Africa-Press – Liberia. In June last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of Liberia announced that Bea Mountain Mining Corporation, a Turkish-owned mining company, polluted water sources in Kinjor, Grand Cape Mount County.
“The analysis results showed a higher than [the] permissible level of free cyanide (with a source from the BMMC tailing storage facility),” a statement from the agency said at the time.
“The presence of excess cyanide led to the contamination of the water sources and that the situation has severely disrupted and injured the livelihood of the communities that depend on those water resources…,” it added. The statement followed weeks of a public frenzy after a dead fish and a dog’s body made rounds on Facebook.
But in a miraculous reversal of the report, the EPA cleared the company two months later. To the ire of residents and the outcry of the public, it said in a statement, “All facilities tested were appreciably below the permissible level set up by the EPA.”
Addressing a news conference in early August that year, The Executive Director of the agency Professor Wilson Tarpeh explained the shocking reversal.
Tarpeh said the agency had only set 30 days for waterfronts in the area to be safe for use.
“The limit, even though it was above, but that limit was not by itself sufficient to cause distress to the aquatic species,” Tarpeh told a news conference a day after the statement. “The cyanide level—the level of pollution—has been cured by natural occurrence: rain. Rainwater washed all of that away the fishes are about to come back.”
But the actual report on the spillage Tarpeh referenced shows the EPA deceived the public. It turned out EPA investigators had found a variety of chemicals that leaked from the Bea Mountain facility were well above the approved limits, according to the report.
Several samples collected from different locations exceeded the approved limits set by the World Health Organization and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Water samples from the area of the spillage show cyanide, iron, arsenic, and copper had seeped into the Marvoe Creek and the Mafa River.
The chemical substances, used to mine gold, can make people sick and are capable of killing them. Tests also prove that dissolved oxygen (DO), which supports aquatic life, was below the permissible level, according to the report.
One sample shows mercury—used to recover gold nuggets can cause a horde of health problems and death—above the required level. Investigators attributed to likely artisanal-mining activities, the report points out.
The report says the water quality made an “appreciable improvement.” However, it does not say the chemicals were below the permissible level as Tarpeh dishonestly claimed.
Lack of Transparency
The EPA has not been transparent over the spillage, which paralyzed the livelihood of some 350 people in affected communities.
It did not inform the public about the full scale of the pollution. The July 2022 report the EPA lied about remains buried on the agency’s website, not even the agency’s preferred medium of communication. Facebook is.
It was unclear when EPA published the reports. For the last two or three years or so, EPA’s website does not show dates of publications.
The agency’s webmasters make that determination, with date maneuvering possible, according to an information technology expert who does not want to be named. DayLight’s analysis of the website shows that both the May and July reports were published on April 5, 2023, nearly a year after the incident.
Tarpeh had dedicated nearly all of the time of the press conference to wetlands. He spent just three and a half minutes on the spillage and thought it was the most trending environmental issue then.
An attempt by The DayLight to pose a question on the spill was denied. Noteworthy, investigators had recommended a press conference particularly on the matter in the presence of company representatives, according to the report.
A report on another spillage this year, published at the same time as the 2022 reports, suggests the EPA did not share last year’s findings with affected communities. That report said former Justice Minister Benedict Sannoh, the community’s lawyer, collected a sample of decomposed fish that had died after the pollution.
The EPA has continued its concealment trend this year after chemicals leaked again from the same facility in February. The current spill remained largely unknown to the public until late last month when The DayLight broke the news. The report was published at the same time the reports on last year’s spillage were published, over a month after the episode.
The EPA refuted The DayLight’s story on this year’s spill and its disguise of the new development as a “diabolical lie.” It has, however, remained quiet on the new incident. It has not called a press conference or made a statement as it did the last time.
Concealing information violates the public participation portion of the Environmental Protection and Management Law. The particular provision mandates the EPA to “ensure maximum participation by the Liberian people in the management and decision-making processes of the environment and natural resources.”
No Punishment for Bea Mountain
There is plenty of evidence the EPA is not enforcing the law against Bea Mountain in the pollution saga, the second in two years and the fifth in the last decade.
The report of this year’s spillage called on EPA to impose a fine against the company for violating the law and the terms of its waste plant permit. It found that Bea Mountain did not implement all the recommendations of the 2022 pollution but did not specify. Like this year’s report, the two reports from last year had urged the EPA to fine the company.
A 2020 EPA investigation of Bea Mountain’s controversial waste plant shows the company operated an open wastewater facility, rather than the approved closed one. It said the company conducted construction at the plant without authorization.
It further said Bea Mountain denied EPA investigators access to its laboratory and company documents. Investigators found the water from a 25-centimeter metal pipe, which emptied into a wetland in the area, contained an excess of the deadly cyanide, copper, and iron. The report also called for fines at the time.
There is no public record the EPA fined Bea Mountain for the violations in 2020, last year, or this year. That undermines the “polluter pays” principle of the environmental law. Violators of the law face up to a 10-year prison term or pay a fine not more than US$25,000, or both fine and imprisonment. In 2018, the EPA fined Bea Mountain US$99,999 for the same offense.
Bea Mountain, which denied any wrongdoing regarding the spillage last year, did not reply to queries for this story. The Turkish-owned company signed a 25-year agreement with the Liberian government on July 29, 2009. It is owned by Turkish billionaire Mehmet Nazif Günal, also the owner of MNG Gold, which also has a 25-year agreement with Liberia.
Its history of polluting water sources in the Gola Konneh area dates back to 2015. In 2016, an accident released chemical waste into nearby water sources. After those spills, villagers filed a complaint with two European banks that financed Bea Mountain’s New Liberty goldmine. The IFC, the World Bank’s private lending entity, invested £5.3 million into the project.
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