MGB allows Philex to resume operations

By Thet Mesias

TUBA, Benguet --Philex Mining Corp. is set to resume operations here after the Mines and Geosciences Bureau gave the go-signal last week.

“We thank the MGB for this decision involving the urgent remediation measures for our tailings pond,” Michael Toledo, senior vice president for Corporate Affairs at Philex Mining, said. “We are even more inspired to work harder in Padcal.”

MGB ordered resumption of operation shall run for four months from receipt of its order, dated Feb. 26, and that Philex Mining shall hire a third-party team to monitor its remediation and rehabilitation plan in areas affected by the tailings-spill accident last Aug. 1.

“We thank the government regulators for listening to us and our stakeholders,” Philex Mining president and COO Eulalio Austin, Jr. said. “With this development, we are even more inspired to work harder toward the immediate remediation and rehabilitation of the affected areas.”

He added: “We thank our investors, who stood by us over the past seven months, as well as our employees who remained committed to our values of environmental social responsibility.”

Officials of Philex Mining, MGB and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources had agreed in a recent public presentation that science must be the basis for government regulators to whether allow Padcal to operate again.

Philex Mining had the support of stakeholders, including miners and local government units, among others, in asking government to allow the resumption of Padcal operations.

Mike Gowan, of Australia’s Golder Associates, an engineering and environmental consultancy, told the forum held at the MGB offices in Quezon City last Feb. 6 that Padcal needed 3.5 million tons of fresh tailings to fill up the conical void in and create a beach at its Tailings Pond No. 3.

The filling and beaching process, he said, would push the accumulated water away from the pond’s embankment and into an open spillway.

He said that having too much water in the pond, which is designed to hold solids and not water, was more dangerous as this could destroy the embankment and prompt water and sediment to overflow.

“Wherefore, the foregoing premises considered, Philex Mining Corporation is hereby authorized to resume operation in order to undertake urgent remediation measures for Tailings Storage Facility No. 3 under its proposed Rehabilitation and Cleanup Plan,” MGB said in its directive.

On Feb. 18, Philex Mining paid government, through MGB, P1.034 billion in fees over the Aug. 1 accident, even if this was caused by force majeure, as it shared the concern of government for the environment.

It said the money would cover the costs of remediation and rehabilitation activities as a result of the accident, which has affected the Balog Creek and its convergence area with Agno River.

Philex Mining had voluntarily stopped its Padcal operations on Aug. 1, when nontoxic water and sediment discharged accidentally from its tailings pond in Itogon following historically unprecedented heavy rains brought about by two successive typhoons.

There were no reports of fatalities or injuries, and the affected households along Agno River had already been fully compensated.