ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION GROUP
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Ferro Vanadium Does Pose A Health Hazard To The Environment And Employees,
17 May 2003
Following the article "New Company Invests E10m" in the Swazi Observer, page 6, dated May 15 2003, Yonge Nawe Environmental Action Group feels it is important to share the following self explanatory article. MultiNational Company `Xstrata' poisons miners Nine years ago, poverty-stricken rural residents in Steelpoort thought that the arrival of a US $25 million vanadium mine in the area would bring prosperity and improve their quality of life. It never crossed their minds that multinational Swiss mining company Xstrata AG and its local Vanadium Technologies (VanTech) operation might instead be a hangman's noose. But with four workers dead and scores more poisoned by the toxic chemicals used in the mine, villagers are beginning to ask whether they are being exploited by one of the world's largest mining corporations. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) claims that Xstrata has poisoned almost half of its work-force over the past six years... A damming independent academic study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine in 1999 confirms that some workers were exposed to 50 times the maximum limit of vanadium pentoxide, sulphur dioxide, and ammonia. www.web.ca/~iccaf/resourceinfo/feb02newresources.htm Published in the interests
of the environment and sustainable development.
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