The SARW report has found that Kansanshi activities are polluting water and land, undermining food security.
First Quantum has failed to consider the environmental effects of its tailings dam expansion on water pollution and the destruction of community farms.
According to people in the community, the local authority and the Department of Water Affairs take samples year after year but have never shared the results with the people directly affected.
The people living around Kansanshi mine accuse the company of failing to provide adequate social amenities.
According to the company, these communities have received support in different sectors – health, education, entrepreneurship, and housing for displaced people, agricultural support, and water provision – as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme.
According to the report, if one has not visited Kansanshi’s social projects, and only reads the company’s sustainability reports, one will have the image of a company beyond reproach.
The building is of very poor quality and badly maintained.
The clinic has no toilet facilities, no running water, and looks like an abandoned place.
The report has conclusively found that the efforts that the company is making towards CSR are not transformative – they do not change the lives of the people but maintain people in poverty.
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And what’s horrible is that the government knew about it, and chose not to inform the residents about the toxic water.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment informed residents about the water that was going in their bodies only after six years.
The state also did not inform residents that the water in their drinking wells could be contaminated with the dry cleaning chemical.
“We didn’t find out for 7 years,” said Joe Hufman, after discovering his well was contaminated by a Haysville dry cleaner.
“Haysville knew it.
The state knew about it but didn’t notify the residents living in over 200 homes that they had been consuming contaminated water for four years.
To defend this misconduct, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said it did not worry about contaminated water in Haysville because they apparently thought the groundwater was traveling southwest, away from private wells.
That clearly wasn’t the case.
“Instead, they all kept quiet.
Thumbnail/Banner Image: Reuters, Navesh Chitrakar