Nickel mining planned for the island of New Caledonia threatens its biological diversity, its public health and the cultural security of the indigenous Kanak people. The grassroots group Point Zero (formerly Action Biosphere) is working to ensure that local mining meets international standards.
The South Pacific island of New Caledonia, a French territory, boasts the worldís largest lagoon, the second-longest coral reef, and some of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth. Believed to be an early fragment of Gondwanaland, the prehistoric supercontinent that began to break apart 250 million years ago, the island has evolved in relative isolation. New Caledonia is now home to 3,500 recorded species of plants, three quarters of which are endemic.
Unfortunately, the island also contains 25 percent of the worldís remaining nickel reserves. With such vast subterranean mineral wealth, this unique and delicate ecosystem has become dangerously threatened. Grassroots groups like Point Zero have been challenging the steady increase in large-scale mining operations in New Caledonia and providing a voice for its under-represented environment and peoples. Global Greengrants Fund made its first grant to Point Zero in 2001.
The most imminent threat is a project being carried out by Inco Ltd. of Ontario, Canada, a leading nickel mining company. In 1999, Inco began construction of a USD 50 million pilot project in Goro, at the southern end of the island. This project tested the effectiveness of Incoís new pressure acid leach mining technology. After two years of testing, Inco began construction of an industrial mine on the Goro site, which will be 5,000 times the size of the pilot project and will include portions of the native lands of the indigenous Kanak people.
Pressure acid leach mining, a process in which large quantities of acid are used to separate nickel and cobalt from mined ore, is a new, proprietary technology that has never been used in a large-scale operation before. Little is known about its possible effects on the environment, but a similar process has been used in gold mines for years, and gold mining companies have frequently failed to properly treat or store the resulting acid waste.
Such a failure led to one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. The Summitville Gold Mine in Colorado had been using a cyanide heap leach operation to extract microscopic quantities of gold. Although the company was using a highly toxic acid, it did not properly build its waste storage system, and in 1993 one of the storage lagoons burst. A torrent of acid washed down the Alamosa River, poisoning seventeen miles of the river and putting drinking supplies and crops at risk. As late as 2000, large fish kills were documented in the river. Local ranchers, fishermen and farmers suffered huge economic losses.
Kanak leaders have long opposed mining on their native lands, and although the Kanak represent the majority of New Caledonia’s population, they have had little political influence. Point Zero was founded in response to the need to fight these mines and ensure the long-term health of the Kanak people.
Recent victories have helped galvanize resistance to local mining. Pressure from Point Zero, Kanak leaders and Canadian environmental groups persuaded Inco to discontinue its plan to build a marine waste disposal system that would have spilled nickel ore refuse and large quantities of acid and other chemicals directly into the ocean near the coral reef. This has helped improve the Goro project, but once built, the mine will be one of the largest mines in the world, and its operations will be largely unregulated.
While Inco has conceded that the waste produced by the new acid leaching process would not meet French environmental standards, the company will be able to use this process in New Caledonia where weak regulation allows companies to operate using substandard and dangerous practices. Inco plans to discharge 40,000 cubic meters of water per day into the sensitive coral reef area, and yet the company has failed to make public any information about the acidity and chemical content of this water. And the land-based waste storage system Inco plans to use instead of the water disposal system still presents serious environmental and social hazards. Given the enormous scale of the mine, Inco will need to build dozens of settling ponds for the millions of tons of highly acidic waste. These settling ponds are similar to the waste lagoons that resulted in the Summitville debacle, and the mine will process far greater amounts of toxic wastes.
The Goro mine will likely be completed in late 2005. Falconbridge, another Canadian nickel producer plans to build an even larger mine in northern New Caledonia near Koniambo. This mine will produce 60,000 tons of nickel each year, 5 percent of the worldís total. Falconbridge is still performing initial financial and environmental studies on the Koniambo project and, although the final design of the mine and its waste disposal techniques are yet to be decided, the company hopes to begin construction sometime in 2005.
The huge industrial mines in Goro and Koniambo will also require large smelter complexes to process raw nickel into more useable forms. New Caledoniaís primary smelter is now located in the capital city, Noumea. This smelter has been operated by the French company Societe Le Nickel (SLN) for more than 80 years. Over the next several years SLN plans to increase its current rate of production by half, putting urban New Caledonians at risk as well.
Smelting of nickel ore emits nickel dust, nickel subsulfide and other chemicals that pose documented health threats. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that nickel refinery dust and nickel subsulfide are human carcinogens. The California Environmental Protection Agency Air Resources Board has identified three types of adverse health impacts that can occur as a result of nickel inhalation: lung and nasal cancer, irritation and allergic sensitization from short-term exposure, and asthma and other respiratory ailments from long-term exposure. Point Zero’s newest initiative aims at safeguarding the health of Noumea residents by monitoring the smelter’s emission levels, publicizing health effects, and pressuring the government and the company to strengthen its pollution controls.
In July 2005, Point Zero, along with such prominent environmental groups as Environmental Defense, Friends of the Earth, and others, traveled to Japan to put pressure on the Japanese partners in the mining project to withdraw their support from Goro Nickel. The mission urged the Sumitomo and Mitsui companies to look at the evidence of environmental and cultural destruction caused by the mine they help to fund. Point Zero and the others also alerted the Japanese parliament to what is happening in New Caledonia.
Currently, Point Zero is compiling a comprehensive report about the Goro mine, as well as carrying out projects that address such issues such as toxic waste dumping, mangrove destruction, industrial water pollution affecting domestic supplies, shrimp farming, deforestation and wildfires. It has also helped organize local factory workers in a strike against unsafe working conditions caused by nickel and other ore leaks.
Point Zero faces a long and difficult struggle with few domestic allies. New Caledonia’s rich nickel reserves, lax environmental regulations and oversight, and European-controlled government make it especially vulnerable to profiteering by international mining corporations. Since nickel mines generally operate for at least 50 years, environmental standards designed into the projects from the outset can make a tremendous difference for generations to come. Since our first grant for $500 in 2001, Greengrants has made two additional grants to support Point Zeroís basic needs and its work with the Kanak people. This support also has helped Point Zero coordinate its work with other organizations opposing similar nickel projects worldwide.