Gis nana jen bu dey

                In Kedougou – the regional capital – it is much easier than Dakar to meet with local officials.  We walk into offices, announce our desire to share results, and wait our turn.  Sometimes, we wait a few minutes.  Sometimes, we wait over an hour (for example, while the Director of Mines bargained with a woman about the price of land).  Most places are located within the town, and we walk from place to place.  For another, we borrow a motorcycle and Falaye (my partner here) drives us the 20 minutes along a dirt road to meet with an official there.  (We arrive completely covered in dust, and I accidentally flash – aka, my skirt rides high above my knees – the official as I dismount.)

                While many of the local authorities are aware that mercury is harmful, they also have many misconceptions:

11)      “Mercury is legal.”  I listened as the chief of the hospital described the trucks full of mercury that constantly pass by the police.  But mercury is, in fact, illegal in Senegal.  Senegal is a signatory of the Minamata Convention on Mercury, which was signed a few years ago and went into effect this past August.  The trade of mercury is forbidden by this Convention.

22)      “People can be poisoned by mercury by bathing in water near artisanal gold mining.”  This source of exposure was listed by nearly everyone we met with.  But this is, in fact, not possible.  Mercury in water is dangerous because its concentration increases across the food web – small amounts in water lead to larger amounts in small fish and huge amounts in large fish (that eat many small fish and accumulate the mercury).  While it is good that they think mercury is dangerous, they do not properly understand how people are exposed to it.

33)      “Gis nana jen bu dey” (We’ve seen dead fish: “Dead fish are washing ashore due to mercury poisoning.”)  This was stated by the local governor (sous prefet) overseeing the mining region.  This is, in fact, highly unlikely.  While fish are accumulating high concentrations of mercury, the quantity is likely not high enough to kill the fish.  In fact, fish are generally not susceptible to mercury toxicity, but birds, mammals, and people eating them are.  Even then, it is more likely that mercury toxicity symptoms will slowly appear, rather than sudden death.  Fish are likely dying from other toxins entering the water near these areas.

44)      “The authorities already know that mercury is in the water and soils due to artisanal gold mining.”  About half of the people we met with made this claim, stating that what was needed was a solution, not more proof of what was already proven.  The other half knew the reality – my research is the first proof in the world that mercury in soil near artisanal gold mining has high levels of the more toxic and bioavailable (able to be taken up by organisms) form of mercury known as methylmercury.  While it may have been assumed before, some people sympathizing with the miners’ use of mercury vehemently disagreed that mercury was in any form other than the liquid elemental mercury.  Thus, my research shows otherwise.

55)      “Senegal has developed viable solutions to mercury use in artisanal gold mining.”  This was claimed by a few government officials and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Dakar and Kedougou.  While I wish this were true, conversations with people who have gone into the field to actually visit the mining sites and talk to the miners have shown this to be a fallacy.

There have certainly been attempts to devise methods of artisanal gold mining with reduced mercury use.  For example, for the past few years, some NGOs have distributed retorts.  These are essentially covers that are placed on top of the stove where the mercury-gold amalgam is burned.  As the mercury evaporates, it is caught by the cover and condenses, reducing the loss of mercury to the atmosphere.  However, miners are loathe to use this because it takes longer than traditional methods and they are distrustful – the gold buyer might be cheating them since they can’t see what is happening but see their mercury-gold ball shrinking in size.

Another attempted method is mercury-free processing of gold.  The government has invested in a large, expensive machine that makes this possible and claims that people are using it.  However, while people are using it, they use it for pre-mercury steps, then take their solution back to their village to add mercury and continue with the mercury amalgamation process, thereby completing bypassing the objective of the government-funded equipment.

Finally, the third solution I heard (which astounded me) was the use of cyanide as a substitute for mercury.  I listened as a local NGO La Lumiere explained that cyanide is preferable since it photodegrades and can’t be transported in the atmosphere. And, cyanide is already used sometimes by people from Burkina Faso to recover even more gold after mercury is used, so it is easy to obtain.  But this opens a new can of worms.  Cyanide is even more toxic than mercury at small concentrations, posing huge concerns for humans and animals if ingested.  If it’s not contained (as it likely won’t be), cyanide can leak into groundwater and rivers.  Thus, in a few years, there’d be a movement to stop cyanide use rather than mercury.  This is not a safe solution.

This is not to say that all government officials and NGOs in Senegal have all of these misconceptions or that they even have any of them.  But, in order to eliminate the use of mercury in artisanal gold mining, to properly educate community members, and to find a solution to the current mercury problem, it is important to address these misconceptions.