Magnetic Moment

Employment opportunities and the promise of a better life always generate a magnetic field.

Migration Information Source said that last 2004 10 percent of 85 million Filipinos were working and/or residing outside the Philippines.

An article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer today states that “the population in Metro Manila grew by more than one million in the past seven years” and that “NSCB projected the population in the National Capital Region to be 11 million in 2007.”

People are not attracted by the pollution, high cost of living, traffic and malls. There are 17,453 people per square kilometer in Manila because of jobs, employment opportunities and the promise of a better life.

Investments that generate jobs in the provinces are magnets that help keep the people from going to metropolitan areas or abroad.

In our region, Rapu-Rapu Polymetallic Project (RRPP), the biggest private investment in Albay, is the magnet. Around fifty percent of more than 1,000 employees are residents of the host municipality and the rest were magnetized from the neighboring towns, provinces and other regions. That’s 1,000 less people in Metro Manila or 1,000 less OFWs. Not to mention the employment created or maintained by the suppliers and industries that are directly and indirectly involved in the mining operation.

Mining Engineers, Chemists, Geologists, and Metallurgists might have been working abroad, Australia or Canada perhaps, if they were not hired by the company.

For Jovet, the mining project brought him back to his native island after years of pakikipagsapalaran in Metro Manila. He is now working in the mining project earning more than his regular income in the big city. There are other hundreds of employees in the project with similar stories. They went back; they stayed to be with their families. Less absentee parents, more vibrant communities.

In the Physics of magnets, most of the people can be considered as paramagnets. They are attracted to the magnetic fields. There are also those who can be considered as diamagnets. They exhibit magnetic behavior of small magnitudes and when exposed to magnetic fields they will magnetize in the opposite direction.

Rapu-Rapu Polymetallic Project’s magnetic moment remains amidst diamagnetic publicity and paramagnets are benefited without the cost and risk of leaving their community or country.

Let’s keep the magnetic moment alive in the provinces.

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Have You Hugged A Miner Today?

By Ray Haynes, Republican Assemblyman from Murrieta, CA

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Stop demonizing the industries that harvest materials from the Earth. Your car. Your desk. Your computer. Your pots and pans. The road outside. Your lunch. What do these things have in common? All of them involved disturbing the land and the "exploitation" of natural resources in their creation. Anything around you that contains metal, plastic or rubber come directly, from mining and oil drilling Operations somewhere in the world. Anything that is wood, paper or food was either logged or harvested.

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Almost everything we have comes from mining, drilling, logging and farming, and yet these industries are increasingly under attack from NIMBYs, regulators and environmentalists.

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The public pinion of these industries is now such that if you were to poll people on the least respected careers, you'd wind up with loggers, miners and oil men right down at the bottom of the list with lawyers, telemarketers and, of course, politicians. Farmers and ranchers continue to have a pretty high level of public support as occupations, but their industries are bearing the brunt of some of the newest rounds of regulations and NIMBY attacks. While nobody wants to repeat of the massive pollution caused by some of the older mining techniques, and nobody likes to look a clear-cut forest or an oil rig, these industries have developed much less Intrusive, much more environmentally sensitive methods of extraction, but are still haunted by attacks based on images from long discarded practices.

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The regulatory system and local opposition groups have made it nearly impossible For any new mining or logging operations to exist in California, even when our society desperately needs new supplies of wood, gravel, and petroleum based products. Even when all environmental regulations can be adhered to, local opposition can scare a county or city into rejecting a necessary project. Even farmers, who have maintained a high level of support amongst the population, have started to feel the pressure of activists and regulators. It always astounds me when people move to rural area (like much of my district) and then complain about the sights and smells and flies of agricultural operations.

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It always astounds me when people move to a rural area and then complain about the sights and smells of agricultural operations.

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Dairies have been all but chased out of Southern California by angry neighbors, and air and water regulations. Other livestock operations are being harassed by similar complaints. What was once a thriving industry in Artesia, Chino and other parts of our area is now virtually non-existent. Even simpler farming operations are under attack for use of compost in the growing process and because of "fugitive dust" concerns caused by the planting and harvesting of fields.

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And farmers now fear allowing their lands to fallow out of concern that it will become habitat for some allegedly endangered critter and they'll be forbidden from replanting them in the future.

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These are all messy industries, but they are all necessary. We have made great strides over the years in making them less polluting and impactful on the natural environment and even visually on neighborhoods nearby. But the increasing costs of these resources in our country are costing all of us. High concrete, steel and lumber costs are driving up the prices of new schools, homes and roads by billions of dollars collectively, and will continue to increase as long as we don't start producing more of these products domestically.

