Marinduque officials act to ease pressure on environment

The Sangguniang Panlalawigan ng Marinduque, in a special session held jointly with all six municipal councils of the province agreed to unite and consolidate all efforts in coming up with urgent alternative solutions to the imminent and present danger" posed by the Upper and Lower Makulapnit Dams in the abandoned mine site of Marcopper Mining Corp.

The first historic initiative undertaken by the body was the declaration of a 50-year large-scale mining moratorium on Oct. 28, 2006.

In a privilege speech, environment committee chairperson Melecio Go said: "The engineers of the mining company revealed in a meeting with his committee and other officials that there is indeed a seepage in a tunnel of the Upper Makulapnit Dam similar to the seepage of August 1995 which resulted in the infamous Boac River environmental disaster of March 24, 1996, a week before the province celebrated its annual Moriones Lenten."

Gov. Carmencita O. Reyes informed the joint session that DENR officials who visited the province on April 3, 2006 confirmed the alarming condition of the tailings dam on top of Marinduque mountains which, in the unlikely event that it will collapse will bring an immense catastrophe to the low-lying towns of Boac and Mogpog.

Mayor Percival Morales of Sta. Cruz informed the joint session that he and local officials of his town are "supporting the present move in order to emphasize that they are not after any economic gains from any mining endeavor. He called on everyone to support the move to press for the immediate conduct any remediation works on the mining structures.

Mogpog Mayor Jonathan Garcia and his local government unit reiterated for the total decommissioning of all mining structures, especially the tailings, dams to ensure that they will not be used for any more mining activities and to have a stop to any other mining-related disasters in the province of Marinduque.