At present, the second round and fourth batch of central ecological and environmental protection inspections are in the sinking inspection stage. The fourth batch of inspectors has once again entered central enterprises to inspect the ecological and environmental management, environmental compliance, and implementation of ecological and environmental social responsibilities of China Nonferrous Mining Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China Nonferrous) and China Gold Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China Gold).

The inspection team pointed out that since 2018, Daye Nonferrous Metals Group Holding Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Daye Nonferrous Metals Company), a subsidiary of China Nonferrous Metals, has been punished 12 times by local authorities for environmental violations, with a penalty amount of 8.776 million yuan; Among the 13 mining enterprises located in Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guizhou provinces (regions), 9 of which suffer from ecological damage, environmental pollution, and prominent environmental risks and hidden dangers.

Although the problem lies with the subsidiary companies, in the eyes of the inspection team, the two group companies also have an inescapable responsibility.

Governance facilities are virtually non-existent

Daye Nonferrous Metals Company, located in Huangshi City, Hubei Province, is a secondary enterprise of China Nonferrous Metals, mainly engaged in copper mining, smelting, and processing. The on-site inspection team found that the waste gas treatment facilities in the waste copper workshop of the smelting plant of Daye Nonferrous Metals Company were virtually non-existent. The vertical furnace flue gas was directly discharged without collection and treatment, and the anode furnace flue gas had obvious unorganized dispersion. The smoke in the factory area was diffuse.

The operation of the flue gas collection and treatment system in the anode copper smelting workshop is abnormal, resulting in a large amount of flue gas leakage. The inspection team saw on site that although the converter workshop of Daye Nonferrous Metals Company's smelting plant has built flue gas collection and treatment facilities, the unorganized emissions of flue gas during the production process are very prominent. The equipment in the acid treatment workshop is severely corroded, with a large amount of heavy metal sludge and wastewater leaking into the rainwater pipeline network.

The inspection team sampled and monitored the rainwater discharged from the acid workshop of Daye Nonferrous Metals Company, and found that the concentrations of arsenic, lead, and cadmium were 17.3 mg/L, 9.92 mg/L, and 0.912 mg/L, respectively, exceeding the emission limits of the Copper, Nickel, and Cobalt Industrial Pollutant Emission Standards by 33.6 times, 18.84 times, and 8.12 times. According to online monitoring data, since 2019, the average hourly concentration of sulfur dioxide in the acid production tail gas of smelters has exceeded the emission limit of the Industrial Pollutant Emission Standards for Copper, Nickel, and Cobalt by 2161 times.

Moreover, the wastewater from the Fengshan Copper Mine tailings pond of Daye Nonferrous Metals Company, which is more than 800 meters away from the main stream of the Yangtze River, is directly discharged into the Yangtze River. According to the inspection team, the environmental impact assessment for the expansion of the tailings pond in 2012 required the construction of a 2550 meter flood interception ditch. In 2019, the Department of Ecology and Environment of Hubei Province also explicitly required enterprises to improve their interception and drainage systems and reduce the amount of rainwater entering the reservoir. But this company has not built a flood interception ditch, resulting in a large amount of rainwater mixed with tailings wastewater being directly discharged into the Yangtze River.

The inspection team pointed out that according to the Notice on Issuing the Work Plan for Preventing and Resolving Safety Risks in Tailings Ponds issued by relevant national departments, tailings ponds that have been idle for more than 3 years must complete closure treatment within 1 year. However, since the shutdown in 2015, the tailings pond of the Chimashan Copper Mine of Daye Nonferrous Metals Company has been in a state of shutdown and has not completed closure treatment as required. At the time of the inspection team's entry, the closure of the reservoir and ecological restoration had not yet begun. "After China Nonferrous Metals Group discovered and pointed out this issue during its inspection in 2019, Daye Nonferrous Metals Company did not actively rectify it, and the management of the mining area remained chaotic. It even allowed other enterprises to illegally carry out ore dressing production using the original ore dressing plant of Chimashan Copper Mine." The inspection team said that ore dressing tailings were casually piled up upstream of the tailings dam interception ditch, and some tailings and ore dressing wastewater were discharged into the downstream industrial and agricultural reservoirs in the interception ditch. The lead content in the tailings reaches 4246 mg/kg, and the arsenic content reaches 140 mg/kg, posing a serious threat to downstream reservoirs and villages.

Lack of corporate entity responsibility

In August this year, the inspection team conducted inspections on 13 mining enterprises located in Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guizhou provinces (regions) of China's gold industry. Among them, 9 enterprises were found to have a lack of main responsibility and problems such as ecological damage and environmental pollution.

Yunnan Gold Zhenyuan Branch is a subsidiary of China Gold Technology, a second tier company in China. The on-site investigation by the inspection team found that this enterprise illegally crossed the boundary for open-pit mining exceeding 27 hectares, causing ecological damage. The inspection team pointed out that the environmental impact assessment approval requires enterprises to use existing open-pit mining pits as waste rock yards, but the company illegally constructed four waste rock yards covering a total area of about 16 hectares to pile up waste rock. The geological environment protection and land reclamation tasks for the selected site, which should have been basically completed before 2020, have not yet been completed.

Jindi Mining in Guigang City, Guangxi is a subsidiary of Guangxi Company, a second tier Chinese gold company, and a national green mining enterprise. But it is this national level green mining enterprise that has not implemented ecological restoration plans for a long time, resulting in mountain streams within the mining area leaching along the waste rock yard and forming red brown ponds, overflowing into the natural water system. The pH value of the pond is 2.53, which is acidic. The concentrations of cyanide and arsenic are 0.63 mg/L and 3.47 mg/L, respectively, exceeding the Class III standard limit of surface water by 2.15 times and 68.4 times.

