THE
SOCIAL EFFECTS OF MINING AND THE CMC MINE PROBLEM
Leonard A Stone
The
objective of this paper is to stress the significance of a local environmental
problem n Lefke, and in particular its social effects. A foreign firm has
created the Lefke environmental problem. Existing laws and regulations, as well
as the willingness of the present generation seems, thus far to be incapable of
solving the problem. A clear cut definition of the property rights of the CMC
site and sound management policies about solid waste problems form an important
starting point for the solution of this specific problem. The social effects of
this mining problem on the local community is of paramount importance and is
especially assessed with regard to the concept of eco-consciousness; as is the
role of regional institutions, and in particular the European Union. The paper
concludes by noting an interrelated range of topics for analysis within the
field of environmental politics.
MINING
This
is the age of science and technology. The establishment of the CMC mine was the
result of an industrialisation process. Solutions to the abandoned CMC mine
problem require the correct application of science and technology; it also
requires a postindustrialist approach. But it is within a literary context that
I can begin by offering a visual description of the poisoned site.
I
have landed on a toxic planet. Its toxic, dusty surface is littered with tiny
pieces of shiny rock illuminated by the heat of the sun. It is a colourless
face, save for patches of orange, scarred with mounds topped with dark pockmarks
and craters indenting the folds of its skin. Welcome to the disused copper mine
in Lefke.
Life on earth without mining is as inconceivable as life on the moon. Since the beginning of time mining has changed the face of humankind. The ancient Roman and Greek writers depicted mining as an abuse of mother earth. Notwithstanding, the use of minerals has also been linked to notions of 'progress'. From the Stone and Iron ages to the current age of technology, consumption of the products of mining has been seen as a sign of development. From 1750 to 1900 the world's overall use of minerals has increased tenfold while its population doubled. Economic progress has seen this leap at least thirteen-fold again last century. (1) Colonialism was fuelled by the same quest for 'progress' as industrialised nations invaded the South and squabbled over its natural resources. Companies spread economic dependence while their governments asserted political dominance. It is ironic that countries, which experienced colonialism at first hand, are now the same ones spreading a new contagion. American companies are at the forefront of this process, as are Australian companies which first explored and exploited Papua New Guinea. Canadians, furthermore, travelled down to South America. Today, Canada and Australia together are now responsible for most mining worldwide. (2)
Mining
is being experienced on the largest scale in history. Since 1900 half of the
world's states have opened their doors to international companies and are
actively encouraging them to invest. In their panic to unearth more lucre,
companies are always on the move. In their wake they leave environmental
degradation, dependency on primary exports and foreign capital, human rights
abuses and displaced indigenous people.
It
may surprise most people, even those involved in the technology of copper
mining, to learn that many of today's mining methods were introduced as early as
1865. (3) In an age when some of the world's most powerful industries scarcely
existed three decades ago, mining's technology is the 'Grand Old Man' of the
modern economy.
The
environmental stress caused by mining contorts the face of the earth. The
industry gobbles a tenth of the energy in the world every year and churns out
enough waste to dwarf the planet's total accumulation of municipal garbage. The
mining and smelting of metals, furthermore, accounts for the second-largest
source of greenhouse emissions.
In
short, the extraction and beneficiation of metals produce significant amounts of
waste and by-products. Total waste produced can range from 10 percent of the
total material mined to well over 99.99 percent. The volume of total waste can
be enormous: in 1992, for instance, gold mining alone produced over 540 million
metric tons of waste. (4)
Commodity/
No. of Mines/ Total
Commodity/ Tailings / Other
Waste
Produced
Generated Handled
(I,000 mt)
(1,000
mt) (1,000 mt)
Copper
50
1,765
337,733
393,332
Gold
+212
0.329
247,533
293,128
Iron
Ore
22
55,593
80,204
106,233
Lead
23
398
6,361
---------
Silver
150
1.8
2,822
---------
Zinc
25
524
4,227
---------
(Source:
US Bureau of Mines, Mineral Commodity Summaries 1994 and Minerals
Yearbook, Vol. 1: Metals and Minerals, 1992)
European
Union environmental policy talks about protection of the environment.
