Mercury, Mining and Mayhem: Slow Death in the Amazon
6/28/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Mercury, Mining and Mayhem: Slow Death in the Amazon
Source: Draft Project Underground report for the People's Gold
Summit.
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: June 28, 1999
Byline: Eric Taylor
In the town of El Dorado in southeastern Venezuela, a boomtown for
small-scale migrant gold miners until quite recently, it is still
common to see miners clustered around a small gas torch on the
street. They are burning off mercury which they have added to
alluvial gold, typically dredged from local river beds and banks.
The mercury has the ability to dissolve the shiny yellow metal in a
physical solution called an amalgam. The gold can then be recovered
by heating the solution and causing the mercury to evaporate. The
miners, eager to see how much gold will remain once the mercury is
burned off, will stand directly over the amalgam as it is burned.=20
In this manner they end up inhaling the mercury vapor. The rest of
the mercury, which is highly toxic, typically precipitates back down
into the environment after being released in this way, and poisons
the local= community.
It is also common for the miners to burn off the mercury in the
comfort and security of one's own home. In the home the torch can be
conveniently attached to the propane tank used to power the cooking
stove. This poses a severe public health risk for the community.
For example some 25 kilometers (15 miles) away from El Dorado lies=20
the indigenous Pemon community of El Vapor. Of the 600
inhabitants,=20 half live in houses clustered around the center while
the rest live=20 up and down the river Cuyuni.
In 1996, 15 inhabitants of El Vapor had their hair and fingernails=20
tested for mercury contamination. It was not until last year that the
indigenous federation in Ciudad Bolivar received the results of the
1996 tests. Of the 15 tested, only three had normal levels in their
hair (norms are determined by international health standards) and
only two had normal levels in their fingernails.
International health guidelines state that tolerable levels of
mercury should not exceed five micrograms per gram of creatine
(fingernail). Yet a seven year old Pemon boy, Jose Blanco, was tested
at 17.29 micrograms. Emilio Palacio, a miner, tested at 24.0 micrograms.=20
For hair, international guidelines state that tolerable levels should
not exceed two micrograms of mercury per gram of hair. Antolin
Bolivar, aged nine, tested at 17.88 micrograms. Miner Eliseo Yepez,
aged 32, tested at 18.68.
One thing is obvious: the Pemon are victims of gold-mining. It is=20
clear that it is not only the migrant miners who are getting
exposed=20 because some 80% to 90% of indigenous Pemon males in the
region have been miners at one time or another. And of course the
local indigenous women and children are also being poisoned from
eating contaminated fish and other sources.
Ten years ago a similar study in the mining district of El Callao
in=20 Bolivar state, also in Venezuala, showed that in a random
sampling of=20 51 individuals, 72.5% showed symptoms of mercury
contamination. Of=20 this sample, six suffered from clouding of the
cornea with a complete=20 loss of vision, 15 had hypertension, and 27
showed severe problems=20 with memory loss and disorders of the
nervous system: symptoms of mercury poisoning also known as Mad
Hatter's or Minamatta Disease.
Analysis of the sediment from the river Caroni, between the Guri
dam=20 and the city of Puerto Ordaz in Bolivar state, showed mercury
levels=20 of 3,679 micrograms of mercury per kilogram which are
approximately=20 183 times the natural level of the river. Therefore,
the figures from El Callao and El Vapor may represent the tip of the
iceberg of a major health crisis among indigenous peoples of the
Amazon.
A similar situation is suspected on the Tapajos river in the
neighboring Brazilian Amazon. Early this year, two Japanese
scientists Maszumi Harada of Kumamoto University and Junko Nakanishi
from the Yokahama National University, published a study on mercury
contamination around San Louis de Tapajos. They tested 50 villagers
from various parts of the region: all had high levels of mercury and
three had symptoms of severe mercury poisoning.
Dr. Fernando Branches, a specialist in diagnosing mercury poisoning,
who practices medicine near the same area that Harada and
Nakashanishi conducted their study, pointed out in an interview in
1991 that "because most Amazon doctors do not know how top identify
mercury poisoning, often confusing it with malaria, there are
probably thousands of undiagnosed cases of mercury poisoning in the
region."
Similar tests on mercury levels in the hair of the Yanomami in the
Brazilian Amazon, not far from Venezuela, have shown that methyl
mercury, the form most commonly found in contaminated fish, acounted
for 40-90% of total mercury concentrations. Kayapo children, another
indigenous tribe in the Amazon, have also been tested; their blood
has exhibited twice the acceptable upper limit.