VALE: Protesters burn vehicles, buildings at New Caledonia nickel mine

REUTERS, 27/05 09:15 CET

http://www.euronews.com/newswires/2520788-protesters-burn-vehicles-buildings-at-new-caledonia-nickel-mine/

By Cecile Lefort and Melanie Burton

Photo Thierry Perron

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Rioters torched vehicles, equipment and buildings at Vale’s nickel mine in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia over the weekend, as anger boiled over about a chemical spill in a local river.

The $6 billion Vale plant at Goro in southern New Caledonia was closed earlier this month after some 100,000 litres of acid-tainted effluent leaked, killing about 1,000 fish and sparking renewed protests at the mine site.

The Vale plant has a production target of 60,000 tonnes of nickel at full capacity, compared with global supply of around 2 million tonnes. But it has been beset by problems in recent years, including several chemical spills and violent protests.

Tensions between the local population and Vale escalated over the weekend with young protesters frustrated at the latest spill by the Brazilian-based giant and a lack of response from indigenous Kanak chiefs, according to local media. Television footage showed images of burnt mining vehicles and equipment.

“There was damage at the site, but no damage to the plant. We had burned vehicles, one administration building was damaged, but no damage to the plant itself,” Vale spokesman Cory McPhee told Reuters.

Peter Poppinga, an executive director at Vale, told Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes newspaper that damage to the mining site was estimated at at least $20 million to $30 million, including the destruction of perhaps one third of the truck fleet.

“If there is no activity for several months, we will shut the plant, but that’s not the case. The closing of the plant is not on the table,” Poppinga was quoted as saying.

The scale of the damage could not immediately be independently verified.

Nickel mining is a key industry in New Caledonia, which holds as much as a quarter of the world’s known reserves. Vale’s plant is the second-largest employer in the southern province, with some 3,500 employees and contractors, including a large number of Filipino workers.

PLANT HALTED

New Caledonia’s southern provincial government ordered an immediate halt to operations after the spill earlier this month and started legal proceedings under its environmental code.

The local government, which changed leadership last week, said it would not lift the production suspension until safety procedures were revised, an oversight committee was reinstated and an independent expert’s report was completed.

“We got to this point because, clearly, part of the local youth, particularly from the southern tribes, reject the perspective of maintaining the plant in activity, even with the reinforcement of safety procedures,” Philippe Michel, the newly elected president of New Caledonia’s Southern Province, told local television on Monday.

Global nickel prices hit a 27-month high earlier this month and are up by about 40 percent this year, driven by a decision by Indonesia to halt exports of raw nickel ores and news of the Goro closure. Indonesia’s ban left nickel buyers in China and Japan scrambling to secure supplies amid a fear of shortages.

“Vale’s got lots of issues in the country,” said Tom Price, a mining analyst at UBS in Sydney. “Nickel has recovered back to the marginal cost of production. It’s inviting for them to continue to invest, but it’s been a world of pain for them for quite a few years.”

Given market expectations of Goro production of just 15,000-20,000 tonnes this year, any impact on nickel prices from the closure would be sentiment driven, Price added. LME nickel prices rose 0.7 percent to $19,745 a tonne on Tuesday.

The Goro mine produced 4,100 tonnes of nickel in the first quarter, up 41 percent on a year ago. Vale is the world’s second-biggest nickel producer, but Goro made up just 6 percent of its nickel output in the first quarter.

The mine employs high pressure technology and acids to leach nickel from abundant tropical laterite ores.

“There is an inherent risk in Goro’s type of operation,” said Gavin Mudd, a professor of environmental engineering at Monash University in Melbourne.

(Additional reporting by James Regan; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Richard Pullin)

Strike at World’s Largest Nickel Mine - International Solidarity

Source: The Bullet

International solidarity organizes against Vale Inco, 2nd largest transnational mining giant in the world

Marc Bonhomme

In France’s south Pacific colony of New Caledonia, a small delegation of Vale Inco strikers from Sudbury, in Northeastern Ontario, most of them Franco-Ontarians, met in October with the union at the island’s Vale Inco nickel mine, due to open in 2010 although it threatens a UNESCO nature reserve. The newspaper Nouvelles calédoniennes reported the encounter, in its October 31 edition:

“In the face of the global economy, the labour movement is looking to internationalize. In Canada, 3,500 workers at Vale Inco are currently on strike. Their union, the United Steelworkers, has launched a crusade to visit every Vale Inco site on the planet, for the purpose of forging alliances. In New Caledonia, union representatives met with the unions that represent the workers at the plant located in the south. ...

For the past three and a half months, ...workers at Vale Inco in Canada have been engaged in a test of strength with the Brazilian multinational that absorbed Inco, the Canadian nickel giant which initiated the Goro Nickel project in Caledonia. ...