Interrelated with this policy is the EU’s specific social goals: eg for a
‘fair’ distribution of income, and the development of recreational
facilities. EU policy makers, moreover, are aware of the social effects of
environmental degradation. However, there has been little, if no empirical
research conducted into the social effects of mining in the Southeastern
Mediterranean region. Future research, for example of assessing the impact of
mining activity on local political changes, would have to take into account the
various positions on what actually constitutes the social. From one perspective
the political, economic and cultural can be subsumed under the umbrella term
‘social’. From a Green
political perspective, either moderate or radical, an integrated approach to the
social effects of mining on the community – almost all of which are negative
– would place the safety of the planet first. The social in one important
Green sense, cannot exist if it does not coexist in harmony with the earth and
its fragile resources, it is an integral part of that relationship. Hence, it is
of utmost importance for Greens that the environmental impacts of mining remain
central to any understanding of the social effects of mining on communities
worldwide. Potential environmental impacts of mining on the environment include
poisonous air emissions, fugitive dust blown to surrounding area, non-reused
overburden (usually surface oils and vegetation) waste rock, run-off sediment,
tailings (slurry which contains a mixture of impurities, trace metals, and
residue of chemicals), loss of plant population from dust and water pollution,
reduction in localised groundwater recharge resulting from increased runoff, and
loss of fish population from water pollution.
HISTORY
OF MINING IN LEFKE
The
Lefke region, situated in Northern Cyprus, has been host to both agriculture and
heavy industrial activities for many years. It was the region where the best
quality citrus was grown and where the mining industry attracted people from
other regions of the island. Economic activity reached a crescendo towards the
middle of the 20th century, fuelled by the steadily growing mining and smelting
activities of a foreign company.
Cyprus
Mines Corporation (CMC) was a company established in 1916 according to the codes
of New York State. Although the copper mine in Foucassa Hill, a site near Lefke,
started operating in 1913, CMC formally started to employ workers in 1916. (5)
Copper Ore extracted from the mine was stored in another neighbouring site near
Yeşilyurt. In 1922, the company began building houses for its workers. For the
purposes of exporting the mineral ore, CMC constructed a jetty in Gemikonaği in
1924 and continued exploration of potential mines. It was successful in 1926 in
starting a new extraction process in Karadağ, a site to the southwest of Lefke.
After this year, the development process in the Lefke region accelerated with
the growth of CMC facilities. In 1928 a second village for workers was
constructed in Karadağ, and in 1930 the storage and smelting plant in Gemikonaği
was expanded. As a result the total number of workers in all CMC units reached
5,720 in 1937.
Increasing
economic activity in the region attracted workers from various parts of the
island, regional income increased substantially. Lefke soon became an important
central town in the northeastern part of the island. CMC built elementary
schools and a hospital in order to serve the educational and health needs of the
local populace.
CMC
had to limit its economic activities during the Second World War, when
unemployment subsequently surged in the region. Soon after the war mining
activities accelerated. Unemployment began to fall.
Most
significantly, social and economic activities in the region fluctuated in
parallel with Turkish-Greek disputes after 1955. As a result CMC's employment
policy was revised. Turkish and Greek workers were concentrated in different
mining sites. The mining and smelting operations continued with this specific
employment policy until 1974, when the wide site of CMC operations was divided
by the Green Line subsequent to the year of the Turkish military intervention in
Cyprus.
