Source : Mineweb, 04 Nov '05
By : Dorothy Kosich
  

The International Cyanide Management Institute announced the initial signatories to the International Cyanide Management Code, which may set a precedent that could eventually reverberate through international mining, whether or not cyanide processes are ever used at a mining operation. Miners, environmentalists, chemical companies, banks, NGOs and international and provincial regulators have developed a holistic, transparent approach to environmental management, mandating dialog and community consultation.

If this process works, it could become a model for other third-party certification of international mining, socio-economic impact assessments, and other environmental and social mining applications.

The nine gold mining companies that have become the initial signatories to the code have agreed to submit themselves to third-party audits and make the results of those audits accessible to any person who wishes to read them. And, those companies that signed that code have pledged to go to directly to the community and report and explain their incidents and their usage of cyanide. The miners have been joined as signatories by five cyanide manufacturing and transport companies.

For an industry which has long operated under a code of silence, this is nothing short of revolutionary. At long last, a legitimate third-party audit process is being modeled even as we write this story. The cyanide auditors won't be mining companies, NGOs, or accountants. They have to have to comprehend environmental auditing and actually possess technical expertise in gold mining. They have to undergo certification to simply conduct an audit. If they screw up or are caught lying, these auditors and the operations they audit will face sanctions.

By becoming a signatory to the code, the mining company commits to following the code's principles and implementing its standard of practice. Verification audits of individual operations must be conducted by independent third-party auditors within their years of their initial applications and every three years afterward. The audit will evaluate an operation to determine if its cyanide management achieves the principles and standards of practices, or in the case of cyanide producers and transporters, principles and practices identified in their verification protocols.

If the governments in developing nations wonder how to regulate cyanide, they now can access a webpage which will spell out in minute detail how to oversee cyanide production, transportation of cyanide, handling and storage of reagent cyanide, on-site use and management of cyanide at mining operations, decommissioning of facilities, worker safety, emergency response, training, and communications with the public.

There may be only 14 initial signatories now, but the chances are excellent that banks and international financial institutions will eventually incorporate mandatory implementation of the International Cyanide Code into every gold mining loan they make. The United Nations, the European Union, the European Commission, the IFC, the Government of Peru, and the Province of Ontario, Canada put their muscle behind the code, which will impact developed and developing nations. Chemical organizations, chemical manufacturers, environmental and wildlife organizations, the International Council on Mining and Metals, and the United Steel Workers all put their collective clout behind the code. The goal is simple: one world, one standardized cyanide management process.

The International Cyanide Code will not sit on a shelf gathering dust. Its implementation is already being funded by a voluntary tax. Every mining company which signed the code is now preparing all of its active and new gold mining operations to be audited. For AngloGold Ashanti, Barrick, Gold Fields, Kinross, Newmont, Placer Dome and Rio Tinto this is a considerable undertaking, which will involved a hefty portion of the world's major gold mines. Miners Kingsgate Consolidated and Pan Australian will become the first junior miners to implement the new code in their, respectively, Thailand and Laos gold mines.

The initial signatory chemical companies and cyanide transportation services for the code include Australia Gold Reagents, CYANCO, CyPlus, E.I. DuPont de Nemours, and Orica Australia.

At least six other gold mining companies are seriously considering becoming signatories to the code. Mineweb has learned through its sources that Glamis Gold, Meridian Gold, and Golden Star are among them.

The steering committee for the International Cyanide Management Institute included the same World Wildlife Fund executive who has been working for several years on a mining environmental certification code for Australian mining companies. It also include an expert scientist who serves on the board of Earthworks. If the cyanide code process works as intended, a very real possibility exists that it could serve as a model for other third-party audits programs covering the entire mining life cycle.

Former Gold Institute President Paul Bateman and environmental and cyanide management expert Norm Greenwald now serve as the staff for the International Cyanide Management Institute. Bateman is chairman of the institute, headquartered in Washington, D.C. Newmont Environmental Manager John Mudge is credited with helping to resurrect what had become a dormant process and moving it along to fruition.