A local non-governmental group, Livelihood and Environmental Ghana, has accused Newmont Ghana of polluting water sources with harmful chemicals around a farming community at Gyatakrom in the west of the country and attempting to cover it up.

Richard Agyei-Poku, executive director of the group, said "we are waiting for an independent investigation into the matter to determine how serious it is, because fishes are known to have died...and Newmont has asked the people not to drink from their water sources which have been polluted."

But Newmont's regional communication manager, Adiki Ayitevie said in a statement that it was a "minor overflow which occurred" at the company's processing plant and was contained within the mine site. Ayitevie said, "the overflow at the processing plant contained gold ore active processing solution [including sodium cyanide]. It was immediately contained with sandbags and neutralized with sodium hypochlorite and cleaned up as per standard operating procedures."

She said while the overflow was an onsite incident, stakeholders including the district chief executive, people of the four hamlets concerned, chiefs and other opinion leaders were informed about it.

"The Environmental Protection Agency and Minerals Commission's chief inspector of mines have also been informed and are currently on site conducting their investigation," she added. Ayitevie said, following heavy rains at the mine area, tests were conducted at several downstream locations to ensure the spill had not spread beyond the contained area on site. "Analyses by external laboratories are underway to verify the negligible levels of cyanide so far detected."

Agyei-Poku said, however, "Newmont has not admitted to us that cyanide was involved. What they told the people was that the chemical involved was chlorine and that is what has made us suspicious because they would not be providing us with alternative drinking water if it was just chlorine."

Ayitevie admitted that there were fish deaths reported short term. "Though currently fishes in the ponds in the drainage flow of the mine are alive, we are investigating the potential cause of the fish mortality and whether this was due to the bleach agent used to neutralize the cyanide solution, residual cyanide or other causes."

Earlier this week an Environmental Protection Agency official, Issace Osei, confirmed to state-owned Ghana News Agency that, the "the minor overflow of processing solution" that occurred at the mines was contained and did not get into waters consumed by the residents of the area.

He explained that gold ore was leached in the process plant and residual low grade process solution was stored in the process and event pond, which contained sodium cyanide. The residual water is recovered from the tailing storage facility and recycled to the process plant for re-use. Osei said the chemical that spilled off was not raw cyanide but a processing solution that contained cyanide.

-By Francis Kokutse, contributing to Dow Jones Newswires, 00-233-24-6952248