Mining's Curse

An anti-mining mural by Toxicomano on 26th Street in Bogotá. The text says 'Water is worth more than gold.' 

The misbehavior of Drummond Coal company has made headlines in recent weeks. The United States-based coal miner and exporter was fined recently for spilling coal into Santa Marta Bay, and now has been forced to stop exports because of its failure to replace its barges with a direct loading system, despite having been ordered to do so years ago.

Colombian coal production has boomed in
recent years as security has improved.
Nearly all of Colombia's coal is exported. 

Today's El Tiempo reports more government allegations against Drummond, including that it extended a pier without a permit and used higher-capacity barges than it had reported. If those and other charges are confirmed, Drummond could be subject to more big fines.

Drummond has helped make Colombia the world's fourth-largest coal exporter, but left a trail of controversy. The company has also been sued for allegedly collaborating with right-wing paramilitary groups to repress and even murder union leaders. Drummond denies the accusations. Pres. Juan Manuel Santos calls mining one of the 'locomotives' of Colombia's economy, and mining pours huge sums into the economy - but at a great social and environmental cost.

An exhibition in the Claustro de San Agustin paints a dire picture of mining's impacts on

El Cerrejon coal mine. 

Colombia's environment and indigenous people. Controls on the industry are weak, according to the exhibition, and much of Colombia's mining is carried out in highly biodiverse regions and even in 'protected' areas. Unlike many other mining nations, Colombia does not require environmental impact studies for mineral exploration, but only for actual exploitation. And the country has only 15 government inspectors to oversee 6,000 mines.

Ironically, the requirement that mining companies replace their barge loading systems with direct loading systems such as conveyor belts will produce different environmental impacts if the transport ships must approach the shore, requiring dredging of the seafloor.

Black stain in Santa Marta Bay, apparently
from coal exporting. (Image: Alejandro Arias)

Today, the Contraloria released its second report about mining, titled 'Mining in Colombia: Institutionality and Territory,' which found that in many cases mining licenses are granted without sufficient requirements to restore the area, and that licenses are often granted without considering the environmental and social impacts of the projects. The government also does not consider the often violent conflicts generated by mining projects, which are usually located in regions with weak government presence. And those areas with the most mining are usually the poorest with the lowest quality of life, according to the Contraloria's report. That is in part due to mining's negative health impacts and to the low salaries of mining jobs.

This week, neighbors spotted a black stain in the waters near Santa Marta, apparently caused by coal. Drummond said that it didn't cause the pollution, which may come from another company washing off its coal loading equipment.

Coincidentally, a United Nations report released today also found that coal mining in Cesar Department has actually increased poverty in the region, as well as drug addiction and prostitution by young women.

(Images below are from the exhibition in the Claustro de San Agustin)

Foreign mining companies working in Colombia. With five major mines, Canadian companies dominate Colombian mining. There are also two South African-owned mines and one owned by the United States-based Drummond Coal.

Colombia has only 15 inspectors for its 6,000 mines. And Colombia does not require environmental licenses for exploratory work for minerals. 

In several Colombian departments, illegal mines far outnumber legal ones. 

Pres. Alvaro Uribe gave mining companies huge tax benefits and removed restrictions on their expansion. 

More than 200 mining licenses are partly or completely within indigenous territories. 

Many 'protected areas' have mines or proposed mines within their borders.

'Many foreign companies use mining methods which are banned in their home countrties.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia: Climate Victim, Offender, or Both?

Bogotá-area residents evacuate their home, while protesters at the South Africa climate talks demand action. 

While negotiators in Durban, South Africa haggle over another climate change treaty which will be weak,  and probably ignored, anyway (despite all we know, last year saw the largest increase ever in world CO2 production). Meanwhile, Colombia has suffered a second year of horrendous flooding, which may very well be caused by climate change.

But, while Colombia has generated little of the world's global warming gas, it is no innocent bystander in either its domestic tragedy or the growing global climate tragedy.

Deforestation, cause of climate change  and climate victims.

Domestically, Colombia's terrible deforestation rate of 238,000 hectares per year - or even double that, according to National University Prof. Jesus Rangel - caused by agricultural expansion, illegal drug crops, deforestation and cattle ranching, worsens flooding and erosion and desertification because forests normally soak up water like sponges and their roots keep soil from sliding into rivers.

Deforestation also contributes to global warming by taking carbon out of trees and pumping it into the atmosphere, where it causes the greenhouse effect.

Pres. Juan Manuel Santos also vowed that Colombia would "demand concrete actions" from the "big countries."

