ADAMSON UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements in

Engineering Values and Ethics

A Case Study:

Marcopper Mining Corporation

Submitted by: Mantala, Fatima D.

Submitted to: Engr. Irene R. Espiritu

March 28, 2015

Marcopper Mining Corporation

Established in 1964, Marcopper started open-pit mining operations in 1969 at
Santa Cruz, in the small- island province of Marinduque. At its peak, the coppergold-silver producer was the third largest mining company in the country, with a
30,000-ton of run-of-mine (ROM) output per day. This translated into 10.8 million
tons

ROM

output

per

year.

Although

Canadian

multinational

mining

company, Placer Dome Inc., owned nearly 40% of the total shareholding and was in
effect largest single investor, the Philippine Government controlled 49%, and the
rest were public shares.
What is an Open-pit Mine?

Fig. 1 shows an illustration of an Open Pit

Surface Mine. The definition of a open pit
mine is "an excavation or cut made at the
surface of the ground for the purpose of
extracting ore and which is open to the
surface for the duration of the mines life."
To expose and mine the ore, it is generally
necessary to excavate and relocate large
quantities of waste rock.
Prior to the Disaster
In 1992, Marcopper began operating the San Antonio open-mine pit which is
envisioned to have a twenty-year operating life with an estimated yield of 198
million tons of copper ore, but was also estimated that 354 million tons of waste
rock may be derived from the mine project and there was no alternative site for safe
mine tailings disposal because the San Antonio waste pond was being utilized the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) approved without proper
risk assessment plan Marcopper to dispose mine tailings from San Antonio into the
Taipan pit which is three kilometers away, Taipan Pit has a drainage tunnel that is
about six kilometers long and its opening goes directly inside the pit and in turn

goes through a mountain. Until 1992, the tunnel was used to divert ground and
rainwater that collects at the bottom of the pit during mining operations. When the
copper ore body of Taipan pit was exhausted the tunnel was sealed by blasting and
collapsing the opening at the pit and installing a concrete plug 100 meters from the
downstream end. But in 1992, the Taipan pit began receiving approximately 25,000
metric tons of mine tailings a day
What are Mine tailings?
Mine tailings consist of ground rock and
process effluents that are generated in a
mine

processing

plant.

Mechanical

and

chemical processes are used to extract the

desired product from the run of the mine ore
and produce a waste stream known as
tailings.

In early 1995, a year before the disaster, mining engineers of the Marcopper
Mining Corporation discovered that clear water was flowing slowly but steadily
around the exit portal of the sealed tunnel underneath the Tapian pit. This
presented a dilemma: was this water simply natural groundwater, a spring that
flows from the soil, or was there a leak in the supposedly sealed tunnel? At the time
twenty million cubic meters of mine tailings had been discharged into the Tapian pit.
If the tunnels seal were to break, the amount of tailings that would be released into
the river would be of disastrous proportions.

Above: Tapian ore-body (open pit) in Marinduque in 2002.

Below: San Antonio pond in Marinduque in 1989
In prevention of such incident to happen, their first course of action was to
compare the pH levels of the water from the end of the tunnel and the water within
the Tapian pit. The water from downstream was verified as having normal pH, while
the water in the pit was acidic. This suggested that the flowing water did not come
from the mine tailings inside the Tapian pit. Next the engineers, along with foreign
environmental management consultants drill holes from the surface of the mountain
into the tunnel to test the water pressure and load inside. It was assumed that since
the opening had been basted and collapsed in 1992, only finely ground tailings
suspended in water would fill the tunnel and not the coarse and heavy kind. Tests of
the water along the tunnel did not show mine tailings in the tunnel were carrying
the load of the rest of the Tapian pit. There was no cause for emergency measures
to be applied, but despite the lack of urgency the engineers decided to inject
concrete into the tunnel through the drilled holes. This prevent project was ongoing
until the accident happened.
The Disaster