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It is time to stop attacking loggers and miners and oil drillers and farmers. Stop accusing them of raping the earth. Stop making their livelihoods more difficult. Start appreciating the benefits we enjoy as a result of their labor and their industries. Next time you see a miner walking down the street, don't turn your nose up at, him. In fact, I think we'd all be better off if you gave him a hug instead.

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Hug a Rapu-Rapu miner today!

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Second group shows interest in Lafayette

Another investor group is looking at acquiring majority control of Lafayette Mining Ltd (LML) following a stall in the negotiations with the previously announced Cornerstone Investor.

David Baker, managing director of LML, said he had been informed by the Southeast Asian Strategic Asset Fund (SEASAF) about talks with a number of other investors, although the Cornerstone Investor has “not yet closed the door.”

LML is the Australian-based mother company of the Lafayette Group in the Philippines which has a polymetallic project in Rapu Rapu, Albay.

SEASAF arranged a $15 million investment in LML convertible notes and has been keeping in touch with a number of potential investors for a major restructure of Lafayette and the Rapu Rapu project.

SEASAF in essence wants Lafayette and the project to be debt free and hence financially stronger. It has proposed to the potential investors to buy the existing project debts and hedges at a negotiated discount.

“If those proposals proceed, the funds that we would in the future have to allocate to servicing loans could be made available to the Philippine project instead and to the Rapu Rapu community and its residents,” said Baker.

The project directly employs approximately 1,000 people, most of whom are from the island itself. It also conducts various activities designed to improve life on the impoverished island for residents. These valuable community activities range from raising the quality of education to providing livelihood projects and basic necessities such as roads, water and electricity.

Despite these efforts, militant anti-mining groups and some Church personalities have been asking for the closure of the project and had even accused it of causing an alleged fishkill that was more than 10 kilometers away.

DEAD FISH IN POBLACION, RAPU-RAPU

On October 27 and 28, 2007, continuous heavy rains approximating 202 mm (about 8 inches) fell over Albay. Though heavier than normal, this was nevertheless considerably lighter than the rains that fell for over 8 hours on November 30, 2006 during the typhoon Reming, which measured approximately 450 mm (about 18 inches).

In the town of Rapu-Rapu, Albay, at around 2pm in the afternoon of October 28, 2007, residents reported fish kill in the barangay of Poblacion in Rapu-Rapu Island.

Around the same time in another island, fisherfolks in Catanduanes also reported that “dead bottom-dwelling fish carpeted a stretch of coastline and on the bed of the reef system along the shores of Palnab del Sur. It was also later verified that “the fish kill reached as far as Igang to the West”. Found dead were “assorted species of demersal fish like moray eels, frog fish, stone fish, crabs, grouper, and other coral reef denizens. Provincial agriculturists, in a report to the Governor of Catanduanes, blamed “the cause of fish deaths on sedimentation and siltation caused by heavy rains or obnoxious fishing”.

However, anti-mining groups were quick to blame the mine of Lafayette Philippines, Inc. (Lafayette) as the cause of the fish kill in Rapu-Rapu. The day after the sighting of dead fish on shore, protests and rallies were held at the Poblacion calling for the mine’s immediate closure. Those calling for the closure of the mine accused the company of a tailings spill that poisoned the waters and caused the alleged fish kill. Residents of Pagcolbon refused to catch and eat fish and called on the government for economic assistance.

To prevent an economic crisis triggered by baseless rumors and panic and to reassure the stakeholders of Rapu-Rapu Polymetallic Project (RRPP), we will help the authorities shed light on the issue of dead fish found in Poblacion on October 28, 2007.

FACT vs FRAUD:

1. The RRPP is located more than 10 kilometers away from the brgy of Poblacion.

2. There were no fish kill in the five barangays between the mine site and Poblacion.

On the day of October 28 2007, live fish were seen at the pier and fishermen near the mine site continued to catch and eat fish. Officials and chairmen of Barangays Binosawan, Pagcolbon, Malobago, Sta. Barbara and Carogcog certified that there were no fish kills in their respective shores on Oct. 28, 2007.

Picture of Malobago Coastline on Oct. 28, 2007; No Fishkill

On November 11, 2007 (Saturday), members of the Sangguniang Bayan of Rapu-Rapu, together with Rapu-Rapu Mayor Dick Galicia made their own investigation into the alleged fish kill in the five barangays by talking to the residents. They ascertained that no fish kill occurred in these areas and that the sighting of dead fish was confined to Brgy. Poblacion.

