Source: The Mongolian Mining Journal                   Date: 20 October, 2010

Environment Minister L.Gansukh has appealed to all companies in the mining sector to follow the standards set by Oyu Tolgoi LLC. The company has a 30-person department for environmental monitoring. It monitors the use of chemicals and its effect on the water, soil, and vegetation. In comparison, Erdenet Corporation has only 4-5 people for the job. Energy Resource also has an environment department. It has built a greenhouse and planted vegetation that suits the Gobi in its reclamation process. Erdenes MGL, which has just started earth moving, is taking environmental issues seriously from the very beginning. The first layer of soil with plants in it is kept carefully, so that they can be replanted somewhere else.

The Ministry would like to enforce environment-protection measures right from the beginning of the mining expansion. All companies “will be graded and those not making the mark will face action, maybe even suspension of work, while those doing well will be rewarded”. He said very little money had been spent in the environment sector in the last 20 years. “The economy always took precedence over the environment,” but things are changing.

Expressing concern at the environmental damage inflicted by trucks carrying coal, Mr. Gansukh said the volume of both production and export of coal “have gone up exponentially and much too rapidly to give us a chance to prepare for them”. Border ports like Gashunsukhait were built to handle seasonal trade and where once the coal export volume was 140,000 tons in a full year, it was more than 6 million tons in just the first 8 months of this year.