Kyrgyzstan's Kumtor Mine Becomes Political Football

A further pressure point that the Kyrgyz government is applying to the Kumtor mine is charges that it is damaging the local environment. A state commission has accused Centerra Gold Inc. of damaging the environment at Kumtor with its mining activities and in February sent Centerra Gold Inc. a claim for US$ 315 million relating to alleged environmental damages at Kumtor. Kumtor has long raised environmental concerns about the safety of downstream water supplies, as the facility uses “heap leaching” to extract the gold from the ore, which is crushed into pebble-sized fragments and then sprayed with a dilute alkaline cyanide solution to separate the gold. The mine sits atop glaciers whose springtime melt-water feeds fresh water into the Naryn River, which flows towards Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan and authorities fear that pollution from the mining operations and massive tailings heaps could leach toxic materials.
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