JIKANDOR, Liberia — For generations, households in Jikandor village fished and drank from the river that runs via Liberia ’s dense rain forest. Now poisonous air pollution is making them depart.
They blame the most important gold miner in Liberia, Bea Mountain Mining Company. When useless fish float to the floor, they mentioned, they know to inform authorities. However for years there was little response.
“If we don’t transfer, we’ll die,” village chief Mustapha Pabai mentioned.
Over a number of years, cyanide, arsenic and copper repeatedly leaked from Bea Mountain’s substandard services at ranges that Liberia’s Environmental Safety Company described as above authorized limits. That is in accordance with EPA stories that had been taken down from its web site however later retrieved, in addition to interviews with authorities officers, consultants and former firm staff.
They supply probably the most complete accounting but of the spills. The EPA paperwork additionally present that Bea Mountain did not alert regulators promptly after a spill in 2022 and beforehand blocked authorities inspectors as they tried to entry the corporate’s laboratory and look at outcomes of testing.
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This story was reported in collaboration with The Gecko Venture, a nonprofit newsroom reporting on environmental points. The reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Heart. AP is solely accountable for all content material. Discover AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a listing of supporters, and funded protection areas at AP.org.
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The incidents level to failures in company duty that “can solely be described as sustained negligence,” mentioned Mandy Olsgard, a Canadian toxicologist who reviewed the EPA stories obtained in an investigation by The Related Press and The Gecko Venture.
The stories additionally expose the Liberian authorities’s failures to carry the corporate to account. The federal government holds a 5% stake within the mining operations. Underneath Liberian regulation, the state can droop or terminate licenses if a miner doesn’t fulfill its obligations. However weak enforcement is frequent, with the World Financial institution citing restricted authorities capability.
In response to the investigation, the nation’s just lately dismissed minister of mines, Wilmot Paye, mentioned he was “appalled by the hurt being performed to our nation” and that the federal government was reviewing all concession agreements. The outspoken minister was dismissed in October.
The gold that Bea Mountain mines is offered to Swiss refiner MKS PAMP, which is within the provide chains of a number of the world’s largest firms together with Nvidia and Apple. The investigation couldn’t affirm what firms in the end used the gold.
MKS PAMP mentioned it had commissioned an unbiased evaluation of the New Liberty mine, the most important of 5 mines that Bea Mountain operates in Liberia, in early 2025, and mentioned it discovered no foundation to chop ties however recognized areas for enchancment associated to well being and security. A follow-up go to is deliberate for 2026.
MKS PAMP declined to share the evaluation’s findings, citing confidentiality. It mentioned it will finish the connection if Bea Mountain doesn’t enhance.
Between July 2021 and December 2022, the newest interval for which figures could possibly be obtained, Bea Mountain exported greater than $576 million value of gold from Liberia. It contributed $37.8 million to authorities coffers throughout that point.
Bea Mountain is managed by Murathan Günal via Avesoro Assets. Murathan is the son of Turkish billionaire Mehmet Nazif Günal, whose enterprise pursuits embody the Mapa Group. Avesoro Assets and Mapa Group didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Extracting gold from ore typically includes cyanide, a chemical that at excessive ranges could cause extreme neurological injury and may be deadly if ingested, inhaled or absorbed via the pores and skin. Cyanide should be handled earlier than it enters and when it leaves a tailings dam, a storage web site for mining waste.
Different poisonous substances, together with arsenic, typically present in gold mining additionally pose critical well being dangers if not correctly managed.
The Günals took over Bea Mountain in 2016, buying it from Aureus Mining, a UK-listed gold producer, after years of warnings.
In 2012, Canadian consultancy Golder Associates discovered a danger of contamination of native rivers from the New Liberty mine’s tailings dam and warned that seepage would breach Liberia’s consuming water requirements. Two years later, the Digby Wells consultancy flagged cyanide and arsenic as key dangers and instructed measures to forestall contamination.
In 2015, a 12 months earlier than manufacturing started, a 3rd consultancy, SRK, warned that arsenic might exceed World Well being Group requirements for consuming water if not correctly managed.
Earlier than manufacturing started, the Worldwide Finance Company, an arm of the World Financial institution, paid $19.2 million for an fairness stake in Bea Mountain’s dad or mum firm to develop the New Liberty mine. However the U.S. consultant on the IFC board abstained, warning in a 2014 letter that the undertaking lacked primary safeguards and elevating considerations concerning the tailings dam and gaps within the environmental evaluation.
It was not clear whether or not the IFC nonetheless holds a stake, and it did not reply to questions.
