Brian Atkinson & Michelle Davis
Text by Tracy Glynn
UNB Art Centre, May 4 - June 8, 2012
MY Backyard
The hidden costs of the gold and silver in our jewellery, the coltan in our cell phones, the fertilizer in our gardens, the steel in our cars and the gas in our tanks are often not thought about at the check-out line but are always on the minds of those who have an open-pit mine or gas well pad in their backyard.
According to the World Bank, more than 10 million people are forcefully displaced every year for development, which includes mines, oil and gas operations and dams.
The resource curse is a phenomenon where poverty and violence accompanies the development of rich resources. Rural countrysides like Copán, Honduras and Penobsquis, New Brunswick, Canada are two examples of places where mining has adversely affected the lives of the people living on top of the rich resources.
People critical of mining in their backyards have faced intimidation from authorities. In countries like Honduras, Ecuador and Indonesia, critics have been charged and incarcerated because their acts of dissent are equated with acting against national state interests. Critics of mines in Guatemala, the Philippines and elsewhere have received death threats and many have been assassinated for their activism against mining in their backyards. To instill fear, subjugate the population, and break social movements, violence is used against these critics by state police, army, paramilitaries, the mining company’s private security guards and hired goons.
To facilitate mining, governments in host countries pass mining-friendly laws and weaken environmental, labour and health standards and privatize natural resources including minerals and water. Nowhere is this truer than in New Brunswick, which was ranked as this year’s best place to mine by mining companies in an annual survey published by the Fraser Institute.
Sixty per cent of the world’s mining companies are registered in Canada. In 2009, the Toronto Star reported that claims of abuse committed by Canadian mining companies exist in at least 30 countries. The Canadian government has and
continues to resist regulation over its corporations at home and abroad while signing free trade agreements with governments such as Honduras, Colombia and Peru.
The hidden costs of the gold and silver in our jewellery, the coltan in our cell phones, the fertilizer in our gardens, the steel in our cars and the gas in our tanks are often not thought about at the check-out line but are always on the minds of those who have an open-pit mine or gas well pad in their backyard.
According to the World Bank, more than 10 million people are forcefully displaced every year for development, which includes mines, oil and gas operations and dams.
The resource curse is a phenomenon where poverty and violence accompanies the development of rich resources. Rural countrysides like Copán, Honduras and Penobsquis, New Brunswick, Canada are two examples of places where mining has adversely affected the lives of the people living on top of the rich resources.
People critical of mining in their backyards have faced intimidation from authorities. In countries like Honduras, Ecuador and Indonesia, critics have been charged and incarcerated because their acts of dissent are equated with acting against national state interests. Critics of mines in Guatemala, the Philippines and elsewhere have received death threats and many have been assassinated for their activism against mining in their backyards. To instill fear, subjugate the population, and break social movements, violence is used against these critics by state police, army, paramilitaries, the mining company’s private security guards and hired goons.
To facilitate mining, governments in host countries pass mining-friendly laws and weaken environmental, labour and health standards and privatize natural resources including minerals and water. Nowhere is this truer than in New Brunswick, which was ranked as this year’s best place to mine by mining companies in an annual survey published by the Fraser Institute.
Sixty per cent of the world’s mining companies are registered in Canada. In 2009, the Toronto Star reported that claims of abuse committed by Canadian mining companies exist in at least 30 countries. The Canadian government has and
continues to resist regulation over its corporations at home and abroad while signing free trade agreements with governments such as Honduras, Colombia and Peru.
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| Brian Atkinson, digital print, 111.76 x 279.4 cm |
The Canadian mining company Aura Minerals now owns the San Andrés Mine in La Unión, Copán. A 250 meter-deep, open-pit gold mine has been left behind by a succession of Canadian mining companies who began operations in the mid 1990s: Greenstone Resources, Yamana Gold and Aura Minerals. The Canada Pension Plan is an investor in Yamana Gold and Aura Minerals.
