Somebody (Kit Lee) wrote this to MalaysiaKini on 4th of June: Nonsense to claim someone can get sick from cyanide.
He has been involved in exploration and mining for 40 years. And he claimed that using cyanide is perfectly safe. Well, what can you expect from a miner? Of course he would tell you that mining using cyanide is safe.
He started the article by introducing how to process gold using cyanide, and how SAFE it should be. He also mentioned how to denature cyanide after it is used. He also listed out 6 steps to limit the dangers of contamination. That’s is the ideal process according to ICMC (International Cyanide Management Code). Gold mining in Raub SHOULD BE SAFE IF THEY FOLLOW ICMC guidelines.
But the problem is: DO THEY FOLLOW THE CODE?
Kit Lee said, cyanide can be disintegrated under UV light exposure, therefore it is not toxic. However, the problem is, how long it takes to 100% disintegrate? What if the amount of cyanide being released is too much for the UV to disintegrate it? What if cyanide leaks to underground water and out of the reach of UV?
According to a review on 1997 approved EIA by Dr Glenn Miller from Nevada, US, he said the company did not follow the ICMC guidelines properly. They proposed a smaller scale of processing plant to apply for permit, but the exact facilities and the tailing processed per year is actually larger then what they proposed. Dr Miller called it “bait and switch”. If, there is a possibility the company being ‘dishonest’ in this way, how can we be so sure they follow the safety measurements according to ICMC guidelines?
Kit Lee also mentioned that cyanide can be denatured using chlorine, iodine and common hydrogen peroxide before discharge. But what about the big tanks of sodium cyanide before used? What if there is leakage from these big tanks? The cyanide that stored in their facility, haven’t being denatured? Also, what will happen if there is failure of tailing ponds and release the cyanide into local ponds or river?
Also, we must remember that, the facility located TOO CLOSE to residential area. Only a road away from residential area. No buffering zone between facility and houses, shop lots and even school. Is there the ideal place to store such a big tank of sodium cyanide? If there is any spills, the residents will not have enough time to evacuate. Besides that, according to Dr Miller’s report, the company proposed a smaller scale when they apply for permits. Is their risk assessment and management designed according to the smaller scale they proposed or exact scale they have now?
In the last paragraph of Dr Miller’s review, he said:
Thus, the 1996 EIA, in addition to being inadequate even at the time it was written, does not now even consider some of the major impacts of waste rock dumps, major milling and metallurgical processes that would be required to process the new ore being mined. The human and environmental risks of the tailings and contaminated water that will drain from the tailings are of such magnitude that it is my opinion that the entire EIA process should be started over, using current international standards for an environmental analysis.
If ICMC is the “golden rules” in setting up a gold mine, then Dr Miller’s advice is what we should follow, as he was one of the expert who involved in drafting the ICMC.
Indeed, just like what mentioned by Kit Lee, cyanide occurs naturally in many roots especially unripe tapioca and the indigenous people have been using these to ‘poison’ fish and yet the fish is edible.
I couldn’t agree with Kit Lee that cyanide is SAFE TO EAT. If cyanide is SAFE, why the fish are dead? Small dosage of cyanide, is enough to kill fish, but not enough to kill a healthy adult (yet). It is due to our body’s mechanism to get rid of mild cyanide ingested (from fish, tapioca or some other plant). It will be converted into thiocyanate, which is 7X less toxic and discarded from our body via urine. However, high level of thiocyanate will still be able to cause damage to our body. And with ENOUGH dosage of cyanide, it can kills a normal, healthy, young adult. In some cases, people died of eating too much cassava/tapioca (cyanide overdose).
Indigenous people has been using cyanide to poison fish. But it seems like Kit Lee doesn’t know what devastating effect it causes. In many places (countries) where indigenous people using cyanide to poison fish, coral reefs and marine life were threatened. We lost many valuable species of corals and marine life due to cyanide poisoning. Colouful corals died and whole marine ecosystem disturbed. Do we want the same thing happen in Bukit Koman? Even a small dosage of cyanide can cause such a long term effect to marine ecosystem, just imagine what a big tanks of sodium cyanide can do.
Kit Lee said: “The current concerns by the Bkt Koman villages are due to misinformation, fear-mongering and emotion. It is nonsense to claim someone can get sick from cyanide. If you consume too much you just ‘suffocate’ and die, you do not get sick”.
How true is the statement? How many scientific publications he read? How many medical references he refers to? I wonder who is MISLEADING the readers here.
Read this – a report published by U.S. Department Of Health And Human Services:
Memory impairment has been reported as a delayed effect in individuals who survived a cyanide poisoning incident with antidotal treatment. A female developed difficulties with short-term memory 5 months after ingesting an unknown amount of an unspecified cyanide compound (Chin and Calderon 2000).
Well, I hope he won’t suffer memory impairment when he grows old one day and forget what he wrote to MalaysiaKini. Cyanide can bind to an important enzyme that carries oxygen in our body. Once cyanide binds to the enzyme, the enzyme can no longer carries oxygen into cells. Cells do not get enough oxygen. In a healthy normal adult, mild cyanide can be detoxed from body. But what about small children, babies or senior citizens? They do not have a terrific detox system to get rid of toxic in their body. And how can our children grow up healthily in such a oxygen deprived environment?
Is Kit Lee a doctor? NO. He is a mine operator. He has insufficient knowledge to tell us how safe cyanide is to our body. He claimed he operated a small ‘Heap Leach’ operation in Kelantan in the 1990s with no cyanide hazards. I do not know how SMALL his operation is, but Bukit Koman is definitely BIG.
We need answers from experts – a real expert; a doctor; a reseracher; an environmentalist… But definitely not a mine operator.
This is just like listen to Raub Australian Gold Mining company telling you that their mine in Bukit Koman is SAFE and environmental friendly; or a politician telling you that politic is CLEAN.
Bukit Koman residents welcome developement and wealth brought by gold mining activity. But with such an amout of cyanide storing just one road away from their residential area is just like living with a time bomb.
Kit Lee, if that is your own village where your family and kids live in, I wonder if you would say the same thing?
