Dr. Alex Mojon's rejoinder to Harita's response, 11 August 2020

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[...] [I]f to refer to the lately published statement of Harita Group of 27 June 2020, the Company claims that the alternative to DSTP, namely retaining tailings in dams and the recycling of the waste, is not feasible because of the earthquake risk in the planned mining areas. They refer to the Brumadinho dam disaster in Brazil, occurred on 25 January 2019. However, this dam did not break because of an earthquake, but because of sloppy monitoring by the QI company commissioned to do so. The comparison is therefore misleading.

Based on the experience and knowledge of my network of renowned specialists from different European Universities in the field, it is necessary to emphasize the fact that there are alternative solutions for DSTP, by meaning it is quite possible to build such dams even in earthquake-prone zones. Today, modern construction engineering makes it possible to build tunnels and complex bridges, even for high-speed trains, and also to construct daring high-rise buildings in earth quake prone zones. It is primarily a question of ethical attitudes towards ecology and sustainability, and secondarily a question of costs, which account for only a modest percentage of the large net profit made by mining companies.

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