Nickel miner denies posing threat to residents

Bonao, Dominican Republic.- The ferrous nickel mining company Cormidom Wednesday denied its operations of the Cerro de Maimon Concession and environmental impact study pose a threat to residents, as local media report.

"The nickel-laterite project is just one of many in the area and if feasible its exploitation will not use cyanide in the process and only handle the material removed physically," said the geologist Sergio Gelcich, quoted by elnacional.com.do.

He said the company currently evaluates the project environmentally and economically, to determine the feasibility of mining the nickel ore at ??Loma El Cumpié and Loma Mala, three miles southwest of Maimon.

Gelcich said Cormidom has complied with all legal regulations as the project advances and the exploration was conducted from 2006 to 2008 in the area where it was determined that there’s nickel ore located in the mesas of Cumpié and Mala hills.

He added that Cormidom submitted the project’s description to the Environment Ministry on April 2011, together with the request for the terms of reference for an environmental impact study which a project of that nature needs to consider.