First and foremost, where is the industry coverage? A major incident of corporate malpractice by a publicly listed company in both Canada and The USA has got the silent treatment from mining press outlets large and small. It’s times like these that shine a light on the true agenda of the corporate-controlled mouthpieces at Mining Dot Com, Mining Journal, Kitco and the rest of the trade papers who, when it suits the cause, all get a case of journalistic amnesia and all at the same time. This isn’t a story for a lousy blogger sitting in his mother’s basement wearing pajamas and living off ramen cups, this should be in your established media outlet. So, why isn’t it?
As for the incident, we now know that Brazil imposed the R$50m (U$9m approx) fine on Great Panther Mining (GPL) (GPR.to) over one week ago! That right folks, it’s taken over a week for word of this environmental disaster to leak (pardon the pun) to the outside world and all that time, GPL has been sitting on the news. However, local press now has details on the incident that caused the death of at least two tonnes of fish stock in local rivers as well as other animals. This report explains how investigators arrived at the location on December 2nd and discovered one of the Tucano mine tailings dam containment walls had partially collapsed, presumably on November 27th and the day the fish started dying (just after a bout of heavy rain, not an unusual occurance in the zone). It also notes that when investigators arrived in early December, GPL made its labs available for test work on first water samples but nothing was found to be wrong with the test samples. However, when other samples were shipped to an independent lab in Belo Horizonte high concentrations of cyanide were discovered, a mysterious and purely coincidental difference in test results. Not. And as for the R$50m fine handed down to GPL by Brazil’s environmental body SEMA on December 21st, it turns out GPL were fined for three reasons, not just one. For details on that, we quote the Secretary the Environment for the Amapá region, one Josiane Ferreira (translated):
“R$45m is related to the death of fish, as we identified the company was responsible for the contamination of the water that caused the death of fish and other animals. Then R$2m is for non-compliance with notification, as the request we made for information was not answered within the deadline period. The other R$3m is for non-compliance with the conditions of its permit, which states the company is responsible for and must immediately report any accident which occurs within its area of operations, which did not occur.”
With all that in mind, it’s impressive how this humble corner of cyberspace broke the story in English on the afternoon of December 28th and only then, a mere six hours afterwards, the cowardly worm David Garofalo suddenly decided not to be Chair of GPL any longer, again pure coincidence I am sure. It’s all utterly pathetic so let’s underscore, where are the all English language reports on this major environmental incident, is North America trying to pretend it didn’t happen? Has its mining press been told not the cover anything to put the industry in a bad light? Will they bother publishing anything on Great Panther Mining (GPL) (GPR.to), its poisonous mess in Brazil and the way it tried to cover up its bad deeds? Will the milquetoast hacks care that the Chairman of the company left, unexpectedly and effective immediately at the same time this news finally broke, slinking his scrawny hide out the back door? It beggars belief how a corps of so-called professionals who supposedly make a career of journalism in mining but bear all the hallmarks of corrupted lapdogs can re-boot a positive corporate NR to the world within minutes of its release, but when it comes to a significant and negative event in the world of mining all we the public get is a roaring silence. You cannot rely on a pissant blog like IKN to get real news on the sector, ladies and gents, I promise you that because I’ve met the author. A plague o’ both your houses.
Mining dot com finanally wrote about this story but left out the most interesting tidbid about former Goldcorp ceo garofalo jumping ship. For garofalo to jump ship like he did appear to me on the face to be evidence that garofalo was involved in some sort of serious wrongdoing related to this event. Just my 2 cents.
Not a difficult call, he was the Chair. The job title means something.
Meanwhile, worth considering CEO Rob Henderson came to GPL after being fired by Amerigo Resources for being a chocolate fireguard for a CEO there. Also,new Chair Alan Hair follows Garofalo around from company to company like a stray dog. And for real guffaws check out the GPL Code of Ethics PDF which includes classic lines such as “…ensure that potentially negative information is given the same priority and prominence for disclosure as any good news…”. If it weren’t for the trail of death and destruction this company leaves behind it, it’d be funny.
When a so called journalist starts venting and cursing those in his storyline, he stops being a reporter. You may be right, GPL could be all these things, & more, but there is a thing called due process. I believe that should play out first. I find the amount of the fine odd coming days after receiving financing to fix a wall issue they have been dealing every since the bought the mine. The so called reporter talks about disclosure? Why don’t you give your name? Grow up.
When a so called journalist starts venting and cursing those in his storyline, he stops being a reporter. You may be right, GPL could be all these things, & more, but there is a thing called due process. I believe that should play out first. I find the amount of the fine odd coming days after receiving financing to fix a wall issue they have been dealing every since the bought the mine. The so called reporter talks about disclosure? Why don’t you give your name? Grow up.
Oh you poor thing. Truth hurts.