Two weeks ago, Anibal Perez spoke out against his former employer, Drummond Co., blasting it for its harsh work conditions and environmental violations. Now the company is fighting back, stating that Perez’s accusations were false.
In November, Perez said Drummond Co. dumped coal into a harbor off the coast of Santo Marta, Colombia. Perez also published photos of the incident, later receiving death threats from the government.
Mike Tracy, president of mining at Drummond Co., said Perez’s allegations are false and that he is just a disgruntled ex-employee.
“He is spreading information that is just false,” Tracy said. “He’s telling lies. I don’t know who is sponsoring him to come up here and give out information, but he is giving out false information about how we treat our workers.”
The incident Perez discussed happened in January, though it has caused multiple issues for Drummond Co. since then. Tracy said the images and stories told about the coal dumping have no truth to them.
“One of those barges, a 3,000 ton barge, we had unloaded about 1,100 tons, and then the weather got bad, so we had to stop operations,” Tracy said. “We tied the barge off to a buoy, thinking it was OK, but the barge apparently started to take on water. We have a recovery plan that we put into place, so we pulled the barge into shore where it continued to sink, and we had another empty barge on its way out so that we could transfer the cargo over. Because of the danger of the barge sinking, we did actually take a crane and dip some of the water and coal mixed in it and dumped it on the ocean floor bed right there. But we did dump a small amount into the ocean mud.”
Tracy said the coal sunk into the mud and has not moved since, causing no environmental issues.
During the presentation, Perez said Drummond Co. dropped tons of coal into the harbor out of spite.
Though Perez’s lecture tour centers around the January coal dumping, he is also speaking out against other issues such as health and environmental concerns.
“The location where the mining is happening, the wind blows from north to south,” Perez said in November. “This brings a lot of that dust and pollution into the areas where the communities are living. This has caused a big negative effect for these communities. Back in 2010, the Ministry of the Environment of Colombia actually stated the severity of the communities and order Drummond Co. to relocate. The companies totally ignored that order. This year, the United Nations had to come out and declare a state of humanitarian crisis. We’re still waiting for the government to give a response to these rulings.”
Tracy said the United Nations has not been called upon to act on a state of humanitarian crisis. Although the dust could cause issues for the surrounding areas, Tracy said Drummond Co. atomizes runoff water from the rainy seasons and connects it to the dust, thus eliminating the dust.
Tracy also said he had no knowledge of the death threats against Perez since he was not an employee.
As for the industrial safety violations and the impact on the community, Executive Vice President of Mining Robert Mullen said Drummond Co. respects Colombia’s stringent laws and has paid more than $2 billion in royalties since 1995.
“Colombian laws are more stringent than they are in the U.S.,” Mullen said. “It’s harder to obtain a permit there than it is here.”
Carolina Riano, a Colombian native who works for Drummond Co. in Alabama, said the community in Colombia benefits from the company’s presence.
“The community has access, and the company responds to the community,” Riano said.
The company has so far helped build schools, hospitals and roads in the community. Mullen said Drummond Co. doesn’t use any of the roads for coal transportation but paved them so the community could commute to work easily.
“It makes you feel bad [to be called a monster] when you work this hard and you do all these things the right way and in a responsible way and you see all the good that you are doing,” Tracy said. “Yes, we do have accidents. Everybody has accidents. But our safety records stand up to everybody. As a corporate philosophy, we’ve always felt that our employees are our most important asset. We take care of them; we treat them well; we compensate them. I feel bad when we get someone like Perez come along and tell lies about what we do.”
