NIGER TRIP REPORTS (4) ARLIT: PORTRAIT OF A BOOM TOWN

UNCLAS NIAMEY 000610 SIPDIS SENSITIVE, SIPDIS LIBREVILLE FOR REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL HUB OFFICER; PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PHUM PAGR ECON EMIN EINV SENV NG SUBJECT: NIGER TRIP REPORTS (4) ARLIT: PORTRAIT OF A BOOM TOWN REF NIAMEY 167, NIAMEY 137, 06 NAIMEY 1055 -------------- SUMMARY: A Boom-town Pattern of Profit & Loss -------------- ¶1. (U) This is the forth in a series of trip report cables documenting life, leaders, and issues in several key towns and regions (reftels A, B, C),of central and northern Niger. ¶2. (SBU) Arlit, in northern Niger, owes its existence and prosperity to uranium mining. As world prices rise and the industry enters an expansion phase, optimism reigns. The benefits to the town in terms of employment and public services are obvious. Everything from schooling to governance and healthcare are well above average in Arlit, thanks both to French producer Areva's corporate philanthropy and a dynamic local government. A rich town in a poor country, Arlit faces some of the challenges that accompany booms. A local NGO has raised concerns about the environmental impact of the mines on air and water quality. While the Government of Niger (GON) undertakes a study and Areva responds to the allegations with stronger accountability measures, Arlit's mayor and council seek solutions to problems posed by in-migration and the town's harsh desert environment. END SUMMARY -------------- Arlit Overview: Life in a Company Town. -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Arlit is a company town. Created in 1969 by the erstwhile French public-sector nuclear concern COGEMA and the Government of Niger (GON),it is today home to 86,000 persons. The story of Arlit is the story of its mining companies. Today, the French nuclear power concern Areva is the majority (greater than sixty percent) shareholder in Niger's two national mining companies: the Societe des Mines de l'Air (SOMAIR),est. 1968, and the Compagnie Miniere de l'Akouta (COMINAK),est. 1975. The Government of Niger retains a roughly 30% stake in the concerns, with the remainder in the hands of Spanish (three percent) and Japanese (six percent) investors. Since acquiring control of both companies from COGEMA in 2000, Areva has merged their management and other shared functions, though it retains the names to distinguish between the open-pit surface mining of SOMAIR, which takes place on the edge of the city of Arlit, and the subterranean mining concerns of COMINAK, a few kilometers away near the village of Akokan. Together, the two companies employ 1,632 persons and mine about 3,200 tones of uranium each year. ¶4. (U) Workers of all ranks enjoy company housing. For most, that means concrete houses, with electricity, running water, and interior courtyards. Medical benefits and generous family and vacation allowances make the mines a good place to work for Nigeriens lucky enough to land a job there. Contacts noted that mining company employees tended to have large families in order to take advantage of benefits from the companies. They also noted that the days when Arlit was considered a cosmopolitan "little Paris," rife with expatriate engineers and executives, are over. The vast majority of employees, even at senior grade, are now Nigeriens. French staff seems to come on TDY for several months and then return to Europe. Yet, the city retains a supermarket, sports clubs, and other "quality of life" infrastructure. While future prospects for uranium mining in Niger are good (reftel D) Arlit is unlikely to see a return of 1970s style expatriate life--after years of contraction, the companies have learned how to live without it. -------------- Decentralization: Paternalism Pays But so Does Dynamic Administration -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Arlit Mayor Bachir Sidi Abdoul Aziz has an office and city hall that would be the envy of any other commune. Arlit's beautiful Siege de Commune, like everything else in town, derives from the largesse of the uranium mining companies. Since the advent of decentralization, Areva has worked closely with the local authorities on education, health, and agriculture issues. Even though this cooperation sometimes takes time--Mayor Aziz noted that project proposals submitted to the mining company take between 6 and 7 months to elicit a response--it is still appreciated. However, in Niger every solution poses a problem--by virtue of the perception that Arlit enjoys a "feast" of Areva funded projects, the city has always faced a "famine" of donor and NGO investment. Aziz was quick to point out that many needs are not covered by Areva, and, in the absence of other NGO or donor activities, such needs are not addressed at all. Aziz thanked the Embassy for the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP) funded decentralization and youth job projects, both of which will touch Arlit. ¶6. (SBU) Decentralization seems to be proceeding well in Arlit. Aziz is a bright, articulate, young Tuareg who appears to be well respected by the community. He traveled to New York City last year as part of a National Human