They are accusing the Vale group of taking advantage of the global crisis and lower profits to make underhanded cuts in employees’ wages, pension plans and social assistance programs. They are also organizing visits to all of Vale Inco’s sites in Brazil, Indonesia, Australia and New Caledonia, to create a sort of worldwide alliance between the various unions that represent the multinational corporation’s employees.”[1]

The strike at Vale Inco began in mid-July at Sudbury, a city of 150,000 inhabitants, one third of them Francophone. In early August the strike was joined by workers at the Vale Inco refinery in Port Colborne, on Lake Erie, and the mine at Voisey’s Bay in Labrador. Vale is engaged in a frenzied competition with BHP-Billiton, an Australian-British company and the world’s largest, Rio Tinto, the third largest, and other mining giants in a process of concentration and centralization of the international mining industry. They are seeking to profit from the exponential rise in metal prices in recent years as a result of the explosive growth in demand in the emerging economies, and to strengthen their position with the major purchasers, above all the Chinese government and the big new producers in those countries.

Vale, too big to be defeated in a single country

In a push for diversification, Vale, a leading iron ore producer, purchased the Canadian nickel transnational Inco two years ago. The current economic crisis suddenly forced down raw materials prices, particularly for nickel. Vale, which had earlier settled for contract improvements with its employees in Thompson, Manitoba, is now demanding that its other workers agree to a three-year wage freeze, a defined contributions pension plan for new hires (the current plan is defined benefits), a major reduction in the annual production bonus (which has averaged 25% of the base wage), now to be pegged to the firm’s profitability, and a weaker wage indexation clause.

But unlike its major rivals, who have experienced liquidity problems resulting in major layoffs – Rio Tinto-Alcan in Quebec, for example – Vale has remained quite profitable despite the collapse in prices and has not carried out massive layoffs, although it did dismiss a few hundred Inco employees after buying this company. In Brazil itself, it plans to increase its workforce by 12% in 2010 following major investments demanded by the Brazilian government; the state-owned banks are significant financiers of Vale. In Brazil, as in New Caledonia, wages are lower, and perhaps the environmental constraints as well.

In 2008 Vale made a profit of US$13.2-billion. Its subsidiary Vale Inco made more profits in two years (2006-2008) than Inco did in ten (1996-2006): US$4.1-billion. In the third quarter of 2009, together with the new rise in nickel and iron ore prices, its profit doubled from the previous quarter although it was only a third of what it was in the same period in 2008. The company was so proud of this result that its directors had planned to go to the New York and London stock exchanges for media events in late October. Unfortunately for them, they had to cancel when small delegations of strikers came to disrupt the events with the help of local union members linked with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) – about twenty strikers in New York supported by U.S. steelworkers but also some teachers.

Vale was so optimistic at that point that it announced it would be distributing $2.75-billion in dividends in 2009 – more than the cost of the wages and benefits of its 100,000 plus employees in 35 countries worldwide. But the strike has been relatively effective. Nickel production in the third quarter of 2009 is down by 45% from the second quarter and by 55% from the equivalent quarter in 2008, not to mention the direct cost of $200-million for the strike. However, the new rise in nickel prices has somewhat offset the lower volume, and the production of nickel (and copper, which Vale Inco extracts concurrently) is a marginal component of the transnational’s overall operations, while it was central for the old Inco.

Vale profits from the severity of the crisis in Ontario

Since its privatization in 1997 – it was a state-owned corporation in Brazil, founded during the Second World War – Vale has been systematically fighting its workers. In Brazil, its employees have no job security; the company dismisses them without cause and fires most once they have three to five years seniority in order to hire at a lower wage, which explains why the majority are on fixed-term contracts. In the current strike in Canada, Vale has hired strikebreakers and required its other workers to do the work of the strikers. The New Democratic Party (NDP) sought unsuccessfully in the Ontario legislature, with the applause of strikers in the visitors’ gallery, who were expelled, to present anti-scab legislation like that in Quebec. The NDP, a social-liberal party linked to the trade-union movement, is the most left-wing party in the Ontario legislature. It divides the northern and northeastern seats, which are very blue-collar, especially outside the few major urban areas, with the governing Liberals, although it has only 10 out of the province’s 107 MPPs.

The relative isolation of the strikers from the major metropolitan centers in the south of the province has not facilitated efforts to build solidarity. However, it is worth noting the solidarity of other Steelworkers locals and the Ontario branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), known for its vanguard role in the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign in support of Palestine, and for its municipal worker locals in Toronto and Windsor, which waged hard-fought strikes this summer to fend off concessions demanded by the municipal authorities including the so-called progressive city council in Toronto. These politicians sought to benefit from the crisis in the automobile, steel and financial industries that has hit hard at the Ontario economy, which accounts for 40% of the Canadian GNP. It is no accident that the conflict at Vale Inco began this summer while these major strikes were taking place.

Nevertheless, this solidarity consists at best in visits by a few leaders, sometimes with cheques in support, and the mobilization of limited pockets of militants when strikers visit Toronto, for example to agitate at Queen’s Park, the site of the Ontario legislature, or to respond to the invitation of the iconoclastic film director Michael Moore when he was in Toronto for the premiere of Capitalism, a love story. Until quite recently the international mobilization has remained quite modest: letters of support from unions in less than a dozen countries and tours in Germany and Sweden accompanied by international leaders to convince certain companies not to import nickel ore from Vale. Even the big rally in late September with international guests, including the president of the CUT, the major Brazilian trade-union central, drew only 3,000 persons, slightly less than the total number of strikers in Sudbury.

