the levels of pollution and environmental damage is already severe as it is” – which is always the case in poor developing countries, not due to new mining technology, but because of the lack of infrastructure; sewage plants, inproper use of farm chemicals, recycling centers and old mines of the past. How will this pollution ever improve without foreign investment in both money and technology?
As long as there are strict guidelines, laws and accountability, surely mining would only help the people of ES? I live in a developed country where coal mining has been rife, and Potash mining has started in the last few years. We do not have polluted rivers and ruined environments because it is all done responsibly.
October 17, 2011 at 6:47 am
I do agree it is probably a bad choice to nationalize the deposits, and that there would be significant problems of every kind, but I would see the point in it. The thought is not without merit. The point would be to shift away from foreign investment toward independence, toward developing the countries own skill-sets absent external contributions. I’m not convinced that external investment is the only way to improve infrastructure here, and am suspicious that it has long term, unneeded and negative side effects. improper use of farm chemicals, poorly regulated recycling plants etc are huge problems which only underscore the countries currently weak system of environmental protection. Constant allegation of corruption to me tend to mean it’s not a good time to forever commit huge national resources into the direct control of foreign investors. In my opinion you are correct that effective long term economic development does include solid honorable and mutually beneficial relationships with foreign investors. I also think internal solutions are the ones that work best, and that placing the repair of a damaged environmental system into investment’s hands is not a good choice.
October 13, 2011 at 12:25 am
No estare de acuerdo NUNCA con ningun proyecto minero en el salvador, primero : por que el salvador es el pais de el (SI) pero (NO), como asi?
SI hay leyes pero NO se aplican, Si hay Ministerios para proteger el medio ambiente pero estan hundidos en corrupcion y NO Funcionan, SI hay diputados que dicen proteger los intereses de El salvador y los salvadorenos pero No hacen su trabajo. y por ultimo SI no hay garantias que Pacific Rim honrara su compromiso de extraer el ORO salvadoreno de las minas en forma eficaz y sin mas contaminacion de la que ya tenemos, NO habran permisos para extraerlo. amenos que haiga reglas claras y lineamientos que garanticen que El Salvador va a quedar mas sucio de lo que ya esta.
October 13, 2011 at 12:25 am
I will never be agree to grant any mining proyect in El Salvador. Why????? FIRST: because ES is the country of the YES but NO.
YES there are agencies and people to protec the emviroment But they DON`T thier job.
YES there is agencies to protect the emviroment but they are sink in corrupcion.
If there is not clear rules and guidelines and compromises, as well, from pacific rim to clean any mess that come out from their proyect, well there will be no mining permits. I HOPE SO
October 13, 2011 at 12:26 am
I invite the companies interested in drill the hills to get the gold out of el salvador to sit with the actual goverments and reach and agreament in wich there is no way that if something goes wrong in the mining proyect and everything turn in to a mess, Pacific Rim will not hacitate to take full responsability and will compensate the country and the people affected by the hypotetical mess if there is such ecenario.
I will be very upset if something is offered to me and later after I spent my money everything is deny.
But lets deal with the compromises first on paper and then may be the goverment change his mind.
until that happen I will firmly and strongly opposse to any mining proyect in the country.
October 13, 2011 at 12:27 am
I understand the fustration of Pacific Rim but is responsability of Pacific Rim to Offert all kind of guaranties to ES Goverment, to ensure that they do not waste their money, time and the time of El Salvador that there is not much by the way.
May be is true, May be Tony Saca was not agree in how much ES will get back from that deal or the deal was not atractive enougf to him, everything can happen in El Salvador where the politicians decide of the little resourses that the country has. and yes I am sure, some people in el salvador will sell their soul for some dollars from that proyect to get personal benefit. that is not new in el salvador and is an endemic practice.
October 13, 2011 at 9:46 am
The law in El Salvador requires finacial securities or bonds be posted prior to the issuance of environmental permits to cover any likely damage caused to the environment or private property as a result of an opperation. In the case of a mine, this would be a very substancial bond. This and the fact that mining opperations are internationally scrutinized, especially if they are publicly owned, should be an assurrance that an international, public mining company could opperate in El Salvador with little problems. Unfortunately, the senerio of a "government or local" company opperating a mine is not generally a good one! A look around El Salvador will show what an environmental disaster that is! Corruption and pollution are everywhere!
