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Lefke Çevre ve Tanıtma Derneği
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Environmental Society of Lefka |
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THE SOCIAL EFFECTS OF
MINING AND THE CMC MINE PROBLEM
Leonard A Stone European University of Lefke, Lefke,
TRNC
ABSTRACT
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)
Volume of Waste Generated for
Selected Metals
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) THE SOCIAL
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.
ECO-CONSCIOUSNESS
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.
References
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.
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