This age-old remit of the GGMC should not be allowed to continue at the cost of hard-pressed taxpayers. The country has already paid a heavy price when the Essequibo River was poisoned by Omai Gold Mines Ltd and the Guyana government was a shareholder. Some 800 million gallons of cyanide contaminated water ended up in the Essequibo River in August 1995. There is now the risk of mercury contamination of the rivers.
Mercury is said to be a potent neurotoxin affecting the brain and nervous system. Children, pregnant women and foetuses are all very sensitive to the adverse impacts of mercury. The World Health Organization recognized this danger in 1991, when it concluded that no safe levels of mercury exposure have ever been established below which no adverse effects occur.
Mercury poisoning is also known as Minamata disease; the neurological syndrome first discovered in the Japanese city of Minamata in 1956. Nearly 1,800 people have died from the disease.
According to available statistics for 2000, Guyana was the main target importer from the UK of elemental mercury of 9.25 metric tons. By 2004, the US replaced UK and supplied 27.0 metric tons. (Source: UNDESA/ESD/UNSD Comtrade Statistics – April 11, 2006). In 2012, the annual purchase volume of just 3 purchasers of liquid mercury in Guyana was put at some 50 metric tons. (Tradex, Dec 2012).
To put the figures into context, China has a population of over 1.3 billion, and they currently consume an estimated 200 tons of mercury annually for gold mining. This type of mining is said to be illegal but ever enticing to low-income people in the countryside in response to the high value of gold.
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