Capitol assures safety of

small-scale quarry opns

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol (PIA)—Bohol’s mineral resources regulatory office (BMinRRO), a Capitol office in charge of the monitoring and enforcement of mining safety, assures Boholanos that flooding from small-scale quarry operations do not happen and that the environmental impacts of the activity are mitigated by planting trees and a programmed rehabilitation of the damaged mind-out areas.

BMinRRO chief Engr. Ana Luisa Galicinao, at the weekly Kapihan sa PIA tackling on the presumption of most Boholanos that Bohol’s quarry sites all pose the same risks of flooding like that which happened in Cebu.

According to BMinRRO, there is only one large-scale mining operation in Bohol with the national government oversight for 81 hectares in Garcia Hernandez, operated by Bohol Limestone Corporation and sintering services provided by Philippine Mining Services Corporation.

Here, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Environmental Management Bureau regulates and maintains its monitoring for the operation.

“On the other hand, what we have in Bohol are small-scale quarry operations,” Engr Galicinao said.

By small scale mining, Republic Act 7942 or the Philippine Mining Act refers generally to quarry operations and provided by quarry permits covering areas not exceeding five hectares, regulated by the local government units issuing permits.

The Provincial Mining Ordinance, as another source of guidance for the local enforcement authorities, also set additional guidelines for the small-scale mining operations.

Small scale quarry operations that have acquired permits for mining high elevations are required to follow the standard benching configuration for open quarries, and are required to put up their own silting ponds to provide a venue for rainwater to settle down during heavy rains, according to Engr Galicinao.

Beyond that, the officials also said that even small scale mining operations have to secure Environmental Compliance Certificates (ECC) from the DENR, to be allowed by the local authorities to operate small scale quarry.

An ECC is a permit issued by the DENR EMB, after a determining that the mining operations pass the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process under Presidential Decree 1586 or the Philippine EIS System.

The ECC certifies that the project will have no significant environmental damage is expected if mitigation measures are followed and lists down conditions that will make the quarry operator fulfil the environmental compliance requirements in emissions limits, waste management, monitoring reports and environment mitigation.

The ECC application also details the scale of operations, bulk of materials to be extracted, she hinted.

If the proponent can present an ECC, it means the area applied is feasible for quarry, and the BMinRRO which issues the local permits, also monitors the operations based on the ECC provisions, she explained.

Beyond the usual small scale quarry operations employing a little over the manual excavation and a few heavy equipment, the ECC also binds the operator to institute active environmental mitigations to cover for the damage during operations.

And based on the conditions of their ECC, they have to plant, a number of trees, that is becoming a part of the monitoring which the Provincial Environment Management Task Force (PEMTF).

During a meeting with the Provincial Mining and Regulatory Board, we agreed that before renewal of their quarry permits, they have to present a certification that they have planted trees with geo-tagged photos, she said.

The ECC condition of planting trees during the pendency of the quarry operations is different from the requirement called the work program and rehabilitation plan.

The work program and rehabilitation plan is different from the condition, this is prepared by a private mining engineer detail what they will do with the area as soon as this applied operation area is mined out.

With this, BMinRRO said there are already at least five mined-out areas in Bohol which are now fully rehabilitated that traces of the old quarry operations can hardly be distinguished now. (PIABohol)

ENVIRONMENTAL MITIGATION. Despite operating small-scale quarry which is strictly monitored based on the ECC provisions, operators are mandated to plant trees and submit a rehabilitation plan for their mined-out areas, explained BMINRRO chief Engr. Ana Luisa Galicinao, at the Kapihan sa PIA.