A possible turning-point in October

It appears, however, that things took a turn for the better in October. The women’s strike support committee, which played such an important role in the very militant nine-month strike in 1978-79, was re-established with the help of former activists. Working with the recently constituted support committee, it will be organizing a series of family activities in November. The Ukrainian community in the region has also become involved. The spirit of 1978-79 could be regained. There appear to be some changes as well in terms of international solidarity. In addition to the trip to New York, a small delegation has returned from Australia, where Vale purchased several coal mines in 2007, and New Caledonia, where Vale Inco will soon open a new nickel mine. Dozens of Australian miners expressed their sympathy with the delegation, as did their leaders. But their contract terminates only in 2011.

In New Caledonia, there was remarkable media coverage and a warm reception from the Kanak elected representatives. The Kanaks are the first nation in this French colony, although they now make up only 45% of the total population. Did the Kanaks sense they had a lot in common with the Franco-Ontarians in the delegation – two nationalities suffering oppression of their language, their economic conditions and their lack of territorial autonomy? Oddly enough, the Steelworkers web site devoted to this conflict, from which most of the information in this article is derived, is bilingual – in English and Brazilian Portuguese. And the publication materials are English-only. But the Sudbury region itself is strongly Francophone, and is not far from the Quebec border. Will this uniform and formal unity strengthen the capacity for mass mobilization? Is this the best way to build a pan-Canadian movement? Internationalism, to be effective, must begin at home.

It is in Brazil, Vale’s economic base by far, where the situation is most promising. The miners in the company’s largest Brazilian mine, and two other mines, staged a two-day strike, October 26-27, around their own demands. A few days later, at two other mines affiliated with the smallest union central, Conlutas, which is known for its militancy, the bargaining committee symbolically invited the woman representing the Canadian steelworkers to be part of their bargaining team, to the anger of the employer’s negotiators who threatened to break off the talks. And 700 workers in these two mines signed a letter to the company calling on it to settle the strike in Canada, where negotiations have not resumed since the strike began. In a release issued November 4, the union’s leaders said:

“Vale fears more than just the possibility of victory in the strike by Canadian brothers and sisters, a possibility strengthened by this gesture of solidarity. It also fears the growing international unity which is being built among Vale workers and also people in communities around the world where Vale’s profits have resulted in environmental disasters, degradation of the natural environment and community disintegration.”

Internationalist optimism and bureaucratic contradiction

This optimism is justified. But so far the development of international links has been primarily at the initiative of the union bureaucracies. Their willingness to develop an internationalist response should not be under-estimated. They have been caught off guard by this strike and the membership’s willingness to take on a powerful transnational corporation capable of holding out through even a militant strike as long as the workers are isolated. They realize that the usual bureaucratic methods of bargaining supported by a national strike limited to picketing and controlled from above will inevitably result in some setbacks. When the union ranks hesitate to fight back in the face of a difficult objective situation, as in the automobile industry, the leaderships can force through some concessions. But there may be a high price to pay in terms of credibility once the threshold of an unlimited strike has been crossed. To defeat Vale, there must be a certain degree of international coordination in strikes, except perhaps in Brazil, where a national inter-union coordination might suffice.

The need for the union bureaucracy to mobilize the ranks to some degree, or to let them mobilize themselves without too many impediments, opens the door to self-organization. Has the women’s committee given the cue? The need to develop international links and an openness toward working-class internationalism, particularly with the Brazilian unions, forces the bureaucrats to restrain any temptation to engage in the kind of chauvinist language characteristic of a small imperialist power that we hear so often in Canada – “defending our middle-class, anti-ecology status” while allowing Vale to chip away at the wage scales and working conditions of its employees elsewhere.

The Steelworkers are styled an “international” union, although they have locals only in the USA and Canada. So when the “international” president of the union called for nationalization of Vale at the big strike support rally in late September, to the standing ovation of the strikers, there was a note of ambiguity. If nationalization means a takeover by the capitalist state in order to escape Brazilian living conditions, that is a setback for internationalism – and an economic illusion, for the nickel market is worldwide. A state corporation would do as Vale does. However, nationalization can signify the first step in the takeover by the workers collectively, as the Zanon workers took over their plant in Argentina.[2] The self-managed collective would confront the state with the need to provide financing, technical assistance and guarantees of international markets, if not conversion of the company and retraining of the workers. It would make the undertaking an integral part of the community, and in the case of a firm that is intrinsically an exporter, would also link with the workers in client and competitor firms abroad in support of their demands and their struggles, within a perspective of collaboration for joint marketing in the context of a levelling upward of living conditions. It would be a first step toward internationalist self-management.

Irrespective of whether it goes forward or is worn down, this strike against Vale gives some idea of what the strike movement will be like in the 21st century. Global strikes against transnational corporations will be an essential pillar of internationalism. They are just beginning. •

Marc Bonhomme is an economist and member of Québec solidaire. Translated from the original French by Richard Fidler.

Footnotes

1. www.fairdealnow.ca/?cat=17. Retranslated from the French.