Rights Commission Delegation to the UN--suggesting he has some national as well as local credentials. His business card displays home and cell numbers as well as office contacts, suggesting a commitment to constituent service. The President of the Arlit Tribunal, Judge Abdourahamane Gayakoye, characterized Mayor Aziz as "young and visionary." The Judge noted that, within two months of its installation, Aziz's commune government had paid the electric bills and gotten the lights turned on in government buildings. ¶7. (U) Arlit's mayor and council are working hard to better their commune, rather than relying unduly on the safety-net provided by Areva. The urban commune of Arlit has eighteen councilors, and two village chiefs (one each for Arlit and Akokan),who serve ex officio. The partisan balance of the council breaks down like this: seven PNDS (national opposition party); three MNSD; four CDS; and one councilor each from RDP, RSD, UDPS, (all national ruling coalition members); and, a local party called Talaka. Mayor Aziz is from the PNDS. As is often the case with local governments, everyone seems to get along just fine. The annual commune budget is 240 million CFA, thirty-five million of which comes from GON revenue sharing. The local tax recovery rate is an encouragingly high seventy percent (verses a national average of thirty-some percent). Mayor Aziz attributed this to a special committee that conducted a comprehensive tax census that counted and assessed every possible small business tax source. ¶8. (U) Health care in Arlit is first class. SOMAIR and COMINAK each run large, modern hospitals that serve citizens and workers equally. Contacts noted that Areva would soon merge the two hospitals into one larger entity at the Akokan site. Education too seems far better than average, due to Areva's assistance but also to the commune itself, which recently bought and installed 1,065 bench/table combinations in the schools. Mayor Aziz claims the highest school attendance rate in Niger. Also courtesy of Areva, Arlit has a small airport capable of handling nine or sixteen seat aircraft. Between five and six small, mostly company planes come each day. One can fly to Niamey for about $400.00 on a space available basis. ¶9. (U) Not everything is easy in Arlit. A victim of its own success, the city faces a population growth rate of 5.8%, which complicates efforts to raise the standard of living. It has no paved streets. The annual average rainfall in "the dustiest city in Niger" as it was memorably described, is just ten millimeters. Yet, even that creates great sanitation and health problems. The city is flat and its soil rocky; thus, the rain neither drains away nor soaks into the ground. It remains in un-hygienic stagnant pools that contribute to malaria. ¶10. (SBU) While the mayor and council members were concerned about sanitation, they also stressed the need for agricultural development. They claimed that 600 to 800 tons of wheat could be cultivated by gardening cooperatives, were funds available for well digging and irrigation activities. In a similar vein, the council is interested in developing a "green belt" around the city to arrest desertification and reduce the dust. All of these development aspirations may fall victim to Areva's enormous appetite for water. The mining companies consume 4.6 million cubic meters of water each year; the city, with its 86,000 inhabitants, consumes just 600,000 cubic meters. -------------- The Environment: Sifting Truth from Fiction -------------- ¶11. (SBU) Our discussion of water use issues segued into a broader discussion of pollution. For several years now some NGOs and civil society organizations, foreign and domestic, have claimed that Areva's mines are polluting the air, water, and land. Locals, they claim, are subject to higher than average levels of lung cancer, tuberculosis, skin diseases, and mortality. Yet, as of this writing, there is no scientific consensus on any of these points. NGOs argue that a comprehensive epidemiological and sanitary study should be conducted; Areva tends to rely on the results of various environmental impact studies that have been conducted over the years. Poloff raised this question with a variety of interlocutors. ¶12. (SBU) Mayor Aziz, in remarks echoed by his council-members, stressed that primary responsibility for investigating such claims lay with the Ministries of Health and Mining. However, he was convinced that Areva had conducted credible studies proving that there is no undue water pollution. The NGOs, he claimed, "have shown no proof at all of their allegations." When Poloff asked Arlit Prefect Omarou Djatti, he noted that he wasn't convinced by the NGOs' claims, but added that: "I cannot say that all of the laws of the state are universally followed," with respect to environmental practice. For his part, Judge Gayakoye said that the jury was still out. The GON, he argued, has the duty to commission a "totally independent" and comprehensive study that would provide the answers. NOTE: The Secretary General of the Ministry of Mines and Energy subsequently reported that the Ministry of Health was working on just such a survey. END NOTE ¶13. (U) Poloff met