Mining Industry of Ghana - Environmental Impact

Environmental Impact

The Ghanaian Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was the Government entity responsible for the formulation of policies on all aspects of the environment. The agency’s functions included acting in liaison and cooperating with other Government agencies; collaborating with foreign and international agencies, as necessary; conducting investigations into environmental issues; coordinating the activities of bodies concerned with the technical aspects of the environment for the purpose of controlling the generation, treatment, storage, transportation, and disposal of industrial waste; ensuring compliance with environmental impact assessment procedures; issuing environmental permits and pollution abatement notices; making recommendations to the Government for the protection of the environment; prescribing standards and guidelines related to the pollution of air, water, and land; protecting and improving the quality of the environment; and securing the control and prevention of discharge waste into the environment among several other functions.

In 2005, the Center for Public Interest Law and the Center for Environmental Law, two Accra-based nongovernmental organizations, sued Bonte Gold Mines Ltd. (an 85% owned subsidiary of Akrokeri-Ashanti Gold Mines Inc. of Canada), Ghana’s Minerals Commission, and the EPA for the reclamation of the environment after the cessation of Bonte’s gold mining operations along the Jeni River. Bonte closed its operations at Bonteso in the Ashanti region in March 2004, citing problems concerning low-grade ore, equipment unavailability, and a default of its financial obligations during 2003. The company allegedly did not follow the due process for mine decommissioning, such as by failing to post bonds to the EPA for the reclamation of lands, failing to notify workers of its intention to liquidate, not paying up-to-date wages to workers, and leaving a debt of about $18 million owed to various state institutions and private companies. The EPA and the Minerals Commission were accused of failing to ensure Bonte’s compliance to operate in a sustainable manner.

Ghana’s Obuasi region is known to host arsenopyritic goldbearing ore bodies. According to company reports, during the 1990s, an arsenic precipitation plant was installed at the Pompora Treatment Plant for the commercial recovery of arsenic from the roaster flue gases. At the time, the recovered arsenic trioxide was sold to Europe for commercial applications. As the market for arsenic declined, the treatment plant was shut down in 2000 and about 10,000 metric tons (t) of arsenic was stockpiled in bags at Obuasi. After the introduction of the Biox treatment process, the arsenic trioxide was converted to arsenic pentoxide and deposited in tailings dams. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (the company that was formed through the merger of Ashanti Goldfields Ltd. and AngloGold Ltd.) reported that inadequate storage of the stockpiled bags allegedly caused arsenic contamination to the Pompora stream. The problem was identified during the company’s due diligence study prior to the merger. AngloGold Ashanti constructed a lined storage dam at the old heap leach site. The company planned to move the arsenic to a new facility where it will be stored and gradually disposed of by blending it into the Biox process circuit where it will be chemically stabilized and deposited as a component of the tailings residue in the new Sansu Tailings Storage Facility. The company estimates that it will take about 6 years to dispose of the arsenic.