2. A strike made famous by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis in their film The Take. For recent coverage of the Zanon struggle, see “Zanon workers win major legal battle”

Resources

• The web site of the Vale Inco families and community members may be accessed at www.fairdealnow.ca
• Bullet #253: Down in the Vale, by Petra Veltri

Vale-Inco, New Caledonia

Goro technical delays have set $4 billion nickel project back a year

Vale Inco's Goro nickel complex, one of the world's largest, and most expensive current mining projects, is now due to come on stream in January 2010, but will only produce at a third of its design production rate next year.

Author: Lawrence Williams
Posted: Thursday , 22 Oct 2009
Source: Mine web

LONDON -

Peter Poppinga, the newly appointed Director of Vale Inco's huge Goro nickel laterite project in New Caledonia blames some major technical problems for the latest delay in start-up of this, one of the world's largest nickel projects. The mine and acid leach processing facility, one of the world's largest current new mining projects of any kind, was initially due to come on stream late 2008/early 2009, but will only now start operations in January next year and, according to Poppinga, will only produce around one-third of its design production in its first full year of operation.

The Goro project will probably have cost close to US$4 billion (slightly below according to Poppinga), which has escalated dramatically from the original $1.9 billion construction cost estimate, by the time it starts up. The latest problems will perhaps have added another $40 million to the overall costs. The latest technical difficulties had stemmed from problems with the big high pressure autoclaves which followed on from an even-more serious sulphuric acid spillage last April resulting from a pipeline joint rupture in what is an extremely sensitive environmental area. This required a major acid plant safety redesign which will only be completed next month.

The French Territory of New Caledonia, an island around 1,500 km off the eastern coast of Australia, has one of the world's most attractive coastlines and what is said to be the second longest coral reef in the world after Australia's Great Barrier reef. There had been considerable local protest about the Goro construction, with the plant being situated on a beautiful bay in the south part of the island and the plant's liquid effluent to be pumped into a lagoon situated close to a Unesco World Heritage site. Solid tailings are planned to be used to reclaim mined out open pit areas. Two years ago there was considerable local protest by the community involving disruption to the construction programme and some sabotage, but the mining company, in conjunction with the New Caledonian government, eventually managed to cool the situation down and proceed with the production plans.

Vale Inco says that Goro is among the best undeveloped laterite orebodies in the world, with excellent average grades, 55 million tonnes of estimated measured and indicated mineral reserves, and a very large resource base estimated to contain at least as much as 120 million tonnes of mineable material or more. The planned annual capacity of the project is 60,000 tonnes of nickel and 4,300 to 5,000 tonnes of cobalt. The operation will employ around 800 people.

Vale Inco holds a 69 percent interest in Goro. The three provinces of New Caledonia hold a 10 percent equity interest in the project, through their holding company Société de Participation Miniere du Sud Calédonien (SPMSC) while Japan's Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. Ltd. and Mitsui Co. Ltd. own the remaining 21 per cent.

High pressure acid leach (HPAL) hydrometallurgical nickel plants have the reputation for being extremely expensive to build and few manage to come to production without some serious start-up problems. It looks as though Goro is no exception to this. Also new HPAL nickel projects have proved to find it difficult to produce at economic production costs given lower nickel prices, but Vale Inco reckons Goro will be among the most efficient of these and should be able to produce economically, although it will take some time to pay back the huge capital costs of the project.

Goro is coming on stream at what could be a difficult time for the nickel sector where a 110,000 tonne surplus of supply over consumption is anticipated for the current year. Similar surpluses are projected to continue into 2010 and beyond as new facilities, like Goro, come on line even should global demand pick up if the recession is truly drawing to a close.

Documentary: "The Nightmare of Goro" (O Pesadelo de Goro)

This blog recommends the 30-minute documentary called "Le Cauchemar de Goro" (The Nightmare of Goro), about the conflicts between the Kanaks - New Caledonia's indigenous peoples - and Inco mining company (currently, Vale Inco).

Este blog recomenda o documentário de 30 minutos chamado "O Pesadelo de Goro", sobre os conflitos entre os Kanaks - povos indígenas da Nova Caledonia - e a companhia mineradora Inco (atualmente, Vale Inco).

To watch the documentary (in French, with English subtitles), please click here.

Vale Inco tem atividades suspensas na Nova Caledônia após trágico vazamento de ácido

Usina de níquel da brasileira Vale-Inco, na Nova Caledônia

Fonte: Agencia France Press

As atividades da usina de níquel da brasileira Vale-Inco na Nova Caledônia, em fase de testes, foram temporariamente suspensas após um vazamento de ácido que atingiu uma zona próxima a um recife de corais reconhecido pela UNESCO como Patrimônio da Humanidade.

A província sul ordenou nesta sexta-feira a suspensão, por um período que pode ir de seis a oito semanas, de 80% das instalações da usina hidrometalúrgica de níquel.

As autoridades também obrigaram o grupo siderúrgico a depositar a soma de 126.000 euros correspondente ao valor dos trabalhos que seriam realizados no local.

Em 1º de abril, um incidente técnico provocou o vazamento de ao menos 2.500 litros de ácido sulfúrico concentrado a 98% em um rio. A província sul deu em seguida quatro dias à empresa brasileira para realizar estes trabalhos, com garantias de segurança, mas este prazo não foi respeitado.