An earthquake measuring 3.2 on the Richter scale shook Marinduque; its

epicenter is only 20 kilometers away from the Tapian site, seven days after the said
earthquake on March 24, 1996 the concrete plug in the tunnel located at the base of
the tailings pit burst, and the rock enveloping this plug was fractured, triggering the
escape of about 1.6 million cubic meters of mine tailings at the rate of five to ten
cubic meters per second, the said volume of mine tailings was equivalent to more
than three million tons of hazardous waste. The tailings spillage rendered the 27kilometer Boac River and its twin Makulapnit River biologically dead and further
silted the coastal and estuarine areas near the Boac River delta. At the height of the
disaster, five villages had to be evacuated, and an estimated 20,000 people in the
42 villages along the two rivers and the
estuary were affected.

Flow of tailings from the Tapian Pit into

Makulapnit which is tributary Boac Rivers
on March 24, 1996

The Action
Marcopper immediately shutdown their activities, and all the manpower and
resources were gathered for two goals: first is to plug the leak and stop the
discharge of mine tailings into the makulapnit river and second is to provide
immediate assistance to residents directly and mostly affected by the spillage.
The plugging was accomplished by August 1997, but Marcopper has to face
another problem; it was the cleanup of the Boac River. The residents were afraid of
the flooding that the undredged river full of mine tailings might cause. The
companys solution was to remove the tailing deposited in the river. Temporarily a
2.5-meter high levee banks were constructed along the river but experts who

assessed them predicted that the banks were vulnerable to erosion by the flow of
the river. The main solution is to dredge the river of the mine tailings which was the
do nothing approach or to haul and truck the mine tailings to another location
which is an active approach. They choose to do the dredging which will simply allow
the natural flow of the river to bring the mine tailings to the ocean. On September
1996, one kilometer of the river was dredge which increased the capacity of the
river to about 500 percent reducing the risk of flooding by 500 percent.
An evaluation of an independent expert and two government assessors show
that the primary problems were solved. The dredging of the river helped clean up
the mine tailings.
Not Enough! Toxicity
The front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (March 30, 1996) reported that
two persons were confirmed ill due to the toxicity of the mine tailings. First, a 15year-old boy, hospitalized after supposedly eating fish caught from the Boac River,
complained of dizziness, vomiting, and headaches. The second case was a
baranggay captain, who complained of stomach pains after accidentally swallowing
a mouthful of silt while crossing the river. In that newspaper article, the acting
health secretary acknowledged that this could be a sign of poisoning.
Because of this Marcopper requested two environmental institutions to test
the water quality in Boac River. The United Nations Assessment Mission reported
that based on the chemical analyses and toxicity tests, it is reasonable to assume
that the river water itself is not toxic to the environment.
The tests showed that the water was not poisonous, but it must be noted that
an engineer from Marcopper commented that while the mine tailing are not toxic,
the sheer volume is the major threat.
Marcopper Engineers
The engineers believed that the earthquake a week before the disaster
contributed largely to the fracturing of the rock. But engineers also know that the
concrete use to seal the tunnel in 1992 neither expands nor contracts unlike natural
rock which does so according to the temperature and water permeability of the

ground. Fracturing and leaking were not distant possibilities, since the rock will
move but the concrete will remain rigid.
Other Things to be Noted
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) withdrew the
Companys Certificate of Compliance effectively shutting down the mining
operation.
A post-disaster technical report of the United Nations (UN) mission concluded
that although the mine tailings had high concentration of the heavy metals copper,
chromium, zinc and lead, it posed relatively little environmental risk as toxicity was
not present. However, the peoples negative reactions and fears about the tailings
spill were not dispelled.
Although it tried wash off its hands from the disaster, Placer Dome Inc. was
obviously among the shareholders the only one with mining expertise. The
Canadian mining firm had no choice but to coordinate with Marcopper to remedy
the situation. It reportedly spent millions of dollars cleaning up the Boac- Makulapnit
Rivers, and eventually succeeded in reducing the flow by 99% to an intermittent
discharge of clear groundwater. But thereafter, in 1997 Placer Dome divested itself
of all business interests in that hapless company.
Present