Documented impacts of the San Andrés mine include environmental contamination from cyanide spills and related health impacts, forced relocations, unfulfilled promises to the communities, disappearing villages and ongoing social tensions between community members.
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| Brian Atkinson, digital print, 111.76 x 287 cm |
Founded in 1539, Gracias is a historic town located in the Department of Copán. The San Andrés gold mine is located down the road from Gracias. The Copán Valley is known for its tobacco farms dating back to the 18th century, as well as cigar
production and coffee plantations. The area is a popular destination for tourists.
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| Brian Atkinson, digital print, 111.76 x 274.32 cm |
Human rights activists are asking Honduran authorities to stop criminalizing environmental defenders and to ensure them personal freedom, due process and the right to continue their defense of human rights. Eighteen members of the Siria Valley Environmental Committee of Honduras face serious charges for allegedly obstructing a forestry management plan. The activists face jail sentences of four to six years. The detentions of community organizers has sparked international outcry.
The Committee of the Families of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) and the Honduras Accompaniment Project (PROAH), an international organization that provides accompaniment for human rights defenders at risk in Honduras, are receiving death threats today. Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries to be a journalist. Several journalists have recently been threatened after reporting on the mining law and the impacts of mining.
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| Brian Atkinson, digital print, 111.76 x 206 cm |
Honduras, a small Central American country, is best known as the original banana republic. The banana trade, controlled by American banana kings like Dole and United Fruit Company in the early and mid 1900s, is blamed for the violence and economic and political turmoil seen in Honduras today. Early in 2009, before the Honduran military overthrew the democratically elected government of Manuel Zelaya, Chiquita and Dole criticized the government in Tegucigalpa, which had raised the minimum wage by 60%.
Mining companies, long time colonial agents in Canada, are known as the modern day conquistadors in Latin America today. The conquistadors once arrived as colonial agents for the monarchies of Spain and Britain. Today, they arrive as representatives of mining companies, often from the mining stock exchange hubs of Toronto or Vancouver. The highly paid executives have a fiduciary duty to work hard for their company’s shareholders who are concerned with profits and dividends. The shareholder is accountable to no one.
Mining companies benefit from Canada’s exertion of power and influence in foreign countries. Canadian government officials, embassy representatives and trade commissions, openly defend Canadian mining interests, as seen recently in Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and Colombia.
On June 28, 2009, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was removed from power in a military coup. Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans protested and continue to protest the coup, denouncing the Honduran elite and military, the United States and Canada, for Zelaya’s removal. Members of the UN General Assembly demanded that Zelaya be allowed to return to the presidency. Canada declined to condemn the violent repression of those peacefully protesting the military coup. Detentions, torture, disappearances, beatings and murders of anti-coup activists and journalists have continued unabated since the coup.
The corporate sector in Honduras, which includes Canadian companies, supported the coup, as did the military establishment and religious institutions. Canadian mining companies, Yamana Gold, Breakwater Resources and Goldcorp all have investments in Honduras. The coup came before the final reading of a new mining law before Congress, which would have restricted mining in the country and banned the use of cyanide in Honduras.
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| Brian Atkinson, digital print, 111.76 x 302.26 cm |
Hondurans raise their voices but it’s the mining companies that are heard
Honduran activists are denouncing authorities for refusing to consult with them over a new mining law. They criticize the law for failing to consult with communities, for prioritizing water supplies for industrial use and for promoting open-pit mining despite strong consensus in Honduras against this form of mining. According to a poll done by the Center of Democracy Studies, 91 out of every 100 Hondurans oppose open cast mining.
Prior to the coup, a mining bill was pending that would have increased taxes in the mining sector, prohibited open-pit mining and the use of toxic substances such as cyanide and mercury. This bill also would have required companies to obtain prior community approval before mining concessions could be granted.