"Estamos avaliando o impacto destas suspensões no calendário inicialmente previsto", declarou Jean-François David, diretor-geral delegado da Vale-Inco Nova Caledônia, destacando que os trabalhos de construção continuam.

Este gigantesco complexo industrial, de uma capacidade de 60.000 toneladas anuais de níquel-metal, deve normalmente iniciar a produção em julho próximo, talvez na presença do presidente frances Nicolas Sarkozy, que tem visita programada à região nessa época.

A poluição atingiu um rio, que desemboca na baía de Prony, zona tampão do Grande Lago Sul, um dos seis locais do recife de corais, inscrito em julho passado no patrimônio mundial da Unesco. Milhares de peixes e crustáceos morreram.

A demora da Vale em comunicar as autoridades e o fato de ela ter continuado os testes com ácidos desatou uma grande polêmica na Nova Caledônia.

"O que aconteceu é escandaloso e a Vale-Inco reagiu mal", declarou à AFP, Yves Dassonville, alto comissário da República na Nova Caledônia, lembrando que o Estado é garantidor das convenções relativas à biodiversidade, assinadas na inscrição do lago no patrimônio da Unesco.

Em uma carta, ele pediu à Vale uma informação pertinente sobre as circunstâncias do incidente, uma descrição dos danos e dos impactos constatados ou potenciais na zona tampão e o bem inscrito no patrimônio mundial".

Quarta-feira, centenas de pessoas manifestaram junto a organização ecológica para pedir que a Vale deixe a ilha.

O presidente da província, Philippe Gomes, destacou os erros e os procedimentos incorretos internos da empresa brasileira.

"Assumimos todas as consequências", declarou Jean-François David, negando qualquer intenção de dissimular o ocorrido e "qualquer desordem de procedimento" na gestão desta crise.

Desde o início, a obra da usina química da Vale-Inco, que lançará dejetos no lago, vem gerando polêmicas entre as populações locais.

O clima havia se acalmado, no entanto, em setembro passado com a assinatura de um pacto para o desenvolvimento sustentável, de 85 milhões de euros em 30 anos.

Police in New Caledonia investigate massive acid leak / Polícia da Nova Caledonia investiga grande derramamento de ácido

By Radio New Zealand International

The police in New Caledonia are investigating a massive acid leak at the Vale Inco nickel plant that killed thousands of fish and other species.

Thousands of litres of sulphuric acid spilt into the North Bay River last Wednesday, but news of the leak took some time to become public.

Technicians have managed to neutralise the high acid levels, but environmental organisations say the damage has already been done.

Our correspondent, Claudine Wery, says the police are trying to find out what happened as there’s uncertainty.

“There’s an investigation by police. Vale said that the leak was about 1 to 5000 litres of acid. Little by little people have learned what happened at the unit. And in fact it could be 20 000 litres of acid.”

-----------------------------------------------------

A polícia da Nova Caledonia está investigando vazamento de ácido em projeto de niquel da VALE, que resultou na morte de milhares de peixes e outras espécies.

Milhares de litros de ácido sulfúrico foram derramadas no North Bay River na última quarta-feira, mas as informações sobre o vazamento demoraram um certo tempo para virem a público.

Técnicos têm tentado neutralizar os efeitos, diminuindo a alta quantidade de ácido, mas organizações ambientalistas dizem que o dano já está consumado.

Nossa correspondente, Claudine Wery, diz que a policia está tentando desvendar o que de fato ocorreu.

“Uma investigação está sendo conduzida pela polícia. A Vale disse que o vazamento foi algo entre 1 e 5.000 litros de acido. Pouco a pouco as pessoas têm se dado conta do que realmente aconteceu como um todo. E, pelo que se tem, podem ter sido uns 20.000 litros de ácido.”

Mais um grave desastre ambiental atribuído à Vale

Thousands of fish dead after acid leak at New Caledonia nickel plant

Source: Radio Australia, 6 April 2009

The southern province Government of New Caledonia will decide next week whether to take any action against the Vale-Inco Nickel plant after a serious environmental accident on Wednesday. Almost a hundred thousand litres of toxic sulphuric acid spilled into the North Bay Creek and out into Prony Bay, leaving the area littered with thousands of dead fish and crustaceans. The Worldwide Fund for Nature is asking that the plant's licence be suspended while it addresses the causes of the accident.


Presenter Paul Allen

Speaker Worldwide Fund for Nature Country Director Ahab Downer

(Listen to the audio)

DOWNER: Thousands of fresh water fish were found at the mouth of the creek where it empties into the Prony Bay and on the marine end or in the salt water there was also significant fish and crustation mortality, so again thousands of fish were collected, that creek for all intents and purposes was in good environmental health.

ALLEN: And what sort of environmental health would you say it is in now?

DOWNER: I'm just guessing now, but given that 14,000 -18,000 litres of 98% pure sulphuric acid was dumped into that creek, I would say that there is very little living organism that managed to survive that sort of insult, if you like.

ALLEN: Has anybody from the Vale-Inco Nickel plant given you an explanation as to how this leak could happen?

