BY DR MASIMBA MAVAZA

Illegal mining is mining activity that is undertaken without state permission, in particular in absence of land rights, mining licenses, and exploration or mineral transportation permits.

Illegal mining can be a subsistence activity, as is the case with artisanal mining, or it can belong to large-scale organized crime, spearheaded by illegal mining syndicates as witnessed in Kwekwe and the Mashurugwi menace. On an international level, approximately 80 percent of small-scale mining operations can be categorized as illegal. Despite the President of Zimbabwe embracing the illegal miners calling them artisan mines some of the artisan miners have become a liability to the nation.

With the laxity in the affairs of the illegal miners and their Mashurugwi brothers the nation has been faced with a lot of long term problems caused by these miners.
The artisan miners are barely supervised by the mining inspectors as a result a lot of illegal things are done in the mining areas.

Urban water is heavily contaminated and Zim have no capacity to eliminate heavy metal toxins and Dissolved chemicals. Remember these impurities are from the source point (lack chivero) Morton Jeffrey plant is designed to eliminate organic waste and bacterial contamination. What we need is a plant that is designed to test heavy metal contaminates.

With unknown chemicals used by these miners the water in our dams is polluted by poisonous chemicals and these chemicals are not separated from the domestic waters and only God knows the effects of such chemicals.

For example water sources like mazowe river are no longer safe as artisanal miners have contaminated the water with mercury a heavy metal that have inhibiting properties plus cyanide a serious poison. These chemicals have killed fish and other creatures which normally deal with the echo system in our waters. The absence of these creatures create an un purified waters. Our water cleaning system does not normally target this as the plants were designed to deal with fresh water sources.

The artisanal miners supported by Mashurugwi normally use mercury which is used in artisanal and small-scale gold mining.

Mercury is mixed with gold-containing materials, forming a mercury-gold amalgam which is then heated, vaporizing the mercury to obtain the gold. 

This process can be very dangerous and lead to significant mercury exposure and health risks. In some jurisdictions, mercury use may be illegal or restricted in certain ways.

Because of the lack of inspection the Mashurugwi will dispose the mercury in the drinking waters and that which escapes in the ground contaminated the water tables.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury, a global agreement for reducing mercury pollution, recognizes the risks of using mercury in artisanal and small-scale gold mining, and calls upon nations to reduce, and where feasible eliminate mercury use in this sector.

Although many miners use mercury in artisanal and small-scale gold mining, it is possible to safely and economically recover gold without it. Mercury-free techniques are safer for miners, their families and local communities.

 They may also help miners market their gold at higher prices.
 
Many artisanal and small-scale miners are achieving high rates of gold recovery without mercury, benefiting their health, the health of their communities, and the environment.

With the violent reception at the hands of Mashurugwi inspection becomes dangerous.

The Mashurugwi have most recently graduated from Machetes to AK 47 and handguns in their illegal wielding of power.
Most illegal Gold mining is sponsored by the trusted ministers.

This past week Dexter Nduna MP and a senior police Officer stationed in Chegutu were arraigned before a Magistrate for illegal mining and behaving like Mashurugwi.
A well known senior minister in Kwekwe is suspected of funding the Mashurugwi.

Only few years back there was a massacre of elephants by poachers using cyanid poison.

Some senior police officers where arrested in the cyanid scandal.
Now the Cyanid and mercury makes a dangerous concoction which is dangerous and destructive.

Dr Promise Mnikwa stated that the effects of cyanid and Mercury will kill half of Zimbabwe in few years.

The dangers faced by the nation are unimaginable. Mr Tongai NCUBE a scientist from UK said things are falling apart and the nation will be halved soon if action is not taken.

The government can introduce ways of producing gold without use of Mercury.

Concentration means increasing the amount of gold in ore or sediment, by selectively removing lighter particles. If employed effectively, concentration methods can eliminate or greatly reduce the need for mercury.  
Before concentration can begin, ore must be crushed or milled to liberate gold particles from rock and to decrease grain size.

