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Shareholders withdraw Placer Dome proposal; company agrees to establish new environmental standards
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Minority shareholders in Placer Dome withdrew a shareholder proposal at the company’s annual meeting April 20. But Canadian Labour Congress President Ken Georgetti – speaking on behalf of the proposal – warned the company to produce meaningful results for communities in the Philippines hurt by an environmental disaster four years ago. Working Enterprises Ltd., representing a number of BC-based pension funds, withdrew a shareholder proposal calling for an independent, public audit of the company’s environmental liabilities. Georgetti withdrew the proposal after the company agreed to establish environmental benchmarks and verify whether the company is meeting those benchmarks. The proposal relates specifically to the tailing spill at the company’s Marcopper mine in the Philippines in March, 1996 and generally to other environmental problems in Montana, New Guinea and Nevada. In the Marcopper spill, six million cubic tons of mine tailings spilled into the Boac River, creating huge environmental damage and loss of livelihood for local communities. “Real situations, like the one the company faces in the Philippines, will be the litmus test of the company’s ability to apply its promises and principles of sustainability,” he told the annual meeting. “In the 30 years that Placer Dome provided the management, technical support and financial backing for the mines in Marinduque (where the spill occurred), a legacy has been built up of serious environmental contamination by mine tailings,” Philippine environmentalist Elizabeth Manggol told the meeting. But Placer Dome CEO Jay Taylor responded that Placer Dome has since divested of its interest in the Marcopper min, which at the time was only 40 per cent. He also said Placer Dome never managed the mine.
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