DOWNER: I spoke to Jean-Francois David, who is the assistant director of Vale-Inco, Goro Nickel plant and Mr David explained to me step-by-step what did occur. They had been undergoing tests in the acid fabrication plant. The acid which Vale-Inco produces as part of their process to extract nickel from the ore that they will be exporting when the refinery opens and the acid plant has been undergoing testing for I guess a number of months and there was some sort of rubber joint somewhere in the circuit, somewhere in the pipeline within the factory itself which failed and it wasn't for two minutes that they understood that there was actually a pretty massive leak. By that time, I guess tens-of-thousands of litres of acid had flowed out of the circuit and into the factory, some of which was retained within the factory itself. The excess is supposed to spill into a special retention basin in the event of such an accident, but unfortunately that retention basin was undergoing some repair and the valve giving access to that basin was closed and so the only other place that this acid could go was out of the factory and down the slope and into the North Bay Creek.

ALLEN: Well, it sounds like a series of rather catastrophic failures at the plant. Is there any sort of recourse or any legal action that can be taken?

DOWNER: Well, according to the Southern Province which issues the permit that allows Vale-Inco to go into exploit their refinery, this was a breach of contract, or I would say they can be held responsible because that retention basin was not in operation while these tests were ongoing and that is a stipulation of the contract they have with the Southern Province just to avoid this type of accident. In the short term, thousands of fish have been pulled out of the Prony Bay and out of the North Creek and the Southern Province has asked them to stop producing acid for the moment and to fix the basin leaks before anything occurs in future. For our part, we didn't think that was sufficient and we asked the authorities to revoke their exploitation permit until such time as proper measures can be put into place to ensure that future accidents like this don't happen. Indeed, the Southern Province can press charges and what the outcome of that will be, will be decided in the coming days and coming weeks. On behalf of the WWF, we are not asking that licence be revoked forever, but rather that it be revoked until such time as it can be shown that the monitoring and emergency measures are really up to snuff. Already there is a great outcry by a lot of the New Caledonian population about what has occurred. There is a lot of calls for shutting the plant down, there's a lot of angry politicians, there is a lot of angry civil society participants and NGO's.

Article: Waste Not, Want Not

One company's fight against Newfoundlanders & Kanaks

by Tracy Glynn

Source: The Dominion

Nota do blog em português: Trata-se de artigo que relata e compara as batalhas dos povos de Newfoundland (província do Canadá) e de Nova Caledônia (protetorado francês no Pacífico, próximo a Austrália) contra a mesma companhia transnacional, no caso a nossa gigante brasileira VALE.

Em ambos os casos, os povos protestam contra projetos da companhia que intentam poluir lagos com dejetos oriundos da atividade mineradora.

O termo Kanaks refere-se aos povos originários da região de Nova Caledônia diretamente afetada pelo empreendimento da Vale.

Demonstration in the lagoon in front of the Goro-Nickel port. Police and security forces chase a small boat full of Kanak indigenous demonstrators. Photo: Mike Hosken on behalf of the Comite de Defense du Sud

FREDERICTON, NEW BRUNSWICK–The province of Newfoundland and the archipelago nation of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific seem to have little in common.

New Caledonia, also known as Kanaky after the indigenous Kanaks who inhabit it, is a French colony in the southwest Pacific. Kanaky-New Caledonia separated from Australia some 85 million years ago and is referred to as a Jurassic Park of prehistoric Gondwanan forest, habitat to plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. The New Caledonia Barrier Reef, which surrounds the country, is the largest coral reef and lagoon system in the world. The endangered dugong, a manatee-like marine mammal, makes its home there, and the green sea turtle depends on the reef as a nesting site. The nautilus, a living fossil species, is still found in these waters. Kanaky-New Caledonia’s tropical lagoons and coral reefs are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, identifying it as a site of outstanding natural importance to the common heritage of humanity.

Demonstration on a remote cliff in Kanaky-New Caledonia, in the south Pacific. Residents of New Caledonia and activists rally against Vale-Inco's intent to build a marine effluent pipe entrance into their lagoon. Photo: Mike Hosken on behalf of the Comite de Defense du Sud

Halfway around the world, on Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula, Sandy Pond lies about 100 kilometres west of St. John’s. Sandy Pond, a 38-hectare headwater lake near the community of Long Harbour, is the centre of a controversy that is forcing people to pick between employment or the environment. The economically depressed region is hungry for jobs but the toxic legacy of the community's 40-year-old phosphorous plant has environmental concerns at the forefront of many people's minds. Sandy Pond is home to trout, rainbow smelt, and American eel, a species of conservation concern.

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Vale Inco (formerly Inco, then CVRD Inco) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Brazilian mining company Vale. Its nickel mining and metals division is headquartered in Toronto. The merger between CVRD and Inco in 2006 created the world’s second-largest nickel producer. Inco, a Canadian company, dates back to the early 1900s. Dark parts of Inco history include its provision of Canadian-mined nickel to Hitler’s Germany and its dealings with brutal dictatorships in Indonesia and Guatemala. Vale Inco's failure to fulfill human rights requirements had it struck from the FTSE4GOOD index in 2006. The company has been criticized repeatedly for its pollution and its treatment of indigenous communities and workers. Residents of Port Colborne, Ontario, affected by the company’s nickel refinery, are currently suing the company in the largest environmental class action lawsuit in Canadian history.