Concerned about the lack of democratic process in mining, the National Coalition of Environmental and Social Networks against Open-Pit Mining and the Siria Valley Environmental Committee, stated in a communiqué on April 23, 2012, that,
“... a previously calculated plan exists to shut the doors, the ears and the eyes of Honduran authorities to the people’s demands and to the grave problems that communities are living where there are mine projects in place; while, as a result of the decisions of unscrupulous and heartless government officials, the doors are being opened to a new phase of massive destruction of our resources that will surely lead to greater poverty, depletion of our natural resources, sickness and death while our territory and resources are handed over to transnational mining companies, to the detriment of present and future generations.”
Honduran activists are denouncing authorities for refusing to consult with them over a new mining law. They criticize the law for failing to consult with communities, for prioritizing water supplies for industrial use and for promoting open-pit mining despite strong consensus in Honduras against this form of mining. According to a poll done by the Center of Democracy Studies, 91 out of every 100 Hondurans oppose open cast mining.
Prior to the coup, a mining bill was pending that would have increased taxes in the mining sector, prohibited open-pit mining and the use of toxic substances such as cyanide and mercury. This bill also would have required companies to obtain prior community approval before mining concessions could be granted.
Concerned about the lack of democratic process in mining, the National Coalition of Environmental and Social Networks against Open-Pit Mining and the Siria Valley Environmental Committee, stated in a communiqué on April 23, 2012, that,
“... a previously calculated plan exists to shut the doors, the ears and the eyes of Honduran authorities to the people’s demands and to the grave problems that communities are living where there are mine projects in place; while, as a result of the decisions of unscrupulous and heartless government officials, the doors are being opened to a new phase of massive destruction of our resources that will surely lead to greater poverty, depletion of our natural resources, sickness and death while our territory and resources are handed over to transnational mining companies, to the detriment of present and future generations.”
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| Michelle Davis, digital print, 111.76 x 297.18 cm |
The landscape of Penobsquis has changed with industry situated in the backyards of farms, which includes potash mines, gas well sites, gravel pits and trucks carrying wastewater away from the potash mine. Mines and pipelines are situated near the Kennebecasis River.
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| Michelle Davis, digital print, 111.76 x 292.1cm |
Coal miners used to carry caged canaries with them underground as an early
indicator of leaks from dangerous gases such as methane or carbon monoxide in the mineshaft. The gases would kill the canary before killing the miners. Penobsquis residents feel like they are the canaries in the potash mine and gasfield. Penobsquis residents say they feel like they are the canaries, a warning of the dangers associated with potash mining and shale gas development at a time when the government of New Brunswick is promoting expansion of those industries in the province.
The Potash Corp mine is extracting millions of litres of water a day from underneath homes in Penobsquis. Residents reported hearing and seeing the blasts that are part of the seismic testing, and noticing dirty water or a total loss of water, not long afterwards. After a number of residents lost their wells in 2004, they immediately linked it to the increased water inflow into the potash mine and the seismic testing that was shaking their homes. In 2006, when new monuments went in around the community to measure the subsidence and horizontal displacement, they began to link the damage to their septic fields and their homes to the ground movements.
Twenty-six residents of the rural community of Penobsquis are claiming that Potash Corp is responsible for the loss of 60 water wells, land subsidence (the sinking of land), dust, noise and light pollution, loss of property values and the stress and grief they endure every day. They are taking their case to the Mining Commissioner and asking for compensation. The hearings before the Mining Commissioner, which started in the spring of 2011, are ongoing.
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| Michelle Davis, digital print, 111.76 x 236.22 cm |
Railway tracks that carry potash away from the Penobsquis mines have been displaced. Residents blame the mine for subsidence, the horizontal movement of earth, and consequently the displacement of the tracks. Transport trucks filled with wastewater brine from the mine leave the potash mine daily. The wastewater brine from the potash mine in Penobsquis is disposed into the Bay of Fundy. University of New Brunswick’s Dr. Tom Al, Dr. Karl Butler, Dr. Rick Cunjak and Dr. Kerry
MacQuarrie in an April 2012 opinion piece titled, Potential Impact of Shale Gas Exploitation on Water Resources, stated: “We are not aware of research that has investigated the ecological impacts of this practice, and we do not believe that it would be prudent to increase the loading of waste water to the Bay of Fundy without a comprehensive science-based assessment of the ecological risks.”