In addition, the leachate from the Longdiankeng tailings pond of this enterprise is directly discharged into mountain streams, and the concentrations of copper and manganese in the discharged wastewater are 1.89 mg/L and 9.61 mg/L, respectively, exceeding the first level standard of the Comprehensive Wastewater Discharge Standard by 2.78 times and 3.81 times. The lead concentration in downstream surface water is 0.9 mg/L, which is 17 times higher than the limit of the Class III standard for surface water.

Yunnan Gold Xinping Branch is a subsidiary of China Gold Technology, a second tier company in China. The inspection team pointed out that this enterprise did not dispose of the waste rock according to the approval requirements and directly stacked it by the Mayang River without authorization. At the same time, Jinqi Mining, a subsidiary of Guangxi Company, a second tier Chinese gold company, in Hezhou City, Guangxi, has seen rust colored wastewater seeping out of the Zhanggongling tailings pond leachate collection tank. Monitoring shows that the arsenic concentration exceeds the standard.

The inspection team also found that the flood interception and slag blocking facilities at the waste rock yard of Yunnan Huangjin Zhenyuan Branch were incomplete. In 2020, slag was washed into the tributary of Mayang River, causing pollution to the downstream river water. The tailings pond of Jinlong Gold Mining in southwestern Guizhou Province, which has been discontinued, has not undergone anti-seepage measures and has stored approximately 2.18 million cubic meters of cyanide containing tailings, posing environmental safety hazards. As of now, the tailings resource management project has not started.

Negative rectification, avoiding the heavy and taking the light

According to the inspection team, since 2017, the local government and relevant departments have held 7 meetings or sent letters to urge Daye Nonferrous Metals Company to rectify prominent ecological and environmental issues, but the company has been perfunctory in handling them.

"During the first round of central ecological and environmental protection inspections in 2016, the public reported severe pollution at the smelting plant of Daye Nonferrous Metals Company. The relevant local departments ordered Daye Nonferrous Metals Company to formulate a rectification plan and set a deadline for rectification. According to the rectification plan formulated by Daye Nonferrous Metals Company, the upgrading and renovation of the sewage treatment facilities of the smelting plant should be completed by the end of 2018." The inspection team stated that in the face of rectification requirements, Daye Nonferrous Metals Company avoided the heavy and took a passive approach to rectification.

The inspection team pointed out that this time it was found that the smelting plant of Daye Nonferrous Metals Company adopted emergency measures of adding iron powder and hydrogen peroxide to the sedimentation tank for "rectification", but did not solve fundamental problems such as non-standard facility construction, old and damaged rainwater and sewage pipelines, and even used ditches without anti-seepage measures as aeration tanks. Online monitoring data shows that some periods of wastewater discharge still exceed the standard.

Hongyi Mining (Gold Mine) located in Fengshan County, Guangxi, has mining rights that partially overlap with the Leye Fengshan World Geopark in Guangxi. In 2016, Guangxi Autonomous Region issued the "Negative List of Key Ecological Function Zone Industry Access" (hereinafter referred to as the "Negative List"), requiring Fengshan County to prohibit the construction of new gold mining and selection projects, and existing projects to be withdrawn in 2019. Hongyi Mining not only did not withdraw, but also applied for resumption of construction in 2020. Even more incredible is that as a superior company, CICC Gold has also approved it. After learning about the situation related to the negative list during the application process, we did not rectify it as required, but found ways to promote the adjustment of the negative list. The inspector found that the arsenic concentration in the surrounding water bodies directly discharged from the Hongyi Mining mine water was 0.19 milligrams per liter, exceeding the Class III standard limit for surface water by 2.8 times.

Similarly, the subsidiaries of China Gold Second Level Company - Fengshan Tiancheng Gold Mining Gold Mine Selection Project and Jinxiu Maoyuan Mining Copper Mine Project - are also prohibited items on the negative list and have not implemented relevant requirements. For such a project, CICC Gold has also approved it.

What's even more worth pondering is that "China Gold Guangxi Company has repeatedly written to the local government and relevant departments to coordinate and promote the adjustment of the negative list." The inspection team said that Fengshan Tiancheng Gold Mining's excessive discharge of arsenic containing wastewater caused surface water pollution. At present, the highest arsenic concentration in surrounding surface water is 0.15 milligrams per liter, which is twice the limit of Class III standard for surface water. The highest arsenic concentration in groundwater is 0.12 milligrams per liter, which is 11 times the limit of Class III standard for groundwater.

The inspection team has also analyzed the reasons for the illegal issues of two state-owned enterprises. The inspection team pointed out that Daye Nonferrous Metals Company has a negative attitude towards long-term environmental pollution and risk hazards, perfunctory response to public demands and regulatory requirements, inadequate implementation of the main responsibility for ecological environment protection, and prominent issues of inaction. China Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd. has inadequate supervision and rectification of many ecological and environmental issues in Daye Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd., lax assessment, and inadequate fulfillment of group management responsibilities.

China Gold and its related secondary companies have been accused of not adhering to ecological priority and green development, and not paying enough attention to the problems of extensive resource utilization and lagging ecological restoration and governance in their subordinate enterprises, and lacking in solutions. Enterprises located in the Yunnan Guangxi Guizhou region have weak legal awareness of ecological and environmental protection, with prominent issues of ecological damage, environmental pollution, and environmental risk hazards.

The inspection team stated that they will further investigate and verify the relevant situation, and carry out follow-up inspection work as required.