Bea Mountain had pledged to comply with strict water administration guidelines and undertake the Cyanide Administration Code, a worldwide normal recommending air pollution limits and requiring unbiased audits.
The primary spill documented by the EPA got here within the first month of full manufacturing. In March 2016, simply earlier than the Günals’ buy of Bea Mountain, cyanide and arsenic leaked from the New Liberty mine. Lifeless fish floated downstream. Residents reported pores and skin rashes.
The corporate paused operations however publicly downplayed the spill, saying “there was no antagonistic affect on any human settlement.”
It was the primary of 4 EPA-confirmed circumstances on the mine during which Bea Mountain exceeded authorities air pollution limits.
In June 2020, EPA inspectors discovered Bea Mountain working an unapproved wastewater system, and detected water contaminated with excessive ranges of copper and iron. When inspectors tried to have a look at the corporate’s water testing knowledge, Bea Mountain refused.
“Bodily entry to the laboratory was additionally not accepted,” the EPA mentioned in a single report.
That month, Bea Mountain withdrew from the Cyanide Administration Code with out ever present process an audit, mentioned Eric Schwamberger, a senior official on the Worldwide Cyanide Administration Institute that oversees the code. He known as such withdrawals unusual.
In Could 2022, useless fish drifted down Marvoe Creek, which flows previous Jikandor village and into the Mafa River that runs to the Atlantic. The EPA reported {that a} spill from Bea Mountain’s tailings dam had suffocated the fish “attributable to publicity to greater than permissible limits” of cyanide.
The corporate knew concerning the air pollution however did not notify the group and the EPA “till downstream communities first began observing useless fish species,” the EPA report mentioned. Corporations are required to report such spills inside 72 hours.
Greater than 10 miles (16 kilometers) downstream in Wangekor village, residents mentioned they hauled in useless fish earlier than any warning reached them. They believed the bounty was “a present from God,” mentioned Philip Zodua, a consultant of communities alongside the river.
Six residents of villages downstream of the Bea Mountain mine asserted that they and their households fell ailing after consuming fish from the river in June 2022.
One villager, Korto Tokpa, mentioned she noticed kids accumulating useless and dying fish. “All of them had been sick, vomiting, throwing up and going to the bathroom the entire evening” after consuming them, she mentioned.
Nonetheless, no assessments had been carried out on the villagers. Impartial environmental scientists and toxicology consultants mentioned there may be inadequate proof to determine air pollution as the reason for the reported diseases.
“With out correct testing and clear knowledge, the true dangers can’t be understood, and communities are left carrying all of the uncertainty,” mentioned Olsgard, the toxicologist. “It’s the firm’s duty to fill these gaps urgently.”
When EPA inspectors arrived on the mine to check the water days after the spill, they discovered arsenic and cyanide ranges nicely above authorized limits.
Schwamberger mentioned the cyanide concentrations reported by the EPA, from water flowing out of the tailings dam, had been greater than 10 instances the focus “that might sometimes be thought of to be deadly to fish.”
In February 2023, one other spill occurred. The EPA documented “an enormous amount of uncooked copper sulfate” leaking into the setting. Six of 9 water samples breached authorized limits for cyanide and copper.
An EPA official concerned within the Could 2022 investigation, talking on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to debate the matter, mentioned the mine’s tailings dam had been initially constructed too small, a design flaw that later triggered it to overflow.
Whereas EPA inspectors repeatedly really helpful fines after the spills, just one penalty was issued by the regulator, a $99,999 effective in 2018 that was later diminished to $25,000. It was not clear why.
In a written response to questions from the AP and The Gecko Venture, the EPA acknowledged three “air pollution incidents” between 2016 and 2023 during which laboratory assessments discovered “greater than permissible ranges” of cyanide. It additionally confirmed fish deaths had been brought on by cyanide, copper sulfate and arsenic leaking from the mine’s tailings dam. It was not clear why the EPA didn’t acknowledge the fourth spill.
The EPA mentioned the spills it documented occurred earlier than the company’s present management took workplace in 2024. It mentioned it had ordered Bea Mountain to rent an EPA-certified marketing consultant and reinforce the tailings dam, and that the measures had been carried out. It didn’t say when that occurred.
“No entity is above the regulation,” the company mentioned.
Following an EPA advice, a legally binding settlement was reached in Could 2025 for Bea Mountain to relocate and compensate Jikandor village, the group closest to the mine.
Bea Mountain is now exploring new gold reserves elsewhere in Liberia.
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Aviram reported from London.
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