POLLUTION
In
1970, a Turkish agricultural engineer from Lefke brought a lawsuit against CMC,
after conducting experiments around Lefke the mine. He concluded by emphasising
the negative effects of the ore dust on the productivity and the crop quality of
nearby citrus trees. (6)
A
special committee was appointed by the court to study the effects of the ore
dust on crop production in the Lefke area. The report of this committee stated
that 'dust, presumably ore dust, was observed on the leaves of trees at all
sites but it was more pronounced in orchards nearer the ponds and the open cast
mines... [analysis of water drained into the Marathassa River bed was]
unsuitable for irrigation purposes [and] contamination resulting from the
operations of the Cyprus Mining Corporation... with regard to production it has
been visually estimated that the number of fruit per tree of both Valencia and
Jaffa was less than half the number produced by trees of similar age elsewhere
on the island. It was also observed that the proportion of smaller and
undersized fruit of Valencia oranges was higher than that on normal trees in
other areas.' (7) Analysis of these dust samples showed that 30% of its contents
were iron pyrites and 0.5-1.2% were copper. (8)
This
report was the first direct evidence of air pollution, water pollution, and land
pollution. It also pointed the finger at the polluter: CMC. Subsequent reports
have also emphasised a high degree of toxic contamination of the area
surrounding the mine. (9)
TODAY
This
specific local environmental problem has been analysed and discussed by
different organisations on various occasions, especially the Municipality of
Lefke, the European University of Lefke, and Lefke Cevre ve Tanitma Derneği
(Environmental Society of Lefke). There is agreement on the sources of the
environmental problem in Lefke, which can be summarised as follows:
CMC's abandoned industrial site, covering an area around six square
kilometres, is composed of a variety of different minor sites, each of which was
used for different stages of the mining, loading, transporting, filtering and
smelting facility. The extended nature of the facility has left widespread piles
of tailing waste to the present generation. The polluting minor sites are mainly
three in total: the first one is composed of huge piles of tailing deposits
located alongside of the Gemikonaği-Lefkoşa roadway parallel to the seaside
and adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea. The deposits, containing residue of
copper refinery processes, are exposed to the environment, resulting in the
contamination of surface rainwater and also the nearby sea water (turning the
shoreline orange in colour). Furthermore, the moist sludge collected from inside
of the established facility at the same site, contains high amounts of arsenic
and selenium, both of which are hazardous to human health; the second site has a
number of large ponds which contain considerable amounts of copper porphyry.
These tailing deposits are rich in sulphur and when they contact with rainwater
and oxygen, sulphuric acid, a dangerous gas is formed. The result is air
pollution; the third site, finally, is just above the Gemikonaği Reservoir that
is very close to a prominent drinking well of Lefke. Precautions have been taken
against this particular threat, by digging drinking water wells above the water
level of the reservoir, and by ensuring that the water level in the reservoir
does not get higher than a secure level. Nevertheless, a wrong decision about
the location of the reservoir has resulted in an idle investment. Had there been
no piles of tailing deposits, the investment may not have been such a total loss
for the whole community.
The
existence of these tailing deposits has imposed serious constraints on possible
investment alternatives in Lefke. Acres of land devoted for storing the solid
waste of an old inactive mining industry, besides causing degradation of the
area, is creating serious problems for the whole ecosystem of the country and
the Mediterranean Sea as well. The contamination source is a serious direct
threat to the drinking water, crop chain and human health within the Lefke area
and an indirect threat for the whole country.
Some
commentators on the Lefke environmental problem have pointed an accusing finger
at the inactivity of certain authorities regarding the disposal, clearance
and/or deep burial of these tailing deposits. (10) The former polluter, so this
line of thinking goes, is CMC, and the latter one is the governing authorities
since 1974. CMC was a polluter by not taking precautionary measures against
poisonous emissions and by not enforcing the initial polluter to get rid of the
hazardous deposits that it left. This said, it should be born in mind that the
complexities involved in establishing liability for abandoned polluting waste is
a real problem in recovering the damages from the responsible parties. In other
words, it seems impossible to recover the cost of clearing the CMC site from its
initial polluter.
There
is an existing hazardous waste problem in Lefke. The cost of cleaning the area
is enormous and varies from 500 million US Dollars to 50 million Euros. These
costs are well beyond the affordable limits of the domestic authorities. But
since the site is a potential pollution resource of the eastern Mediterranean
Sea and a potential health hazard, international technical and financial aid
and/or loans should be obtained for solving the problem. The European Union has
a significant role to play here, on a NGO level. Thus, there could be
possibility of a bicommunal project that may facilitate EU aid.
SOCIAL
EFFECTS
In
the broader historical sweep of social and political phenomena, Lefke’s
environmental problem is the direct consequence of historical forces; namely the
development of modern economic modes of production, of industrialization. It is
part of a past capitalist industrial philosophy: production at any cost.
