Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

84 Pitfalls and Pipelines: Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries
Disruption of Water Tables
Deep mining and drilling have serious impacts on the
level and quality of water in the water table. These are particularly
pronounced in both mountain and semi-arid areas
where both mining and indigenous peoples tend to be concentrated.
In Mankayan, Benguet province in northern
Philippines, according to Kankana-ey indigenous farmers,
Lepanto Consolidated’s underground mining has resulted in
lowering in the water table and reduced availability for irrigation
and farming of surface and near surface water and has
left their fields desperately short of water for domestic and
agricultural use. 58
Many mining processes depend on the use of enormous
quantities of water for processing, washing and cooling. Clean
water is a precious and increasingly scarce resource, yet it is
used in vast quantities in mining even in semi-arid and arid
regions. The Citigroup analysis of climate change risks to
mining suggest “availability of fresh water is critical to most
mining and processing operations.” 59 In the USA, between
1964 and 2005, Peabody coal has drawn millions of gallons
from aquifers under the deserts of the South West that are a
main source of drinking water for Navajo people and their
livestock. This vital life-giving water was used by Peabody
Energy to pump coal in a mixture of gasoline and water in
a slurry pipeline operation to transport extracted coal to the
Mojave electricity generating station in Laughlin Nevada.
Citigroup warned that “reduced rainfall, higher evaporation,
receding glaciers, and shrinking aquifers may reduce
water availability. Authorities may become more conscious of
ensuring water availability for communities, and of environmental
flows.” In Chile the combined extraction and pollution
of the waters of the Loa River by mining companies Codelco
and SQM has resulted in the desert town of Quillagua losing
access to most of the river water it has traditionally depended
upon. As a result the town is shrivelling and dying. 60
According to Citigroup, such conflicts will result in increased
pressure to prioritize life and sustainability over
commercial interests. They predict the result “could reduce