Mining is also very water intensive, caus- ing depletion of surface and groundwater, which can disrupt access and reduce the water available to sustain local communities, ecosystems, and regional biodiversity.3 Contamination of surface and ground water from toxic spills, mine waste (tailings and waste rock), and effluent occurs during and following mining operations (eg. [...] Storing mine tailings and waste rock in lakes is a persistent environmental issue across Canada; the federal government has already sacrificed 72 bodies of water including lakes to create Tailings Impoundment Areas.9 The Bloom Lake project is now awaiting federal approval, and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change has been urged to require the company to develop an alternative plan to sav. [...] Due to the massive contamination of surface water around and downstream of the mine with heavy metals, the local Ipili people struggle to find clean drinking water.12 After 30 years, the mine has just received a permit for another 20 years of operations and will continue to use the local river system as its waste dump. [...] 13 See more and in the 2009 report by the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, “Investigation of trace metal concentrations in soil, sediments and waters in the vicinity of ‘Geita Gold Mine’ and ‘North Mara Gold Mine’ in North West Tanzania” [online] and a joint press release from the Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC), Muslim Council of Tanzania (BAKWATA) and the Christian Council of Tanzania. [...] The review found that in its environmental impact assess- ment, the company had artificially separated the páramo (high-altitude wetland key to storing and recharging the region’s water cycle) and the groundwater, thereby ignoring key risks that contamina- tion from mining could threaten the drinking water for tens of thousands of people in local communi- ties and the nearby city of Cuenca.
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