with Arlit's principal environmental NGO-Agrin'Man--Tamachek for "protection of the lamb"--and its Founder / President Almoustapha Alhacen. Created to "sensitize the population to the dangers of uranium and its savage exploitation by Areva," Agrin'Man pulls no punches. Ironically, Alhacen is, and for most of his career has been, a SOMAIR employee. While ill and on medical leave some years ago, he started reading about uranium mining and connected safety and environmental issues. Concerned that best-practices were not being followed, Alhacen created the NGO, (which he appears to staff virtually alone) and started issuing letters and press releases denouncing Areva. ¶14. (U) Alhacen argued that Arlit needs a comprehensive epidemiological and sanitary study; ad hoc studies of environmental impact are not sufficient. In December of 2003, Agrin'Man asked two French NGOs to come and conduct a study. Their 2004 report and letters to Areva claimed that water radioactivity exceeded national and international norms by 10 to 110 percent. Nevertheless, Alhacen noted that the GON has not responded to this study or to his NGO's repeated letters and press releases in any way. Alhacen conceded that the GON does not have the means to study radiological pollution, but questioned why such capacity had not been developed in a country like Niger. Going beyond the study results, Alhacen cited three key types of contamination in Arlit: air, water, and materials. ¶15. (U) Air pollution: Alhacen alleged that SOMAIR's open-pit mines had left about forty-five million tons of radioactive dirt piled up around town. When uranium is removed from the soil, about eighty percent of the natural radioactivity remains in the waste dirt. When piled up loosely, and hit by the wind, this turns into a rather dangerous cloud that blows through Arlit or descends on occasion as acid rain. Alhacen argued that Areva should do a better job of burying this extra dirt, perhaps using some of it to fill in old mine shafts or holes and then capping them with concrete. ¶16. (U) Water pollution: Alhacen alleged that Arlit's water table, which lies at about 300 meters, was also susceptible to chemical runoff from the mines. Apparently, when mining uranium, companies inject a chemical into the soil to separate uranium from the other matter surrounding it. These chemicals, over-time, continue to descend until they reach the water table. Alhacen argued that Areva should supply Arlit with water from another, more distant site that doesn't risk this contamination. ¶17. (SBU) Materials pollution: Alhacen argued that Areva had not always done a good job of controlling materials used in the mines. When old metal, machines, etc. wore out, the companies would allow workers to salvage the stuff for scrap--meeting popular demand for free junk. Alhacen claimed that some employees' families had even made cooking pots from old radioactive aluminum. He further noted that the Societe Nationale de Transport Nigerien (SNTN) truck drivers who move the uranium ore south commonly allowed hitchhikers to ride on top of the loose ore-often for hundreds of miles. Such egregious examples--as much an outgrowth of local cultural practices as bad corporate oversight--seem to have been brought under control. ¶18. (U) Responding to Agrin'Man's complaints, Areva now forbids employees to take old materials from the mining sites, and is stricter about disposing of such things. It now containerizes the ore before trucking it, and forbids SNTN drivers to take hitch-hikers. Nevertheless, Alhacen noted that some pilferage of dangerous items continues, and he showed Poloff recent pictures of hitch-hikers riding in the bins of SNTN tractor-trailers next to the containers of ore. ¶19. (SBU) COMMENT: As the foregoing anecdotes indicate, Agrin'Man is not only up against easily documented and corrected slips in corporate practice, it is up against ingrained cultural practices that derive from poverty. Fostering concern about the environment is not an easy task when the dominant issue is economic survival. Alhacen seemed to concede as much when he admitted that most of the five to ten-thousand people who came out for Agrin'Man organized protests over environmental issues in May and November 2006 were actually mobilized by the concomitant themes: poverty and the cost of living. Alhacen admitted that pollution, sanitation, and the environment are not effective mobilizers. In order to get people out on those two occasions, he needed to alter the issue dimension to stress economic concerns. ¶20. (SBU) It is hard to know how seriously to take Almoustapha Alhacen. A one-issue fanatic and a bit of a demagogue, he is, at the same time, quite obviously right on some instances of poor corporate practice. Areva, to its credit, continues to employ him. No one, he claims, has ever tried to interfere with his or his organization's freedom of speech. Partly because of his efforts a moderate consensus view seems to have taken root among intelligent observers in Arlit--that a comprehensive, independent, epidemiological, environmental, and sanitary study should be undertaken in order to finally sift fact from fiction in the Arlit mines. END COMMENT ALLEN