The operation at Skouries. Image: Nikolaos Symeonidis
The plan. Image: Eldorado
The arsenic-rich soil of Olympia (between 9 and 12 percent concentration) is a major issue in the flash-smelting process Eldorado has proposed. Image: Nikolaos Symeonidis
The mines will release tons of ore dust into the air each year. A truck drives on a dirt road near the Skouries mine. Image: Nikolaos Symeonidis
Then there are the dams, that, along with the mines, are built in an earthquake-prone region. Two are standard tailing storage facilities, or tail-end dams, while the third is a hazardous waste dam that will be built about 50 meters from an active seismic faultline, according to Papazachos, the seismologist.In Eldorado’s original technical report, a single reference to seismic activity was to negate the impact of future mining, noting that it would not be “a likely trigger for seismicity.” But anti-mine activists are concerned about something else: history.In 1932, an earthquake rocked the town of Ierissos in northeastern Halkidiki, with a displacement of 2 meters, a rupture over 7 kilometers long, and aftershocks that lasted several months. The mining activity at that time, though much smaller in scale than it is nowadays, was also located along the fault, and a building was cut clean in half. Registered at 7.2 on the Richter scale, the earthquake is recorded as the largest surface displacement on mainland Greece since antiquity. It’s also an indication that any modern building, especially one in a region subject to frequent low-grade tremors, must take into account both the shaking and displacement that could come from another, similarly strong earthquake.“The problem is that we can never predict when an earthquake can strike.”
At the Seismology Station in Thessaloniki, seismologists track earthquakes in the Halkidiki region. Here, their computers recorded a small temblor in mid December 2017. Image: Nikolaos Symeonidis
The sign above the water fountain in Megalia Panagia, where local residents often get into fights about the mine. Image: Nikolaos Symeonidis