Today, Vale Inco wants to dump about 400,000 tonnes of waste every year into Sandy Pond as part of a proposal to process Voisey’s Bay nickel at Long Harbour. In Kanaky-New Caledonia, the mining company wants to build a pipeline into the ocean to dispose of mine waste.

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A 2002 Canadian government decision means that natural bodies of water may be renamed as "tailings impoundment areas." This reclassification is part of the Metal and Mines Effluent Regulations under the Fisheries Act.

Eleven natural water bodies, many of them fish-bearing lakes, are slated to be reclassified as mine-waste disposal sites in the next year or so. Due to legislation protecting lakes and natural water bodies, the practice is not permitted in Quebec, New Brunswick, the United States and many other countries.

Canada is becoming more attractive to mining multinationals because using a lake for waste disposal is cheaper than constructing a tailings pond. Vale Inco estimated that using Sandy Pond would cost $62 million whereas constructing a tailings pond would cost $490 million.

Environment Canada has shortened the time allowed for public input at the national level, making it difficult for Canadians to organize to save their ponds and lakes. Chris Doiron, Chief of the Mining and Minerals Section at Environment Canada, argues that the environmental impact of man-made containment can be larger than the environmental impact of using a lake. Absent from this accounting system, however, is the lost value of a lake ecosystem.

The amended law requires that mining companies proposing to dump waste into fish-bearing lakes and rivers must devise a plan to compensate for loss of fish habitat. Vale Inco plans to compensate for the destruction of Sandy Pond by transferring its fish into two nearby smaller ponds, which will be merged and dammed to contain the water. Concerns have been raised about the impacts on all these water bodies, including the introduction of predatory fish to new habitats.

In June of this year, Newfoundland's Department of the Environment accepted the Environmental Impact Statement submitted by Vale Inco to use Sandy Pond as a mine waste disposal site.

The Fish, Food and Allied Workers (FFAW/CAW) who represent Placentia Bay fish harvesters are opposing a plan to dispose 1.6 billion gallons of waste effluent each year into Placentia Bay. Fish harvesters are worried that the proposal will severely harm fish habitat and adversely impact their livelihoods. The proposed processing plant will emit an estimated 555,000 kilograms of chemicals including lead, hydrogen chloride, sulphur dioxide and sulphuric acid into the air every year, according to the company’s Environmental Impact Statement.

Those who support the use of Sandy Pond as a tailings dump do so for the local employment opportunities. With a current population of 211, down from 522 in 1991, Long Harbour is still reeling from the collapse of the cod fishery and the closure of the phosphorous plant. The mayors of Placentia and Long Harbour-Mount Arlington Heights have both put their support behind the Vale Inco project, hoping it will revitalize the community’s economy.

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Many residents in the proposed area grew up in the shadows of radioactive pollution left behind from Erco’s phosphorous plant. Heaps of waste slag near the plant contained uranium and thorium, and were known to emit carcinogenic radon gas. The fisheries were closed down in 1969 after dead cod and herring were reported in the bay. According to Newfoundland and Labrador’s Heritage Website, investigations revealed that the untreated waste caused the fish kills, and that the plant's smokestack emitted fluoride that damaged nearby vegetation. The website noted: “Deformed moose and rabbits were found near the plant. Snowshoe hares were dissected and tested, and high levels of fluoride were found in their bones.”

“Canada should not be providing the mining industry unaccounted subsidies by sacrificing natural water bodies for mine waste disposal," says Catherine Coumans, Research Coordinator with Mining Watch Canada. "Destroying Sandy Pond is clearly not sustainable development and it is not even good practice in mine waste disposal, as Vale Inco acknowledges that Sandy Pond will leak waste into groundwater, creating a contaminant plume. Additionally, the pond will require three dams to hold the waste and these dams will have to be maintained in perpetuity."

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Vale Inco’s Goro mine in Kanaky-New Caledonia is expected to start production at the end of 2008. Since 2001, the Rheebu Nuu Committee, an indigenous group, has been protesting the mine. It has promised to use all available means to stop the construction of a pipeline into their ocean. Rheebu Nuu has already successfully stopped the company from laying its pipe in Kwe West by building a village of traditional homes in the path of the proposed pipeline. In April 2008, hundreds of Rheebu Nuu supporters gathered to set up a totem pole on a sand bank in the lagoon to show their firm opposition to the waste pipe and to challenge the company to meet with them in dialogue.

Inco’s past refusal to speak with indigenous Kanak groups such as the Rheebu Nuu Committee has been responded to with blockades and in one incident, to the alleged destruction of US$10 million worth of equipment. Sixteen members of the Rheebu Nuu group were arrested following this incident in April 2006. The court acquitted six of the accused and gave suspended fines to the remaining 10 in July 2006. Work at the site eventually resumed, with French military police acting as guards at key areas.