October 13, 2011 at 9:47 am
In addition, the President of a country does not rule as king! Democratic countries have laws that are in place to make the society run smoothly and openly. The fact that an individual or small group objects to something does not change the fact that there are laws! Law needs to be followed, or changed but you can not ignore them as El Salvador has done! Without rule of law anarchy usually follows!
Who opposes mining in El Salvador? International NGO's and local radical activist groups. Why not ask the people in Cabanas near the mine what they want? The majority of these people want the project! A handful do not! The later few are vocal, agressive and intimidating; my way or no way!
October 13, 2011 at 12:02 pm
I no longer brew beer but I did for many, many years. I quit because of the flood of micro-brews that hit the market and because I started working out-of-country (20 years ago). My experience in beer making was that it was something "geologists" did in their spare time to support their drinking habbits! In fact, I know quite few geologists who left the business to start their own brew-pubs.
I was excited to learn that you husband started a brew-pub in San Salvador and had plans to visit your establishment, possibly making it a regular watering hole for staff friends and myself.
Unfortunately, your liberal politics make it impossible that I will visit your business anytime soon! Good for you, maybe? I doubt it, however, having spent 9 years here seeing how interesting bars and restauraunts come and go!
Opinion without seeking out the facts is propaganda! I am not interested in listening to your propaganda! Bye! Bye!
October 13, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Roberto, I am sorry to hear that. It is always my hope that people can have differing opinions and still be respectful of each other. I welcome input from those I disagree with, and hope that becomes the norm. I respect your policy of spending your money only at establishments owned by people with whom you share opinions. I hope you continue to research it well, and apply it passionately. Too bad you got out of brewing, I hope you take it up again! You are officially the first person ever to call me a liberal! Whoot! I´ve been called a nazi, but not a liberal, so thanks for balancing it out. On a side note I thougth I was being pretty fair by sending through all the opposing views, including this nice long one from the company. I remain convinced that it should be El Salvador´s choice about the mine, and unconvinced that the conversation is propaganda.
October 17, 2011 at 3:16 am
Interesting discussion. Two points I would make are firstly that Nicaragua has a thriving gold mining industry and we hear nothing about environmental problems or protests there and it generates a lot of economic growth and jobs for the people of that country. Secondly I understand that the El Salvador Government has commissioned an International panel of experts to report on the matter of mining and the strategic environmental issues ? Presumably the experts will talk to all parties and their opinions and conclusions should be respected ?
A quick google revealst the report is due 'soon' have any of the protagonists in this debate come across the report or had any interaction with the experts ? Has this been mentioned in local or national press of El Salvador ?
http://www.stockhouse.com/Bullboards/MessageDetai…
October 17, 2011 at 7:05 am
That is very interesting and thank you for the link. I’m interested to read what the report eventually addresses and how. I’m interested in the 10% gift from condor to the UK charitable trust. In any case readers, follow the link.
October 17, 2011 at 7:16 am
and it's extensions such as http://www.stockhouse.com/Bullboards/SymbolList.a…
October 23, 2011 at 8:22 am
It is a pitty bic corps are destroying countries, just to get money profits. SInce El Salvador is a country with a very, very small territory…any damage to its enviromment, will affect and damage it at all. That very simple fact is enough to opposite any mining "developing" project. It is well known that, after mining has destroyed a land, there is no way back to its recovery! What Pacific Rim will do, to compensate all the damage is causing to the area of exploration and, to restore the damage already caused… There are deaths claimed!
October 23, 2011 at 2:21 pm
It is not a black and white issue. We should await the findings of experts and then the discussion between stakeholders and the democratic representatives as to what is best for the people of the whole country.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaluaci%C3%B3n_ambi…
October 25, 2011 at 12:26 am
Has pacific Rim made any comments about how their cyanide settling ponds would survive the recent flooding. We don't need a Bhopal just because it rained
October 25, 2011 at 7:58 am
The response they sent here mentions the ponds, and described them as solidly built. I do not know what amount of rain they are designed to handle, and the response I have here is not totally clear on exactly what amount of rain the pools could take without overflowing.
October 25, 2011 at 10:00 am
Thought this was pertinent as it is relatively big news in the United Kingdom today. It furthers my earlier point about these issues not being black and white. The local community and their council and the custodians of the National Parks seem to be taking a very mature decision based on a trade-off, accepting in simplistic terms short term localised 'environmental damage' for long term benefit of the wider community and Parks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-15441901
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-central/276189-s…
October 25, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Readers, Please follow the link. Those trades happen daily. One can only hope the trade is well designed and the 50 jobs (if I heard correctly) the article cited are worth it to the surrounding area.