The Dominican Observatory of Public Policy of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD), revealed that US groundwater and mining specialist Steven H. Emerman was hired for the independent review of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on which Barrick Gold PVDC bases its proposal to build “TSF El Naranjo,” the reservoir for toxic sludge from gold mine operations.
Emerman is expected to arrive on Sunday, 9 July 2023 to carry out his first day of work until the 16th of the month.
Steven H. Emerman is the chair of the Body of Knowledge Subcommittee of the US Society on Dams and one of the authors of “Safety First: Guidelines for Responsible Mine Tailings Management,” published in June 2020.
The mining specialist will carry out the study at the request of the National Space for Extractive Industry Transparency (ENTRE), which brings together more than 150 organizations from all over the country, represented in the National Commission of the International Standard (EITI), with the sponsorship of EarthWorks, Mining Watch Canada and the Global Legal Clinic and NJU School of Law.
Emerman will make contacts with authorities, environmental organizations, scientific groups, and social organizations and will go down to the impact zone of the mining exploitation to verify the living conditions of the communities, the environmental and damages on the population already caused by the open-pit exploitation in the province of Sanchez Ramirez.
Steven H. Emerman is a Utah state researcher who has done professional work as a consultant for multilateral organizations and congresses in first world countries and has extensive experience in reviewing environmental impact studies.
Emerman will receive the Barrick Gold Pueblo Viejo EIA file with 27 documents and 10 thousand pages reviewed, as reported in Hoy.
On Tuesday, 11 July 2023 at 9:30am, he will meet with civil society and will hold a meeting in the auditorium of the Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences of the UASD, to offer more details of the situation in the presence of organizations of the communities affected by the mining company Barrick Gold.
Emerman has stated: “The mining industry is ultraconservative because the consequences of an ill-considered project are so severe. This means that any mining project must follow the strictest environmental and social standards from the conception to the closure and well into the post-closure phase.”
In his testimony to the European Parliament Public Hearing on Environmental and Social Impacts of Mining in the European Union on 2 December 2021, he addressed the overall concerns.
“Mining is ultraconservative because the consequences of being wrong are so great. The most serious way in which a mining project can go wrong is to incorrectly predict the consequences of the project for human life and for the environment. Mining is based upon the Precautionary Principle, which states that, in the face of great danger and great uncertainty, we should exercise great caution, that is, we should be ultraconservative. Leaps into the unknown are not appropriate in the mining industry. It is the duty of the proponents of a mining project to convincingly demonstrate that the project will not harm people or the environment. It is not the duty of those who are concerned about a project to demonstrate that the project will harm people or the environment,” he said in his testimony in Spain.
Read more:
Hoy
Background on Steven Emerman
Testimony of Steven Emerman regarding a Galicia mining tailings dam in Spain
6 July 2023