"I've given very concrete instructions," Santos said, while visiting a town whose flooding the government blames on global warming. Our representative to the climate talks "has to demand that the big countries which today don't want to make their contribution, don't want to make committments, commit themselves. This (flooding) is affecting too many people."

Out of the ground and into the
atmosphere: Coal mining in Colombia.

But Colombia doesn't want to make sacrifices either - for the same reasons that those 'big countries' don't. While denouncing climate change and its impacts, Colombia very happily sells those countries more and more fossil fuels to combust into global warming carbon dioxide. Colombia's coal production, for example, is supposed to double in the next decade.

Colombians are also burning more and more fossil fuels domestically, driven by record automobile sales - which will only accelerate when new free trade agreements with the U.S. and Korea take effect.

Up, up, and away: Colombian coal production. (Source: Simco.gov.co)

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

No Nukes is...more coal, and more deaths in Colombia

Colombian coal country. A legacy of Japan's disaster?

In the wake of Japan's ongoing nuclear disaster, many nations are putting the brakes on new nuclear power. But nuclear's gotten bad P.R. Besides three notorious disasters: Three Mile Island, which killed nobody, Chernobyl, which is still killing people, but was a badly-designed reactor whose accident was handled terribly, and now the Japan disaster, whose impact hopefully will be limited - nuclear has produced lots of power with relatively little impact. 

In the U.S., more than 100 nuclear reactors provide 20 percent of the country's electricity, without causing deforestation, mining disasters air pollution, global warming or any of the long train of natural disasters and human tragedies which fossil fuels have brought us.

Nukes didn't kill these guys.
(Photo: America Economia)

Here's a sampling of what a single Google search about coal turned up:

Colombia coal mine blast kills 20 - 17 Jun 2010
Colombian Coal Mine Blast Kills at Least 18 - NYTimes.com - 26 Jan 2011
Colombian Coal mine blast kill at least 5  - 24 Nov 2010
21 workers killed in Colombian mine blast - Nearly 100 coal miners were killed in work-related accidents across Colombia in 2010, 


And that's just in Colombia, and only the disasters which made the international news. I bet that right now someone's dying in a Colombian coal mine, and others are dying of coal dust-related diseases. And, all over the world, people are dying of coal pollution - 30,000 per year in the U.S. alone, according to one study. And, less nuclear energy will mean more deaths from coal: you can bet your life, and death, on that!

And that's without mentioning the coming impacts from global warming. 


But the tragedies caused by fossil fuels are so numerous and frequent that we barely notice them anymore. 


The Deepwater Horizon explosion killed 11 men and injured 17 others, as well as devastating the Gulf and innumerable other lives. The Japanese nuclear disaster hasn't killed anybody...but I don't hear many people calling for an end to oil production.


Well-meaning dreamers talk about large-scale wind, solar and wave-power projects. All of those would be wonderful, but they aren't coming soon enough to head of serious climate change. Nuclear power is the only source of proven, carbon-free power we have, and we'd better keep using it, or we'll regret it. 


Nuclear power makes little sense for Colombia, which has plentiful hydroelectric power and also a terrorism problem. But Colombia is paying the price for the rest of the world's reliance on fossil fuels, especially coal. 


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Step Forward for Alleged Drummond Victims

A funeral of a mining union member (Semana.com)

In the latest turn in a long-running lawsuit against Alabama-based coal mining company Drummond, an Alabama court has ruled that the children of Colombian union organizers murdered by paramilitaries can sue the company in the U.S. for damages.

Jorge 40 - back in his jungle days.

In March 2001, paramilitary fighters pulled the union leaders off of a bus carrying Drummond mine workers and then killed the two men.  Jorge 40, a paramilitary leader now imprisoned in the U.S., later confessed to ordering the killings. But Drummond rejects allegations that the company colluded with the paramilitaries in the killings in order to repress union activity. The case has received additional attention because ex-Colombian Pres. Alvaro Uribe, who has been dogged himself by allegations of paramilitary ties, will have to testify in the case, although he is not accused himself.

Despite this victory, the plaintiffs are still a long way from collecting anything. Business collusion with paramilitaries, also called 'death squads' because of the massacres they committed, was apparently widespread for many years in Colombia. Like Colombia's leftist guerrillas, the paramilitaries are considered to be terrorists by the Colombian, U.S. and European governments. The Chiquita banana company even confessed to the U.S. government to having paid protection money to leftist guerrillas and later right-wing paramilitaries and paid a $25 million fine. However, proving any Drummond collusion with the paramilitaries has proven more difficult. Nevertheless, the case has damaged Drummond's public image, and the company is said to be looking into selling its Colombian mines.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours