Leak at Philex tailings dam plugged, says MGB

BAGUIO CITY—Government teams supervised by Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) Director Leo Jasareno confirmed that leaks from the waste containment dam of Philex Mining Corp. in Itogon, Benguet, had been stopped.

Fay Apil, acting MGB Cordillera director, said on Saturday that they inspected the mine’s tailings dam at 5:30 p.m. Friday and did not detect signs of the breach.

The leak may have burst from a break in the dam’s penstock, the gateway which discharges rainwater that collects on the surface of the tailings pond, she said.

The dam was built in 1992 and had just been reinforced, government engineers said. Early this year, a Philex work crew raised the dam’s height to increase its capacity, records from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)showed.

Apil ordered the company to cease operations on Aug. 3 pending repairs on the tailings pond.

Philex’s Padcal operations in Itogon is the firm’s oldest mine and was supposed to have been decommissioned in 2011 until high metals prices allowed the firm to extend its operations to 2020, DENR records showed.

MVP talks

In a briefing in Metro Manila on Friday, Manuel Pangilinan, Philex chair and chief operating officer, said the water and sediment from Padcal’s tailings pond were safe and nontoxic and no injuries or fatalities had been reported as a result of the incident.

Philex is also in the process of setting aside a fund to address any environmental impact on the Agno and Balog Rivers and the hillsides as a result of the discharge, Pangilinan said.

Asked about the impact of the leaks on company revenues, Pangilinan said: “We’re not overly concerned about the revenues at the mine.”

Lawyer Eduardo Aratas, Philex legal counsel, said the Padcal division is waiting for an MGB order to resume operations.

Water color

In Pangasinan, an official of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) observed the discoloration of water coming out of the turbines of  San Roque Dam in San Manuel town on Friday.

San Roque Dam’s reservoir straddles Itogon in Benguet and the towns of San Manuel and San Nicolas in Pangasinan. Water flowing from the Agno River in Benguet goes to the dam.

Virgilio Garcia, a Napocor hydrologist and who is tasked with the flood forecasting and warning system for dam operation, said he noticed the water discoloration when his team inspected the dam on Friday morning.

“We were surprised that the outflow from the turbines was murky,” Garcia said in an interview aired over Aksyon Radyo Pangasinan in Dagupan City on Saturday.

“It’s different from [the color of] chocolate. It was like muck (burak), a dirty grayish material that did not seem to mix well with water,” Garcia said.

Speculation

But MGB Ilocos Director Carlos Tayag said he was told that the water discoloration was normal during heavy rains. He said linking the color of water at the dam to the tailings pond leaks in Philex is speculative.

“But you know, we have been having heavy precipitation and natural erosion,” Tayag said in the same radio interview.

MGB, according to Environment Secretary Ramon Paje in a statement released in Manila, will investigate if there are any violations committed by Philex.

The same statement quoted Leo Jasareno, MGB chief, as saying Philex engineers have been working round the clock to plug the leak and they appeared to be successful.

Paje, however, said the investigation will still be conducted to determine if Philex, one of the country’s biggest mining companies, had violated environmental and other laws.

Jasareno said that of the company’s three tailings ponds, two have been decommissioned and only one was functional. The two decommissioned ponds had been converted into forest areas, according to Jasareno.

Philex has been in operation in the last 57 years and employs at least 2,500 regular workers, according to the DENR. Reports from Vincent Cabreza and Gabriel Cardinoza, Inquirer Northern Luzon, and Riza T. Olchondra and DJ Yap in Manila