Conditions of the

Areas Affected

According

to

Mines and

Geosciences Bureau (MGB)

Observations of the use of the Boac River have revealed that the public
has returned to many of the traditional uses of the river. These include
river quarrying, fishing, clothes washing and general road access. - MGB
COMPLETE STAFF WORK REPORT, Marcopper Mining Corporation 1996
Tailings Spillage (Report as of February 15, 2013)
Five (5) year monitoring of the river has shown gradual recovery of the
Boac River. While additional tailing materials remains mixed with gravel in
levee banks, this material is not affecting the river environment from a
chemical or biological perspective. Similarly, the tailing mixed with gravel,
which is encapsulated in the dredge channel is removed from the
surrounding environment and presents a very low risk of environmental

impact. - MGB COMPLETE STAFF WORK REPORT, Marcopper Mining

Corporation 1996 Tailings Spillage (Report as of February 15, 2013)
In general, all the scientific studies cited above on the potential effects of
MMC tailings Spill suggest the remaining tailings in the Boac River have no
significant broad scale environmental toxicological impacts. However, we
feel that the water quality will improve further once the remnant mine
tailings are finally removed and disposed appropriately. - MGB COMPLETE
STAFF WORK REPORT, Marcopper Mining Corporation 1996 Tailings
Spillage (Report as of February 15, 2013)

Case Analysis
Although the evidence of the Marcopper mining tragedy in Marinduque is now
almost gone that you would think that it has never even happened in the first place,
I could not neglect the fact that it did because Ive seen its effects; when I was a
child I used to swim in the rivers of Mogpog they were happy memories that I
couldnt forget. I remember the clean flowing water of the river where we kids used
to take a bath while the elder women of the family would gather at the river bank to
wash clothes. That was before the tragedy, after are just gaps in my memory, the
last I saw of the river was it was all muddy and we have never gone there again. So
when we are asked to search for a company that has faced an ethical dilemma
Marcopper Mining Corporation is the first Ive thought about.
The question Ive found in one of the articles Ive read Did Marcopper Mining
Corporation do what ought to be done by a socially responsible mining corporation,
both prior and after the tragedy?
Referring to the Engineering code of ethics the number one in the
Fundamental canons: Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
As a responsible mining corporation they should have thought of the safety, health,
and welfare of the people. Prior to the tragedy they got the chance to prevent
spillage, they had known the presence water seeping from the tunnels and of
course they had acted by injecting concrete but as engineers they should have
known that it not a safe solution because they should have known that concrete has
the tendency to crack because unlike normal rocks it doesnt have the tendency to

expand or contract. They could have set up other contingency plans if only they had
taken seriously the risk and had look at every possible situation that could come up.
After the tragedy they had done whatever they could to remedy what
happened, mostly it was Placer Dome Inc. the largest single investor of the
company did the clean up because they are the only ones with the mining
expertise, but I dont think its enough. As noted Placer Dome Inc. divested itself
from the company at the year 1997, it is unbelievable that with only a year that had
past Placer Dome Inc. has already relinquished itself from the its duty, to think that
they had earned a lot from the mining of copper for many years.
Marcopper Mining Corporation together with its investors should have taken
full responsibility with the continuous rehabilitation of the damages they had done.
A year is not enough and is not comparable to the numerous years theyd harvested
copper for their personal gain.

References:
http://www.ethicalbusiness.nd.edu/researchScholarship/Consortium

%20cases/Marcopper_CaseApril2.pdf
http://www.prrm.org/publications/gmo2/vd.htm
http://www.mine-engineer.com/mining/open_pit.htm
http://www.tailings.info/basics/tailings.htm
http://www.slideshare.net/ronnierecidoro/marcopper-boac-river-update
http://www.academia.edu/3766077/Current_Biological_and_Social_Status_Of_
Marcopper_Mining_Tragedy_in_Marinduque