ON September 6, 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a directive ordering Anglogold Ashanti, Obuasi Mines to stop discharging waste products into waterbodies around the Obuasi Municipality and its environs.
The directives indicated that Anglogold Ashanti, Obuasi Mines, should stop operations until it had put corrective measures that would prevent the discharge of waste products from their operations into waterbodies.
The company complied with the directives of the EPA and for almost three weeks from September 6 to 20, 2007 no production was made, and this greatly affected its revenue generation, leading to losses in many areas.
The enforcement letter, signed by the Executive Director of the EPA, Mr J.A. Allotey, and headed “Closure of Sansu, Pompora Tailings Storage Facilities and All ancillary facilities”, expressed concern about the operations of Anglogold with regard to the discharges of waste products into waterbodies, which were at variance with EPA’s directives.
The letter, which observed that Anglogold Ashanti Obuasi Mines had taken no measures to treat waste products from their operations before discharging them into waterbodies, also indicated that such discharges had “culminated into pollution of the two waterbodies — Nyam and Kwabrafoso” and therefore directed the company “to stop pumping of slurry, discharging of any supernatant solution from the two TSFS and operating of any ancillary facilities with immediate effect”.
Other observations the EPA made prior to the issuing of its directive to stop the company’s operation were that “the seepage collecting ponds towards Dokyiwa village of the Sanso Tailings Storage Facility were non-functional, resulting in seepage of effluent into the external environment”.
The EPA also noted that “input tailings deposition into T1 and T2 was carried out inappropriately and with no reference to the Agency”, adding that “the reconstruction and management of the Pompora Tailings Storage facility under the technical advice of Alexandra Fraiser Company limited, was undertaken without reference to EPA. The said construction and management cannot withstand the climatic conditions of the area”.
Another area that attracted the attention of the EPA was what it considered as the volume of solutions discharge into the Sansu River.
Explaining, it said “about 95 per cent of supernatant solution from the Sansu TFS is discharged into River Nsam with concentrations ranging from cyanide as reported in your monthly environmental monitoring returns from September 2006 to May 2007 against EPA’s guidelines of using free cyanide and soluble arsenic”.
The EPA also stressed, “Washed water from the plant is directly discharged into pond 1 and through pond 2 and into pond 3, which is a natural waterbody. Washed water from the Pompoara Treatment Plant is directed into the Kwabrafoso stream. The treatment facility for the supernatant solution from Sansu TSF is not adequately functioning”.
It was these and many other observations by the EPA that forced it to order Anglogold Ashanti Obuasi Mines to stop operations and put adequate measures that would prevent further discharges of waste products into waterbodies in place to enhance environmental friendliness.
In that letter, the EPA further directed the Obuasi mining company to construct “an earth embankment which will be able to withstand the climatic conditions of the area on the Sansu and Pompora Tailings Storage Facilities, and also ensure that the seepage collection ponds at the Sansu TSF are functional and the area around the pond towards Dokyiwa village is adequately cleaned”.
The EPA also ordered the company to “install a functional treatment facility which will be able to treat supernatant solution to meet EPA’s guidelines and submit an Action Plan to the Agency for review and verification”.
Concluding, the letter warned, “The enforcement notice will ONLY be lifted after all the directives have been complied with.
“Take notice and notice is hereby given that if you fail to comply with this enforcement notice, you will be dealt with in accordance with the provisions of the law.”
The temporary closure of the operations of the mining company and its negative impact on revenue generation forced Anglogold Ashanti, Obuasi Mines to properly sit up, and since September 6, 2007, the company has initiated innovative projects that are bringing the pollution of waterbodies in its catchment areas so far as their operations are concerned, to the barest minimum.
Among their initiatives were the treatment of supernatant solutions in both the North and South processing plants to ensure that only quality water entered the various ponds created to feed the natural waterbodies in its catchment areas.
When the Daily Graphic visited the North and South Treatment Plants to ascertain how the company was responding to the EPA directives, it was noticed that the company was not taking the directives of the EPA lightly.