3. The milling plant was not operating from Oct 27 to Oct 29 for preventive maintenance; hence there was no additional discharge of water from the plant to the tailings pond.

4.There was no spill from the tailings pond as the dam had 10m of free board. The plant’s Lower Tailings Storage Facility (LTSF) had a 10-meter freeboard and could still accommodate 760,000 cubic meters of water. The heavy rains immediately preceding Oct. 28 accounted for only 65,000 cubic meters of water in the storage facility.

5. RRPP's laboratory tests showed that the cyanide level in the waters and sediment near the site were well within the DENR standard. This is supported by DENR tests and subsequent BFAR investigations. As of November 12, 1007, the Center for Ecological Concerns (CEC) in Quezon City where fish samples from the alleged fishkill were sent to by Fr. Andy Baliwas has not released the results of its tests making it premature to blame the mine or anyone as the cause of the dead fish.

6. There were reports that 1 child and 1 adult from Brgy Poblacion died from seafood poisoning. Dr. Vergara of the Rapu-Rapu Municipal Hospital claims that 3 children were brought by Sagip-Isla members to the hospital for claims of vomiting and diarrhea but was discharged after three days in good physical condition. No deaths were recorded at the hospital at the time of the rumors.


OTHER POSSIBLE CAUSES OF DEAD FISH IN POBLACION. . .

The Manila Times Internet Edition of Nov. 1, 2007 reported that “Mayor Galicia, in clarifying his accusation [against Vice-Mayor Odis de la Cruz], noted rumors that the fish kill was planned a few days before the barangay elections and allegedly because Lafayette Mines supported their own candidates in the recently held barangay and SK elections, which apparently caught the ire of the vice-mayor.”

BFAR’s report does not rule out the possibility that lack of oxygen caused by sedimentation and siltation from heavy rains and strong currents could have contributed towards the death of fish along the shorelines of Brgy. Pagcolbon. This was the same cause attributed to the fish deaths in Catanduanes.

In November of 2005, Sorsogon residents were made to believe that two spills which occurred in October 2005 caused mercury poisoning of fish found dead in waters of Sorsogon. As a result, the locals refused to catch, buy and eat fish. The 5 coastal towns of Sorsogon suffered severe economic deprivation prompting President Arroyo to declare a state of Calamity and release 10 million pesos. However, independent studies by UPNSRI commissioned by the City of Sorsogon and by NBI requested by the Province of Albay subsequently proved that the whole incident was a hoax. The waters around Sorsogon were found to be free of mercury and fish caught in Sorsogon were declared safe to eat. More importantly, it was established that the Lafayette mine does not use mercury, as they had been claiming all the while.

Company Vice President for Legal Affairs Bayani Agabin believes that the latest “fish kill” is another hoax similar to the one foisted on Sorsogon residents last year. He warns that the company will consider legal options against those who peddle lies.

In the meantime, the company is taking all the necessary steps to cooperate with the authorities and heed the call of Governor Salceda and Mayor Galicia to let science prevail and to wait for the results of the various tests taken by various government and independent bodies before jumping to conclusion and barking at the wrong tree.

Rapu-Rapu Polymetallic Project

The Rapu-Rapu Polymetallic Project (RRPP) is the first polymetallic and Zinc mine in the Philippines. It implements the world's best practices in its operation as a trailblazer of the Mining Act of 1995.

The project is located in the island of Rapu-Rapu 45 kilometers from Legazpi City. The mine development area is 180 hectares – approximately 2% of the island.

The plant produces two mineral concentrates, copper and zinc. These concentrates will produce around 9,000 tons of copper, 45 ounces of Gold, 500,000 ounces of silver and 12,000 tons of Zinc.

Open pit method is used in the extraction due to the shallow depth of the deposit. From the 17-hectare open pit, the ore is hauled to the processing plant where the minerals are separated from the non-economic ores. Cyanide and other chemicals are used in the retrieval of mineral concentrates.

The mineral deposit that is now mined by the company was identified to be viable for economic extraction during the explorations in 1999. After complying with the necessary permits and environmental studies the construction of the processing plant and other facilities began. The plant ran a three-month initial mining operations on July 2005 then it underwent tedious upgrading for 15 months to meet the national and international mining standards. Fully compliant and confident on the environmental management system, the operation resumed on the 8 th of February 2007 under DENR's PLO. Mine life is 5 years as per estimates but there is a good potential that it will be extended depending on the current exploration findings.