Codelco says it will wait to evaluate financing for El Abra expansion
Freeport McMoran, which owns 51% of the mine, plans to invest around $7.5 billion to expand.
Communities impacted by the global operations of the world’s largest mining company were in London Thursday to challenge the BHP Billiton AGM this week. Outside the meeting, a street theatre re-enactment of the destruction of the Doce River in Minas Gerais, Brazil, was accompanied by testimonials from frontline visitors affected by the company’s operations in Brazil, Colombia and Indonesia.
The AGM comes almost a year after the deadly Samarco dam disaster, which killed 20 (including a miscarriage that the company refuses to acknowledge responsibility for), flooded 280 miles of the Doce River and left 700 people homeless. Three delegates from Brazil, including Maria do Carmo Dangelo, a farmer iimpacted by the disaster – are in London to call-out the mining giant’s lack of accountability since the spill.
Maria is joined by Franciscan brother Rodrigo de Castro Amédée Péret and Leticia Oliveira from the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB). They have released a set of demands on the company, about community decision making over compensation, acceptance of wider responsibility for the impacts of the disaster, and against the building of a new dam on the site of a decimated village.
Two visitors from Colombia are in London to address BHP Billiton’s co-ownership of the Cerrejón coal mine, one of the largest sources of imported coal burnt in UK power stations [2]. Luz Ángela Uriana Epiayú, a mother from La Guajira, has won a legal case against Cerrejón over the respiratory illness affecting her two-year-old son, due to the dust from the mine. Air pollution, along with the diversion of local water supplies and the eviction of whole villages for mine expansion, stand out among the unaddressed impacts of the BHP-co-owned mine. Luz Ángela is accompanied by her solicitor, Dr. Annelen Micus of the CAJAR lawyers collective.
Also, Arie Rompas of WAHLI and Friends of the Earth in Indonesia is in London to speak about BHP Billiton’s recent divestment from the IndoMet coal project in Central Kalimantan. This year the company sold their 75% stake in the mine without accepting responsibility for the damage already caused by its operations and a recent tailings spill. In light of a new report citing poor design and drainage as causes of the Brazil collapse [3], the failure raises questions about the company’s worldwide waste storage practices.