The
solution(s) to this environmental catastrophe, however, lay within a
postindustrial dialectic, where alternative eco-friendly, green, postindustrial
ideas are present. Such a solution as this can be located within a global
process: the greening of society. And
it is an integrated, green, environmentally sound approach within which a
solution to the Lefke environmental problem is found. This problem itself has
significant social effects.
There
are a variety of social effects resulting from the toxic, disused Lefke mine.
The first concerns land, water and the ecosystem. Land is a very scarce in a
small island and land is not really available for the storing of solid waste.
Furthermore, water is an even more scarce resource here, and pollution of the
water supply will create a problem of gigantic proportions. Fresh air and the
Mediterranean Sea are precious inputs for the health of the people and for
recreational activities, as well as for the eco-tourism industry. In brief,
these resources have to be protected by avoiding heavy industrial facilities as
well as other pollution-generating activities. Our ecosystem is the most
precious resourse we have and at the same time it should be the most precious
wealth that we should bequeath for the coming generations.
Immediate
government action is required. At minimum, cyanide in tailings ponds has to be
neutralised, the site has be cordoned off with 'wildlife-sensitive' fencing, and
with plenty of Hazardous Waste warning signs. Close and restore roads no longer
in use.
A
second social effect of the Lefke mine problem is the potentially negative
effect of the toxic waste on the health of the surrounding populace. Higher than
usual levels of cancer rates in some surrounding villages have been talked
about, but the impact of hazardous waste on public health has yet to be
determined. (11)
A
third social effect is on job opportunities. An environmentally friendly
regeneration of the site could create a number of job opportunities in the
region. Dwindling job opportunities (compounded by political problems) have had
serious social and financial effects on the income of region, with many Turkish
Cypriots forced to leave for countries such as Turkey, Australia, England and
Canada in search of employment. Interestingly enough, a local sentiment is that
a solution to the 'job problem' in Lefke is for another mining company to
upgrade the mine and bring it back to life. On the point of pollution, an answer
is that since we have the problem, a little more pollution will not make much
difference. Aside from the prohibited cost of such an operation, the addition of
further pollution at the site would have enormous environmental consequences,
and not least on the health of the local population.
The
fourth social effect of the disused mine on the local community is its
negative impact on farmers, particularly citrus and date growers, alongside crop
farmers. Suspicions have been aroused that any vegetables grown in the Lefke
region are unfit for human consumption. Land is the mainstay of the small
community of Lefke farmers. Poisoned land will be their ultimate downfall.
The
fifth social effect concerns eco-consciousness. A disused, toxic site on your
doorstep, so to speak is a demoralising site. D. H. Lawrence once wrote that the
man-man is ugly. I would like to add that that the disused 'man-made' is even
more ugly, and in this case is potentially highly dangerous, as the mine was in
its working days. (12) The presence of the mine has a deliberating effect on
levels of political consciousness, and not least environmental consciousness.
This environmental consciousness is now a building plank of civilising
societies. It is all but absent in the Lefke region.
Environmental
consciousness is thwarted in its growth as continonuous repetition of the same
lack of environmental stimulous - Lefke's environmental blight - can be
considered as the equivalent of no environmenatl stimulous at all. An
environmentally visual blight effects the inner self, for to perceive the
natural environment in its glory is inseparable from the struggle to gain one's
self. It is no surprise that Lefke's individual subjects whose environmental
consciousness is blighted by the disused mine, are deprived of environmental
stimuli, have become limited in their environmental consciousness, in their
ability to 'connect' with their surroundings. Such a consciousness can not evoke
in condensed form the eco-relationships continually thrown up by environmenatl
stimuli. A fusion of the rational with sensations arising from smell, taste,
hearing, vision and touch is thwarted: a process of dislocation, no less. A
consciousness deprived of its eco-psycho environmenal nourishment.
Human
beings are not rigid machines but living and variable systems, the functioning
of which is itself subject to variation. If a human's eco-sensory system is
exposed to a prolonged negative stimulous situation that has departed from the
natural environment, the system can be expected to to undergo a fundamental
change in its positive mode of operation: from an optimistic eco-consciousness
to one of a negative outlook.
