The rehabilitation of a pilot mining site in MacArthur, Leyte is underway two months after the first shipment of extracted iron sand, the firm announced on Wednesday.
The MacArthur Iron Sand Project Corp. (MIPC) has started planting high-value crops within the four-hectare rice farm covered in the first phase of mine extraction, said Januar Ong, MIPC’s community relations officer.
“The pilot site has been backfilled with pure sand and topsoil with no iron ore content, applied with organic fertilizer, and started the planting,” Ong told reporters.
The firm will grow ampalaya, monggo, and watermelon in the area. In the next cropping season (starting September), the site will be planted with rice.
The pilot site is part of the seven-hectare rice land owned by Maya village chief Pepito Guimalan. The private land was leased for PHP270,000 per hectare for two years.
The firm announced rehabilitation updates amid speculation that MIPC may abandon its commitment to conduct progressive rehabilitation in some of the town’s farming communities transformed into mining areas.
“We are going to show that progressive rehabilitation is doable. This is part of our agreement with the landowners once we return the property to them after a two-year lease. We have to ensure that land is productive at the minimum when we started,” Ong added.
The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) granted the MIPC mining claims of 2,300 hectares last September 2020, covering the towns of MacArthur, Javier, and Abuyog.
In MacArthur town alone, the MIPC has mining claims of about 300 hectares for three years.
The firm made the first shipment of 39,000 metric tons of iron sand to China from Jan. 17 to 26, 2021. These sands were extracted from a four-hectare pilot site in Maya village.
MIPC expects to ship the same volume of extracted iron sand by the end of the month.
The MGB reported that the MIPC is one of the priority mining projects tapped by the government to help the economy adversely affected by the health crisis.
The firm is reportedly investing PHP500 million and has already hired about 300 workers in MacArthur town since last year. (PNA)
