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Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 08:18:22 -0700 ENVIRONMENT: By Pratap Chatterjee SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 24 (IPS) - The Canadian gold mining company, Cambior, is fed up with the criticism of its operations spread by environmental activist Dermod Travis. So Cambior has taken out an injunction to obtain a court order to keep him quiet. Travis, of Recherches Internationales Quebec (RIQ), has been writing to financial institutions alerting them to environmental problems that have been associated with Cambior's mining activities. Exactly two years ago this week dead pigs fish and livestock floated down the Essequibo river, the main source of water in Guyana, after a holding pond at Cambior's Omai gold mine broke and spilt 3.2 billion litres of cyanide-laced waste into the river. That accident is believed to be the biggest such disaster in mining history. In March this year, three Guyanese citizens, who set up RIQ with Travis, filed a law suit against Cambior in a Quebec court for compensation for the environmental and health problems caused by the spill. In June Travis sent out a letter on RIQ's letterhead to such banks as Chase Manhattan, Bank of Nova Socita, Royal Bank of Canada and Nesbitt Burns, who were considering loans to Cambior to develop the La Granja gold mine in northern Peru. ''Cambior has demonstrated a serious disregard for the ecosystems in which it operates,'' said Travis in his letter, citing the Guyana spill as well as alleged environmental violations in Alaska and Arizona. Travis also pointed out that the company has a bad human rights record in Suriame, where the company is currently forcibly resettling Maroon communities in Nieuwkoffiekamp. Finally his letter noted that Carol Mathieu, Cambior's chief of international security, was in charge of a Canadian peace- keeping operation in Somalia when one Somali was tortured to death. Travis warned that activists would seriously consider a ''full retail boycott of any financial institution'' that provided financing to Cambior unless the company settled the outstanding compensation claims in Guyana. Now Cambior has hit back by seeking a legal injunction to prevent Travis from talking to any financial institution because of the ''unlawful interference in its economic activities.'' The company's share price has dwindled from about 22 Canadian dollars to about 14 Canadian dollars a share in the last two months. ''Cambior has asked the courts to deny my freedom of speech but nowhere in the lawsuit have they suggested that anything I said was untrue. They simply say that our campaign is causing them economic harm,'' Travis told IPS. Cambior, however, declared ''We have taken what we consider a measured response to a campaign that we believe has gone too far.'' ''There are laws against this sort of thing,'' said company spokesman Geoffrey King but he refused to comment on allegations made by Travis in his letter. ''Ever since the spill of this cyanide-laced sludge, Cambior has consistently treated this disaster as a public relations irritant not the public health issue it is," says Steve Michelin, lawyer for the plaintiffs. ''We believe the 23,000 victims of this ecological catastrophe deserve more than a bottle of water and a newspaper ad apologising for the spill - from Cambior President Louis Gignac.'' he added. King insisted that the incident was not a major environmental disaster. He maintained that cyanide breaks down when exposed to sunlight and oxygen which render it harmless but scientists said that cyanide solution that seeps into the ground will not break down because of the absence of sunlight. Adverse impact of cyanide on fish have been reported at levels of 0.01 parts per million (ppm), concentrations as low as five parts per billion have been found to inhibit fish reproduction, while levels of 0.03 ppm are known to kill fish, activists said. Human beings can experience decreased respiratory and thyroid functions, cardiac pain, vomiting, headaches and central nervous system toxicity from ingesting even the tiniest amount of cyanide. Guyanese government figures pegged the concentrations of cyanide at the Omai disaster at between 25 and 30 parts per million, but they say that this was quickly diluted to three parts per million. Scientists also point out that the effect of associated heavy metals in the cyanide waste could be much worse than the cyanide. The concentrations during the disaster, that were cited in the company literature, ranged from 1.5 to 2.5 ppm. Mary Mueller, an environmental scientist who has tested the effect of similar cyanide spills in Colorado, says that copper and sulfates concentrations exceeding one part per million can cause stomach and intestinal problems and kill animals like horses. Lead and mercury can kill humans and also cause stomach problems.
See follow up Article: CANADIAN MINING COMPANY SEEKS GAG ORDER For Further Information Contact:
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