August 22, 1995, Seattle Times - AP, Cyanide Spills Into Guyana's Main River -- 325 Million Gallons Spill From Gold Mine, by Bert Wilkinson,

August 22, 1995, Seattle Times - AP, Cyanide Spills Into Guyana's Main River -- 325 Million Gallons Spill From Gold Mine, by Bert Wilkinson, 

GEORGETOWN, Guyana - In what officials called Guyana's worst environmental disaster, residents collected rainwater and authorities distributed bottled water following a potentially deadly cyanide spill.

Numbers of dead fish and wild hogs were found floating down Guyana's biggest river yesterday, killed by cyanide waste that continued to escape from a gold mine operated by U.S. and Canadian firms.

More than 325 million gallons of cyanide waste has spilled into the Essequibo River since Saturday. The spill from Omai Gold Mines Ltd. had traveled 50 miles downstream by yesterday.

Yelling through bullhorns from boats, trucks and low-flying helicopters, health officials plied the river banks to warn some 18,000 Indians, loggers and miners not to touch the water.

The Health Ministry banned people from catching and eating fish, shrimp and other river life and told farmers not to let their animals drink from the river. Officials began distributing bottled water, but most residents collected rainwater.

President Cheddi Jagan said the parliament would meet tomorrow to discuss the crisis.

The spill occurred when the retaining wall of a holding pond broke, initially dumping 15.7 million gallons an hour of cyanide-tainted water into the Omai River, which feeds the larger Essequibo.

Miners yesterday reported seeing dead animals floating eight miles downstream from Omai.

Omai Gold Mines said it had reduced the rate of spillage by

diverting some of the water into the pit of the mine, the second-largest open-pit mine in South America.

Omai Gold Mines is 95 percent owned by Cambior Ltd. of Canada and Golden Star Resources of Denver, and 5 percent owned by Guyana. It shut all operations.

It was the second accident in three months at the mine, which began operation in January 1993. In May, a minor spill of sodium cyanide, used to separate gold from crushed rock, killed hundreds of fish.