Concentration works best when grain size of the milled material or sediment is relatively consistent, so that most particles are of similar size. An appropriate grain size can be achieved using screens or sieves.

. Magnetic or chemical properties can also be exploited to enhance concentration. 
Each mining operation is unique.

 Concentration methods must be selected after considering factors such as the type of ore or sediment, other minerals present, gold particle size, and the availability of water and electricity. 
Panning uses water to separate heavy gold particles from other lighter particles within a medium sized pan.

In this process sediment or ore thought to contain gold is placed in a wide, curved pan along with water. The miner moves the pan in a series of motions designed to eject lighter sediments. The density of gold keeps it on the bottom of the pan as lighter material is ejected along with water.

After a series of successful iterations have been completed, gold will be exposed on the bottom of the pan for the miner to recover.  
Then miners can employ gold recover methods such as direct smelting although many panning operations lead to directly recoverable gold.

Panning offers miners a low cost method of gravity concentration but it requires time and skill to be effective.
Sluices use water to wash ore or alluvium down a series of angled platforms.

As water washes sediment down a sluice, gold particles sink and are captured by material covering the bottom of the sluice, often carpets. Sluices are usually inclined at 5 to 15 degree angle. As moving water travels down a sluice, it generates greater force and keeps gold particles from sinking easily. For this reason most gold is captured at the beginning of the sluice.

Carpets or other capturing devices on the bottom of sluices can be removed and washed in a bucket to remove the captured dense material. 

Sluice design can lead to higher gold recovery if the force of the water traveling through the sluice is decreased. A series of rifles can help break the flow to improve recovery.

A zig zag sluice also achieves this by creating a drop between the first and second platform that disrupts the velocity of the water as it travels down the sluice.

 A simpler alternative to the zig zag sluice is a combination of two sluice surfaces. The first is tilted at a steeper angle then the second, decreasing the velocity of the water as it hits the second sluice, increasing gold recovery. 

Sluices can be relatively expensive or affordable depending on the complexity of their design.

Simple sluices can be a single angled platform a few feet in length and others can be very elaborate. 

Having an available and consistent water supply is necessary to have a functioning sluice operation. This can be done with piping, drums, buckets, or natural flowing water bodies. A constant flow will be better than a bucket-driven flow.

Sluices are good at concentrating large amounts of ore and sediment in a relatively short time but often do not yield concentrates with high amounts of gold. The resulting concentrate must usually undergo further methods of concentration, such as panning.  
Magnets can be used to remove magnetic minerals such as magnetite from concentrate. They can be used after or in conjunction with other method of concentration.

One technique for extracting magnetic minerals is to place hand held magnets on the bottom of a pan containing dried concentrate to separate metallic from non metallic material. Care must be taken to avoid losing gold particles during the separation. It can be helpful to cover the magnet with a piece of paper.  After magnetic minerals are attracted to the surface of the paper, it is removed to easily discard the metallic material. 

Separation methods, like the ones described above, if employed properly, should yield a high-grade concentrate with a large proportion of gold relative to other materials.

However, this gold still needs to be separated from the other remaining minerals before it can be sold. At this point in the process, direct smelting can often be employed as the final stage of gold recovery.

In direct smelting high-grade concentrate is heated until the gold melts. The liquid is then cooled to form a solid mass of gold dore, a semi pure gold alloy, that can reach upwards of 95% purity. 

If concentrate is of poor quality (low gold percentage and high amounts of other minerals) the melt may need to be poured into another structure, such as a cupple, to separate the impurities from the gold. When melt is poured into the cupple, gold and other metals will sink as silicates and other minerals rise to the top, forming slag. When these materials harden the gold can be easily separated from the slag.

The slag frequently contains addition gold that can be recovered through reprocessing.

Cyanide is often the preferred chemical used in leaching. Cyanide is highly toxic and great care must be taken when using it.

However, in contrast to mercury, cyanide is does not persist in the environment.
Who can help in these.

Vazet2000@yahoo. Co. Uk.