Letter to Barrick Mining Corporation Shareholders

Dear Sirs and Madams:

We belong to Espacio Nacional por la Transparencia de la Industria Extractiva (ENTRE - National Forum for Transparency in the Extractive Industries) in the Dominican Republic and are members of the Multi-Stakeholder Group of the National Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Commission, where we represent Dominican civil society, on behalf of more than 150 organisations across the country. We organise civic resistance against the environmental destruction and violation of community rights imposed by large mining corporations, which is facilitated by the official leniency and complicity of weak institutional governance in our country.

As we stated on 9 December 2022, almost four years ago, both to you as a company and to the Dominican government in direct communications, through public complaints and even in ongoing legal proceedings, “the communities, organised within the Nuevo Renacer Committee, living in close proximity to the current Pueblo Viejo tailings dam” (TSF El Llagal), are seriously concerned about the risks of being buried by the eventual collapse of a defective facility storing millions of tonnes of toxic waste from Barrick Gold PVDC’s mining operations. Today, we reiterate the increasing danger, the worsening damage to health, daily life and livelihoods, and the loss of all water sources in the area inhabited not only by the five communities living beneath the tailings dam wall, but also within the immediate perimeter of the industrial mining and tailings storage operations, where they seem condemned to await the final ecocide and the tragedy of death.

This situation is exacerbated by the imposition, through repression and the violation of the entire legal framework, of a new tailings project—which exceeds the existing one’s storage capacity by more than twofold—in breach of the obligations imposed by international standards and regulations, with a retaining wall three times longer than that of the El Llagal Tailings Dam, intended to be built almost adjacent (barely one kilometre away) to the dam’s wall, and identified as TSF El Naranjo.

Take note, new national and international stakeholders, as well shareholders gathered in this virtual space at your global shareholders’ meeting, that not only the ordinary staff led by you, but every single owner, both individual and corporate, will bear the same ethical, moral, human and legal responsibility for the assured misfortune and eventual consequences caused by this mining operation, its facilities and industrial waste.

As we stated in the aforementioned communication, “this letter is addressed to you, on behalf of the institutional communities we represent and a people who are consciously demanding respect for their rights, to gain a deeper understanding of the operations of the tailings dam at the Barrick Gold mine in Pueblo Viejo.” Studies show the extremely serious implications of a new tailings facility, which would increase the destructive potential and the ecological and human disaster that would result from the collapse of the existing and/or the also planned tailings dam, whose deadly sludge would be deposited in the Atlantic Ocean in just five hours, destroying in its path every trace of life, infrastructure and property (https://miningwatch.ca/sites/default/files/EIS_InformeEmerman_Espanol.pdf).

Please do not forget that “Barrick Gold has adopted and recently reaffirmed its commitment to the Global Standard for Tailings Management in the Mining Industry”; we wish to draw your attention in particular to Principle 15 of the aforementioned Standard, which addresses, establishes and mandates the publication of and access to information regarding tailings facilities. Accordingly, and to provide technical and legal support for the requests we are making in this communication, we include the text of Principle 15 verbatim. As we stated to you almost four years ago, we now reiterate that Principle 15 obliges you to: “PUBLICLY DISCLOSE AND PROVIDE ACCESS TO INFORMATION ABOUT THE TAILINGS FACILITY TO SUPPORT PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY”. We take this opportunity to reiterate that you have violated and continue to violate, even prior to its entry into force, the standard to which you have committed yourselves, and particularly as set out therein where it states: “Requirement 15.1: Publish and regularly update information on the operator’s commitment to the safe tailings facility management, implementation of its tailings governance framework, its organisation-wide policies, standards or approaches to the design, construction, monitoring and closure of tailings facilities.

A. For new tailings facilities for which the regulatory authorisation process has commenced, or that are otherwise approved by the Operator, the Operator shall publish and update, in accordance with Principle 21 of the UNGP, the following information: 

1. A plain language summary of the rationale for the basis of the design and site selected as per the multi-criteria alternatives analysis, impact assessments, and mitigation plans (Information may be obtained from the output of multiple Requirements including, but not limited to, Requirements 3.2, 3.3, 5.1, 5.3, 6.4, 6.6, 7.1 and 10.1); and 
2. The Consequence Classification. (Requirement 4.1). 

B. For each existing tailings facility and in accordance with Principle 21 of the UNGP, the Operator shall publish and update at least on an annual basis, the following information:

1. A description of the tailings facility (information may be obtained from the output of Requirements 5.5 and 6.4); 
2. The Consequence Classification (Requirement 4.1); 
3. A summary of risk assessment findings relevant to the tailings facility (Information may be obtained from the output of Requirement 10.1); 
4. A summary of impact assessments and of human exposure and vulnerability to tailings facility credible flow failure scenarios (Information may be obtained from the output of Requirements 2.4 and 3.3); 
5. A description of the design for all phases of the tailings facility lifecycle including the current and fi nal height (Information may be obtained from the output of Requirement 5.5); 
6. A summary of material findings of annual performance reviews and DSR, including implementation of mitigation measures to reduce risk to ALARP (Information may be obtained from output of Requirements 10.4 and 10.5); 
7. A summary of material findings of the environmental and social monitoring programme including implementation of mitigation measures (Requirement 7.5); These disclosures shall be made directly, unless subject to restrictions imposed by regulatory authorities.
8. A summary version of the tailings facility EPRP for facilities that have a credible failure mode(s) that could lead to a flow failure event that: (i) is informed by credible flow failure scenarios from the tailings facility breach analysis; (ii) includes emergency response measures that apply to project affected people as identified through the tailings facility breach analysis and involve cooperation with public sector agencies; and (iii) excludes details of emergency preparedness measures that apply to the Operator’s assets, or confi dential information (Requirements 13.1 and 13.2);
9. Dates of most recent and next independent reviews (Requirement 10.5); 
10. Annual confirmation that the Operator has adequate fi nancial capacity (including insurance to the extent commercially reasonable) to cover estimated costs of planned closure, early closure, reclamation, and post-closure of the tailings facility and its appurtenant structures (Requirement 10.7). Such disclosures shall be made directly, unless subject to limitations imposed by regulatory authorities.

C. Provide local authorities and emergency services with suffi cient information derived from the breach analysis to enable effective disaster management planning (Information may be obtained from the output of Requirement 2.3); 

Requirement 15.2. Respond in a systematic and timely manner to requests from interested and affected stakeholders for additional information material to the public safety and integrity of a tailings facility. When the request for information is denied, provide an explanation to the requesting stakeholder. 

Requirement 15.3 Commit to cooperate in credible global transparency initiatives to create standardised, independent, industry-wide and publicly accessible databases, inventories or other information repositories about the safety and integrity of tailings facilities

And as they were unable to provide responses commensurate with the complaint, except for the escalation of brutality, repression and unpunished abuse, imposing arbitrary eviction and disregarding the obligations imposed by international financial corporations and binding standards, on hundreds of families in the planned mine expansion area (El Ligo, El Naranjo, Rayo, Las Tres Bocas and Arroyo Vuelta) and disregarding the five communities that were surveyed and agreed to be relocated (La Piñita, La Cerca, La Laguna, Jurumgo and Jobo Claro), for almost seven years now, WE WISH TO REITERATE TO YOU, AS WE DID ON THE PREVIOUS OCCASION, THAT: “In accordance with Requirement 15.2 (responding to and providing information requested by stakeholders), we are requesting access to the documents pertaining to sections B1 to B10 as part of Principle 15 of the Global Standard for Tailings Management in the Mining Industry. In summary, the documents regarding the existing Pueblo Viejo tailings dam are: (1) description of the tailings facility; (2) consequence classification; (3) summary of risk assessment findings; (4) summary of the impact assessments for credible failure scenarios; (5) description of the design for all phases of the life cycle; (6) summary of the key findings of the annual performance reviews; (7) summary of key findings from the environmental and social monitoring programme; (8) summary version of the PPRE; (9) most recent and upcoming dates of independent reviews; and (10) annual confirmation that Barrick has the financial capacity to cover the estimated costs of early closure.”

Whilst reiterating each of these requirements, we insist on requesting “all relevant information underpinning the aforementioned documents, including full reports and the raw data and inputs on which the reports are based, particularly for impact assessments under credible failure scenarios, reports produced following independent reviews, and the tailings dam failure analysis. We also request all water analyses from the past year in full, including raw data from the Llagal and Maguaca rivers, and from any other source used or consumed by the communities surrounding the mine (in accordance with Requirement 15.2).”

Similarly, and finally, we return on behalf of the communities, our organisations, and the entire Dominican people—who are currently mobilising against predatory extractivism, the loss and poisoning of our aquifer systems, and the violation of economic, social, and cultural rights—to urge you to order the immediate halt of the El Naranjo TSF construction project, compensation for property, lost production, and damage to health and the environment caused by the activities in our country of the company of which you are officials and shareholders.

Furthermore, we warn that you are not only responsible for the harm caused to the lives of the communities but also bear moral and legal responsibility for the disasters imposed by irrational mining practices and the pursuit of profit.

Yours faithfully,

Leoncia Ramos, National Space for Transparency in the Extractive Industry (ENTRE)

Alejandro García, Peasant Movement of the United Communities (MCCU)

Manuel Pérez, LEMBA Working Group

Alvaro Caamaño, National Space for Transparency in the Extractive Industry (ENTRE)

Fernando A. Peña S., Dominican Observatory on Public Policy (ODPP-UASD)

Euren Cuevas, Institute of Lawyers for the Protection of the Environment (INSAPROMA)

Bienvenido Mejía, Guayacan Energy and Environment Group Foundation (GEMA)

Bolívar Ureña, National Human Rights Commission (CNDH-RD)

Copies to:

• Joel Santos, Minister of Energy and Mines, DR
• Secretariat of the National EITI Commission-DR
• MiningWatch Canada
• Earthworks E:U.
• CETIM (Centre Europe Tiers