Since
'fallen' eco-consciousness is based on 'environmental repression' and since one
of the keys for lifting 'environmenatl repression', at least for Lefke's
inhabitants, is the 'lifting' of repression, the cleaning of the CMC mine area
is paramount in the eco-liberation of Lefke's populace. The CMC mine is, in
short an environmental sickness, engendering a type of repressive, false
eco-consciousness. Unrepressed, the Lefke inhabitant will delight in the forces
of 'life', and in the process will drop his macabre fascination for the
'unbridled force' of industrialisation in favour of a sustainable eco-system. A
radical transformation from a negative environmental consciousness to one that
is liberated, one that sees beyond other types of political consciousness, one
that goes beyond and cuts across mass political ideologies such as socialism,
liberalism, nationalism, conservatism, and feminism. A uniting ecological
ideology, a true, eco-consciousness.
CONCLUSION
In
sum, the negative social effects of the disused CMC mine in Lefke encompass
green politics at the level of consciousness, the islands' ecosystem, public
health, unemployment and environmental aesthetics. The Lefke community cannot
solve the problem on their own. They require help at a regional level,
particularly from the European Union Environmental ministry, and indeed support
from environmental agencies and NGOs worldwide.
One
worry is that if the mine is cleaned up by the original polluter, the CMC
company (now under a different name), this would mean that the company would
want their property back, most notably the CMC-built miners' houses that are now
inhabited by a considerable number of local families. In such a scenario, the
payment of a reasonable rent to the aforesaid company should ease the worry of
the families. They would in all probability stay put.
On the other hand, commentators have noted that the CMC owners had broken
the contract they signed by not clearing up the site as promised. The due
process of law and the complicated legal wrangling involving the Environmental
Society of Lefke and the polluters has yet to run its course.
Notwithstanding,
returning the Lefke mine area, free of pollutants, to the local eco-system
ramains of paramount importance and requires sacrifice on the part of Lefke's
environmental vanguard. Such a sacrifice is at the heart of the answer to the
question as to how people should live. A passage from Marx is important here.
Marx displays in his very earliest writings a deep admiration for sacrificial
conduct, sacrificial conduct that derives from an emotive direction completely
opposite from the one in Das Kapital. In fact, the metaphor of sacarifice
informs one of the first expressions of Marx, composed during the formative
university years, on the subject of how men
should live, on the subject of moral or proper behaviour, the ideal
ethical life. 'The greatest men', he says, 'work for the universal', devote
themselves to improving mankind's lot, making 'the most people happy', ensuring
the 'welfare of humanity'. One's own fulfillment as a person comes soley from
this charitable orientation, for other 'joys' are but 'meagre, limited, egoistic
by comparison'. The best life, says Marx - and here is the term we are looking
for - 'sacrifices itself to humanity' in an effort to promote the general good.
(13) At the centre of the general good is the eco-system. We are all part of it.
On
a final note, a Green perspective on Lefke’s environmental problem requires
further research: particularly in the area of environmental politics. Analysis
needs to focus on a range of interelated phenomena: from the institutional
responses of parliament, to the role of the local administrative system,
electoral politics, and on to the more informal politics of the
Environmental Society of Lefke. The politics of business as it responds to the
greening of society need also to be taken into account. All the technical
knowledge in the world does not necessarily lead societies to change
environmentally damaging behaviour. Hence a critical understanding of
socio-economic, political and cultural processes and structures is of central
importance in approaching Lefke’s environmental problem. The Lefke mine
problem is after all part of a wider process: global environmental degradation
of our planet. Dealing with this problem is again part of a wider process:
effective local and international management of our world’s resources, at the
heart of which lies effective local and international environmental diplomacy.
This process is is yet once again part of a wider process: ie the globalization
of environmental concerns. Governments and organisations cannt effectively act
alone. Cooperation, rather than competition is required.
11.
See A.M. Ertugrul et al, ‘Health Hazards’, An Overview of
Environmental Issues Associated with Gemikonagi Copper Mining and Refining
Operations, January 2001, (A &
M Engineering and Environmental Services, Inc.), p. 14.
12.
Higher levels of throat cancer have been reported amongst former mine
workers, for instance, in the village of Bağlıköy, near to Lefke town.