Health Impacts, Safeguards and Compensation for Mining
Exploration
Mining Exploration causes damage to both the natural environment and to any humans living in that environment. Whilst the impacts on the environment are usually addressed in some detail in the Statement of Environmental Effects (SEE), the impacts on individual human health and the health of the community is invariably glossed over in a superficial way. This may in part be because there is no requirement to present the Exploration Licence Application (ELA) to the community for comment before it is granted.
The author recently retired from psychiatric practice in Gloucester where there is 2000sq km under a variety of ELAs and full scale mining developments. I am a member of a Community Consultative Committee for an ELA for coal and in both these situations I come across people severely stressed by a variety of issues caused by the granting of an ELA. A study has been undertaken by Barrington Gloucester Stroud Preservation Alliance to determine the frequency of some of these problems in a population of 350 households in the vicinity of Stratford and Duralie mines and surrounding areas.
48% of those surveyed believed their health had been adversely affected with psychological problems more than twice as common as physical problems.
42% had to change their life plans.
Regrettably the focus from Environmental Health Physicians has always been just on physical effects from mining and little attention being taken of either individual psychological problems or damage to the social functioning of the community. These psych-social adverse effects are the first casualties of Mining Exploration. Some mining exploration can be extensive and can also cause physical health problems in the community.
Community anxiety is triggered by the publication of maps illustrating the extent of the Exploration Area. These maps lack any detail and there is no communication with individual landholders to explain how they may be affected. The Licence is commonly initially for three years and may then be renewed.
Community concerns extend over fears of noise, dust, water pollution, health effects, unsightly appearance, loss of real estate and business values, road safety issues, effects on crops and stock etc, etc. A few people welcome the possibility for new jobs and money injected into the local community but in the survey above there were five people who opposed the mining for every one person who supported it. It created division within the community.
The powerlessness people felt to influence decisions about the mine promoted feelings of despair and fearfulness. If anyone had an already existing psychological problem this was very likely to deteriorate. For many people they put their plans on hold whilst they gradually found out whether their land was going to be sought by the mine or whether they would just have to suffer the consequences. This waiting period can be a number of years. Chronic stress causes raised blood pressure, depressive illnesses etc. Chronic financial uncertainty just increases the stress. All of these adverse effects are common sense and few would seriously deny them.
The question is what can be done to lessen their severity?
An open acknowledgement by the government, who consent to the exploration, would be a good start and this should be done before any consent is granted. Each landholder should be contacted with as much detail of how they might be affected. A summary of probable adverse effects should be compiled, costed and considered before consent is granted. Those with health, business or other problems that could be affected should be given options of health monitoring, free independent business advice, compensation etc.
Licences should not be automatically granted. If the ELA is granted then it should be the norm for there to be an ongoing Community Consultative Committee with an independent Chairperson to consider problems as they arise.
Dr Steve Robinson
email treesteve@gmail.com
October 2007