Visit from the Mongolian Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MMET), March 2-5^th, 2009

During the week of March 2-6 MonAme organized a study tour for Ms. Erdenebayasgalan in California. Ms. Erdenbayasgalan is the officer in charge for hazardous chemicals at the MMET and is also involved many project regarding mining reclamation regulations. MonAme’s Life Sciences Coordinator Dr. Tschuluun and Ms. Erdenbaysgalan met officials from various environmental protections agency in California and discussed laws and regulations in the State of California. Mongolian delegated visited State Mining and Geology Board, the Department of Conservation, State Water Quality Control Board, the Department of Toxic Substance Control, Department of Fish and Game and the State Lands Commission. We were introduced to law documents such as SMARA and SEQA and how mining and mining reclamation is regulated in State California. We learned valuable lessons in the regulations of the mining regulations and how these lessons could be used in our effort to improve regulations in Mongolia.  Topic of special interest was the regulation of the financial assurances in mining reclamation.  Mr. J. Pompy, manager at the Office of the Mining Reclamation, who personally got involved in the organization of the trip helped us to understand many details of the reclamation procedures and how it is controlled in California. Moreover, Mr. Pompy helped us to organize a visit to McLaughlin Reserve, a former gold mining ran by Homestake. Mr. K. Burke, Regulatory Affairs Manager at McLaughlin Mine hosted a day-long visit at the site and showed us how reclamation is progressing on at McLaughlin reserve, after the mining operations were closed in 2002.

As result of this tour we gained knowledge of how various agencies get involved in the mining regulations and how the mining industry and regulatory bodies communicate to established an effective and productive collaboration. Regulations of the permits, environmental standards to ensure environmental sound operations and most of all, reclamation and restoration of the mined land in California could serve us as a valuable source for future development in the mining sector in Mongolia. Securing and managing funds for mining reclamation, providing a quality service to the public and mining community and full transparency in all proceedings seems the best way to ensure a productive collaboration and regulation in this sector. Since mining is going to be the driving force for the Mongolian economy for decades and considering the interests of the foreign investors in this sector, we believe that developing a comprehensive regulatory procedures and acts to minimize the negative impact on the environment but also educating and involving public and interested parties in all regulatory affairs will help to lift misunderstanding and often hostility toward mining operations in Mongolia.

We want to thank Rebecca Darling from the Asia Foundation Mongolia for her effort and input in this trip and Asia Foundation for kindly granting financial support for this trip. We thank all participant of the meeting in Sacramento, CA, officials from the agencies we visited, for their warm-hearted reception and genuine interest in the topics we are so interested. A special thank goes to Mr. J. Pompy who put much of this time an effort to organize this trip and for his personal involvement.