Kalinga mayors to help control mercury poisoning of rivers
Posted on | Thursday 31 March 2011 | No Comments
by Peter A. Balocnit
TABUK, Kalinga, March 31 – Taking action to rid the environment of pollutants, local chief executives here are looking for ways and means to control the poisoning of rivers from dangerous elements particularly mercury.
The League of Mayors headed by Pasil mayor James Edduba is asking the Environment Management Bureau(EMB)and the Mines and Geo-sciences Bureaus (MGB) to furnish their offices result of their findings on mercury contamination on water bodies in the province .
Ricardo Dang-iw, engineer, of EMB was requested to bare what they discovered when they conducted water sampling in five water sampling points on major rivers in Kalinga where the EMB-MGB found mercury traces.
Water samples in Pasil, Chico, and Saltan rivers gathered and tested were positive of mercury contents ranging from .00287 to .1231 microgram per cubic meter which is beyond the standard measure .002.
Tests showed that present also in the waters are cadmium, copper, zinc, and lead. “Except for mercury, the other metals present on rivers are below the allowable level,” the EMB-MGB report said.
Edduba said there are known causes of mercury contamination of rivers; in Pasil it is caused by small scale mining using mercury to extract gold. Water waste during the process flows down the Pasil river, he said.
Edduba called on his counterparts in areas where small scale mining operates to make their own studies to properly address the problem. He also recommended that small scale miners should shift to other safe and environment-friendly practices. *(PIA-CAR/Kalinga)
TABUK, Kalinga, March 31 – Taking action to rid the environment of pollutants, local chief executives here are looking for ways and means to control the poisoning of rivers from dangerous elements particularly mercury.
The League of Mayors headed by Pasil mayor James Edduba is asking the Environment Management Bureau(EMB)and the Mines and Geo-sciences Bureaus (MGB) to furnish their offices result of their findings on mercury contamination on water bodies in the province .
Ricardo Dang-iw, engineer, of EMB was requested to bare what they discovered when they conducted water sampling in five water sampling points on major rivers in Kalinga where the EMB-MGB found mercury traces.
Water samples in Pasil, Chico, and Saltan rivers gathered and tested were positive of mercury contents ranging from .00287 to .1231 microgram per cubic meter which is beyond the standard measure .002.
Tests showed that present also in the waters are cadmium, copper, zinc, and lead. “Except for mercury, the other metals present on rivers are below the allowable level,” the EMB-MGB report said.
Edduba said there are known causes of mercury contamination of rivers; in Pasil it is caused by small scale mining using mercury to extract gold. Water waste during the process flows down the Pasil river, he said.
Edduba called on his counterparts in areas where small scale mining operates to make their own studies to properly address the problem. He also recommended that small scale miners should shift to other safe and environment-friendly practices. *(PIA-CAR/Kalinga)
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Kalinga
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