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| Michelle Davis, digital print, 111.76 x 246.38 cm |
Subsidence monuments are found throughout Penobsquis. The monuments record how much the ground is shifting horizontally over time. Residents blame the loss of their water wells, subsidence and sink holes in their fields on potash mining. Some residents want to leave the community because of the industrial impacts but some cannot because they are unable to sell their properties.
A common misconception about the situation in Penobsquis is that homeowners who lost their water can just drill another well. Several people did drill a second and a third well in an attempt to solve their water woes, but the water is gone. Some
people wanted to raise money to drill a new well for 70-year-old Gordon Fraser (seen here) who is one of the few people who has not signed onto the new water system—opting instead to collect rainwater from his roof. But the water is gone. Gordon cannot drill a new well.
“We’re a community where our houses can’t be sold or sold for enough money to allow us to leave. So we’re stuck,” says Beth Nixon with the Concerned Citizens of Penobquis. She says she doesn’t understand why the 60 homeowners who lost their water and property values after the potash mining have to fight so hard for compensation.
“When I was 7, I used to have to go down to the spring to get water for the family. Now, 60 years later, I go to a store to get good drinking water. Is that progress? I used to have good water that came out of my tap,” said Herman Hawthorne, a resident of Penobsquis.
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| Michelle Davis, digital print, 111.76 x 312.42 cm |
Hit the Road Frack! Lively Rally Takes the Streets of Fredericton and Rocks the Legislature on New Brunswick Day
An estimated 1,500 people turned out to protest shale gas in Fredericton on August 1, 2011. In the largest demonstration against shale gas to date in New Brunswick, young and old, Maliseet and Mi’kmaq, urbanites and rural dwellers marched through the downtown streets of Fredericton to the N.B. Legislature where they chanted enthusiastically, listened to speeches and grooved to the tunes of the Fredericton Raging Grannies, Taymouth activist Jim Emberger and the Wulustukyeg Singers. Demonstrators said they are concerned about the impacts of shale gas development on their water, health and communities. The government of New Brunswick has granted permission to shale gas companies to explore 1.2 million hectares of land in New Brunswick.
It’s All Our Backyards
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together,” said Lilla Watson, an Australian Aboriginal activist and organizer to British missionaries
offering to help during a time of conflict in her territory.
To find out more, get involved or support these organizations, visit:
Concerned Citizens of Penobsquis: penobsquis.ca
Conservation Council of New Brunswick: conservationcouncil.ca
Rights Action: rightsaction.org
Mining Watch Canada: miningwatch.ca
Agitate! Educate! Organize!
An estimated 1,500 people turned out to protest shale gas in Fredericton on August 1, 2011. In the largest demonstration against shale gas to date in New Brunswick, young and old, Maliseet and Mi’kmaq, urbanites and rural dwellers marched through the downtown streets of Fredericton to the N.B. Legislature where they chanted enthusiastically, listened to speeches and grooved to the tunes of the Fredericton Raging Grannies, Taymouth activist Jim Emberger and the Wulustukyeg Singers. Demonstrators said they are concerned about the impacts of shale gas development on their water, health and communities. The government of New Brunswick has granted permission to shale gas companies to explore 1.2 million hectares of land in New Brunswick.
It’s All Our Backyards
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together,” said Lilla Watson, an Australian Aboriginal activist and organizer to British missionaries
offering to help during a time of conflict in her territory.
To find out more, get involved or support these organizations, visit:
Concerned Citizens of Penobsquis: penobsquis.ca
Conservation Council of New Brunswick: conservationcouncil.ca
Rights Action: rightsaction.org
Mining Watch Canada: miningwatch.ca
Agitate! Educate! Organize!
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