Mining in Vermont and Worldwide

Interview with Gina Acoursi

What is your name and what do you do?

My name is Gina Acoursi and I’m a 1^st year masters student here and my thesis is actually on conflict metals, metals like tin, tunscon, tanilon, and gold coming out of the DRC. I focus a little bit on mining and the environmental part of it, but mostly my project is on mineralogy and traceability of minerals and the social impact.

What are the main minerals for electronics?

So I would say gold and tin. Maybe cadmium, maybe tellurium, copper is a big one, platinum definitely a big one.

What does process of mining them look like?

These are sulfide deposits, these metals, so you can get them from veins in rock bodies, but usually there is an ore deep in the earth and it usually involves drilling and extraction from the ground where you are pulling up cores of the materials.

I know for an example in the DRC it is a really crude operation. There are people basically sifting through rocks and water and hoping for little specks of gold and tungsten. So it really depends on what country you are mining in, what their techniques are and how developed they are.

Where do you think most of the mining goes on?

So I know a lot of mining of rare earth elements, which goes into phones and computers, come from China. I know the mineral wolframite, which contains a lot of tungsten, which is used a lot in cars and capacitors, comes from Bolivia. So not really here is the point. And we consume a lot of those things.

It also depends locally on the geology. I know for example a lot of gold is mined in Canada. The United States has more petroleum, because of the shale.

Anything from Vermont?

I know that there is a lot of gravel mining.

But nothing for technology?

I don’t think so, lots of sand and road aggregates. There used to be a lot of slate mining used here for roofs. There are carbonate rocks here, but I don’t think there are any metals mined here. There might have been pyrite mined here at one time, which is not great for the environment, unless you take really good care of the clean up.

So what are the lives of these people who are mining these minerals like?

So I guess again that it depends. Say you are working at, Kirkland Lake in Canada and you are mining gold there. There are people my age, to age fifty or sixty, because it can be physically laborious. Right? That’s kind of the deal.  And so you have health benefits, maybe three weeks on two weeks off. Its a lifestyle, and you’re usually in a remote place, which is not ideal, but they pay you well if you are in Canada or the US. So, you can fly to you family if they don’t live around there, which they probably don’t, and there are a lot of environmental and health precautions. [These workers] are compensated for and they have new equipment.

But obviously for the people in Congo, it is completely unsafe. There are no benefits and they are forced into doing this. It is like slavery basically. Even probably in China, there are environmental regulations, but there are just so many people and they have a lot to keep track of, so the conditions there aren’t as good as over here. I think places where there is less money in general and there are more people in general, people are more willing to accept less, as far as safety and money, for the sake of having a job at all.

This can range from really good to really bad, just like any industry.

What are the environmental impacts on the mining area?

Well also it depends on the type of mining, and how proactive you are in the clean up after. So for example, I think Vermont has regulations on e-waste, like you can’t mine unless you have a clean up procedure that’s certified and checked by the epa. You have to have all your ducks in a row before you even start a project. And when you own the land, you don’t have freedom to do whatever you want with it. You have to take into consideration the surrounding areas.

So in other places, places maybe where there’s not as much regulation, I’m sure that maybe not the open pit mining so much because that is easier for vegetation to re-inhabit in if there is not a lot of toxic leftover, but in places where there is not a lot of clean up, like at a pyrite mine where there are tailing piles that just are filled with chemical residues that if left in the ground would not be harmful, but are now brought to the surface and exposed to rain and acidity, maybe the river nearby, and the general ecosystem, the animals, the planets, are affected.

Normally it’s in a remote area, so generally the people aren’t affected, unless the river flows downstream where people get water, which is totally viable, especially in developing countries. A lot of times the ecosystem can recover if the damage isn’t horrible and the scale of the mine isn’t so large, but it does take time and you have to let it be. Sometimes the EPA will want to come in after a certain amount of time, if the company themselves didn’t clean it up. And sometimes it can be more destructive to do a complete overhaul of the ecosystem and remove things, and treat things with other chemicals. It can be really harsh and shocking to the environment even more. Other times it is totally necessary and there is no way you can leave it untreated.

Gina followed up her interview with this note: 

I forgot to mention the whole refining process as a really substantial component of the environmental burden associated with mining. Often times when minerals are mined, it entails harvesting aggregate amounts of rock that contains trace or a profitable percentage of the desired mineral. Then, in what can be a very energy intensive process, the minerals must then be extracted, which is usually done by chemical separation. This can both involved and creates undesirable chemical bi-products. So clean up at the mine, clean up after refinement of ore, and then smelting of materials together are all things to consider when trying to calculate an energy budget, in terms of total consumption.