A South African environmental services company called Drizit, hired to help clean up the spill of toxic waste from a Chinese copper mine in Zambia in February, issued a statement on Friday that claimed the mine owners are concealing the full extent of the massive ecological damage from the incident.
The toxic spill occurred on February 18 at a mine in Zambia’s Copperbelt province owned by Sino-Metals Leach Sambia, a subsidiary of the state-run China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group. A dam holding back “tailings,” or toxic waste from copper mining operations, collapsed and dumped at least 50 million liters of poisonous chemicals into a stream that led to the nearby Kafue River.
The Kafue River is a major source of water for fish, animals, crops, and about 12 million human inhabitants of the region. Environmentalists called the spill an “environmental disaster of catastrophic consequences” and feared it would effectively “kill” the river. Huge numbers of dead fish soon began accumulating on the riverbanks, while local crops withered and died.
Chinese mines in Africa are frequently criticized for having lax safety standards and abusive work policies. Critics of China’s operations in Zambia accuse the government of covering for Chinese misdeeds because they don’t want to lose the massive investments China has made in Zambian mines and infrastructure.
Sino-Metals apologized for the spill and pledged an intensive cleanup effort supported by the Zambian government, which dispatched military aircraft and speedboats to drop lime into the river, hopefully neutralizing the toxic chemicals.
These reassurances did not satisfy the U.S. Embassy in Zambia, which issued a health alert on August 6 ordering U.S. government personnel to avoid the contaminated area. The embassy health alert warned of “threats posed from the widespread contamination of water and soil by toxic heavy metals stemming from the Sino-Metals Leach Mine dam spill,” plus “hazardous and carcinogenic substances” that could have been released into the atmosphere.
The Zambian government pushed back against the U.S. Embassy’s actions, insisting there was “absolutely no need to press the panic button.”
“The immediate danger to human, animal, and plant life has been averted as we speak today. All serious implications on public health, water safety, agriculture, and the environment have been brought under control,” claimed Zambian government spokesman Cornelius Mweetwa.
Despite these reassurances, the Finnish embassy in Zambia reached similar conclusions as the United States. The Finnish embassy in April declared the Kafue River pollution to be “one of the worst environmental disasters Zambia has faced.”
Finland also has interests in Zambia’s copper industry, and has offered Zambia assistance with mitigating pollution risks from its mines.
Drizit said on Friday it was contracted by Sino-Metals Leach Zambia to assist with the cleanup effort and investigate the accident. The South African company duly produced a report that found almost 1.5 million tons of toxic material was released in the February incident — over thirty times as much as Sino-Metals Leach Zambia was willing to admit.
Drizit said it took over 3,500 soil and water samples from the affected area and found most of them to be contaminated with dangerous amounts of toxins such as cyanide, arsenic, copper, zinc, lead, chromium, and cadmium. Exposure to those substances can cause organ failure, cancer, and birth defects.
According to Drizit, when it supplied a preliminary copy of the report to Sino-Metals Leach Zambia, the Chinese company terminated its contract. The final report would have been submitted one day after Drizit was fired.
Sino-Metals responded by claiming it terminated its contract with Drizit due to “contractual breaches” by the South African company. Sino-Metals challenged the accuracy of Drizit’s damage report and said it would hire a new company to conduct another investigation.
Drizit dismissed the allegations from Sino-Metals as “false and defamatory,” and stood by its report.
“Drizit has since initiated legal proceedings to recover substantial unpaid costs for the independently financed assessment, as well as additional legal expenses caused by Sino Metals’ actions,” the South African company said.
Residents of the contaminated area, and civil society groups, have accused the Zambian government of helping China to whitewash the damage from the Sino-Metals spill. According to these residents, little has been done to clean the vital Kafue River, and the miniscule compensation paid by Sino-Metals at the behest of Zambian officials was “insulting,” amounting to less than $90 U.S. for farmers who lost entire crops and herds of livestock.
Several groups of residents and landowners in the Kafue River basin have announced their intention to sue Sino Metals for $200 million or more in damages. They are also demanding the creation of an environmental impact fund worth at least $9.7 billion.
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