The Kanaks have requested that Vale Inco restore the areas it has destroyed by removing its installations and reforesting the area. According to the Rheebu Nuu Committee, critics have been detained by police for several hours and then released without charge. Youths have attacked security installations and vehicles of mine employees. The Rheebu Nuu Committee has also reported that hooded police have been raiding people's homes in the middle of the night and taking people away for arbitrary detentions and beatings.

Indigenous groups have taken to confronting police guards on ocean waters to stop the waste pipe that Vale Inco is trying to lay in a hurry. The defiant actions of the indigenous groups and the growing opposition from the non-indigenous population are all thought to have played a role in the eventual signing of an agreement between the company and indigenous community representatives.

Jacques Boengkih of the indigenous organization Agence Kanak de Developpement Nouvelle-Caledonie reports that indigenous groups, including the Rheebu Nuu Committee and the Kanak traditional authorities, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Vale Inco regarding the Goro Nickel plant. The agreement recognizes the legitimacy and rights of the indigenous people as declared in the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, and lays out terms for inclusive sustainable development structures. The Kanaks are now waiting to see how the national and provincial government authorities respond to the agreement.

Activists in Canada are making the connection between Vale Inco's operations at home and abroad. "Pipelines of waste should not be laid into Sandy Pond, Long Harbour or into the lagoon in Kanaky-New Caledonia,” says Coumans, who works with communities fighting Vale Inco's mining operations in both Kanaky-New Caledonia and Newfoundland.

The fate of the pipeline into the Kanaky-New Caledonia lagoon is awaiting a decision by the Southern Province government. Sandy Pond is slated for destruction in 2009.

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Tracy Glynn is the Acadian Forest Campaigner at the Conservation Council of New Brunswick and co-editor of the Mines and Communities website.

Notícia UOL: Vale e Petrobras são alvos preferidos no Fórum Social Mundial

Por: Rodrigo Bertolotto
31-01-2009
Enviado especial do UOL Notícias
Em Belém (PA)
http://noticias.uol.com.br/politica/2009/01/31/ult5773u480.jhtm

A estatal petrolífera brasileira é, ao mesmo tempo, patrocinadora e alvo de críticas dentro do Fórum Social Mundial, que acontece até este domingo (1º/2) em Belém (PA). Já a maior mineradora nacional teve painel e protesto sobre sua atuação no Estado do Pará. Não só o sistema financeiro (aliás, as duas empresas alavancam a Bolsa de Valores local) e a crise global foram colocados em xeque no encontro de seis dias.

Uma das patrocinadoras do Fórum, a Petrobras bancou R$ 200 mil da organização e montou estande na Universidade Federal do Pará, um dos palcos das discussões. Mas, não pôde evitar uma mesa-redonda que se intitulava "Petrobras Assassina: Novos Caminhos para o Conhecimento", proposto pelo movimento local "Coletivo Ecologia Urbana".

Em barracas no campus, sindicatos dos petroleiros protestavam pelo leilão de regiões para a exploração petrolífera e juntavam assinaturas contra uma medida similar na área do chamado pré-sal, faixa de mar no litoral do Sudeste e Sul.

Já a Vale do Rio Doce foi o tema de um painel. Marcelo Carneiro, coordenador da ONG Justiça nos Trilhos, que tenta aglutinar as ações de comunidades atingidas pelos empreendimentos da Vale, criticou a estratégia da empresa de demitir em época de crise. "Eles tiveram lucros fantásticos no Pará no ano passado e agora cortam vagas. Para esconder isso, fazem campanha de mídia na região para contar o festival de bondades que dizem fazer", aponta o pesquisador.

Carneiro afirma que o governo teve de auxiliar os desempregados da região (está no Pará a mais rica área mineral do mundo, Carajás, e a ferrovia que leva essa produção até São Luís). "O socorro do governo deve ir para os trabalhadores que perderam seu sustento, não para as empresas", disse.

Como a Vale comprou a mineradora canadense Inco no final de 2006, daquele país veio Catherine Coumans, coordenadora de pesquisas do Mining Watch Canadá, uma organização não-governamental que fiscaliza as atividades desse tipo de empresas. Ela ressalta que, com a aquisição de dois anos atrás, a Vale tem minas em locais como a Indonésia e Nova Caledônia. "Na Indonésia, atualmente a Vale decide se vai desalojar uma vila que já foi arrastada pela mina e pelo campo de golpe dos funcionários", afirma Coumans.

No painel, além do impacto social, outro assunto colocado foi o impacto ambiental. A ONG Justiça nos Trilhos aponta que a Vale é a campeã em multas pelo Ibama, com 56 autos de infração desde sua privatização no governo de Fernando Henrique Cardoso. "Essa empresa fala em responsabilidade ambiental, mas falha no critério justiça ambiental", afirmou Cândido Grzybowski, um dos fundadores do Fórum Social e diretor do Ibase (Instituto Brasileiro de Análises Sociais e Econômicas).

Outro lado

A Vale refuta as acusações e diz ter compromisso com o desenvolvimento sustentável, citando que uma das ações se dá por meio da Fundação Vale, que desenvolve programas em parceria com ONGs, setores do poder público e sociedade civil, visando o desenvolvimento econômico, ambiental e social das localidades onde atua.