Apart from treating waste water from their various ponds, cleaning of their coffer dams and piping of the supernatant solutions from the North Tailings Storage Facility before discharging them into waterbodies, the company had also raised lateritic materials as an embankment at the Sansu Tailings facility that would check the inflow of any solid material into waterbodies
As directed by the EPA the company was also diverting its operational areas from the Kwabrafo stream as a way of restoring the “ integrity of the stream”.
The construction of the pipes that pump water directly from their dams to its operation facilities, which is about three kilometres long, was to separate the pollutants from the natural water, thereby preventing any mixture, which was the order of the day prior to the EPA directives.
In an interview with the acting Environmental Manager of Anglogold Ashanti Obuasi Mines, Mr Peter Owusu Yeboah, on the directives of the EPA after visiting the problem sites, he said the Agency was very emphatic on the discharges of supernatant into waterbodies and this had brought the mining company to its feet to address all the issues raised.
He pointed out that the management had been meeting every week since September last year to review the policies and programmes initiated to address the 39 concerns raised by the EPA.
Mr Yeboah pointed out that since the image of the mining company with regard to environmental issues were at stake the need to address them to prevent any loggerhead with the EPA and also to prevent any health problems among the various communities were very important.
He said following the initial measures taken to address some of the concerns raised by the EPA the Agency issued another letter to lift the ban on their operations.
The letter issued and signed by the Deputy Executive Director of EPA, Mr D.S. Amlalo, on behalf of the Executive Director and dated September 26, 2007, noted that “to ensure continual environmental improvement, coupled with production to generate some funds, we are by this letter lifting the enforcement notice to enable you to resume the usage of the Sansu and Pompora Storage Facilities and the Ancillary Facilities”.
The letter, however, urged the company to as a matter of urgency restore seepage sumps at the Sansu Tailings Storage facility, and dredge the holding pond near the pilot detoxification plant and the sumps near the biox plant and repair pipelines from the coffer dam to the Pompora Pumping Station.
After lifting the ban on its operations, the EPA gave the mining company six months to install appropriate detoxification plants to avoid pollution of various streams and also avoid discharge of supernatant solution into the Nyam and Kwabrafo streams.
Mr Yeboah said so far they were busily addressing the concerns of the EPA and gave the assurance that they were on course and would not relent in their effort to address all such concerns.
Mr Owusu Yeboah noted that so far, the mining company had spent $8 million on installing facilities for the treatment of waste products, consultancy and dredging of the various ponds to prevent any pollution.
He said apart from their weekly meeting, the management visited the sites to ensure that people placed in responsible positions to address the environmental problems were on course.
“We do not only meet regularly to cross-check on the volume of work done but also find out what remains to be done. This will continue in future because as an international company we would not do anything that would undermine our integrity to the outside world,” he assured further.
Mr Owusu Yeboah said the regular rainfall in the country, especially in the Obuasi Municipality, was undermining their efforts to address the environmental issues raised by the EPA but said as soon as it reduced, they would continue to “clean the coffer dams, prevent any discharges into waterbodies and restore the integrity of waterbodies which had been a major source of worry to the EPA to enhance environmental friendliness”.
For his part, the General Manager of Public Affairs, Mr John Owusu, said after over 100 years continuous operations at Obuasi, this was not the time to do anything that would undermine an otherwise good relationship between the company and the communities.
“We are working very hard to improve the situation so that the challenges today would be history anytime we are accessing the quality of life the people had enjoyed during our operations here,” he noted
In an interview with Mr Kwabena Dwomo, an environmentalist, on the issues raised by the EPA against Anglogold Ashanti and how the company had responded to it so far, he commended the EPA for their initiatives so far and urged the Agency to continue monitoring mining companies to ensure that their operations do not undermine the health of Ghanaians.
He said the operations of the companies should be extended to galamsey operators whose activities were also causing a lot of destruction to the environment.
Mr Dwomo also urged the management of Anglogold Ashanti to maintain its policy of ridding the environment of any form of pollution caused by their operations, stressing that any form of pollution would have adverse effects on the health of the people in their catchment area and that would undermine productivity.
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