The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has justified the decision not to renew environmental permits for mining firm, Volta Resources Incorporated. It says it withdrew the license because the company’s prospecting sites were too close to the Bui Hydro-electric Dam currently under construction. Volta Resources recently issued a statement indicating the refusal by the EPA to renew the permits without justification when it had met all the requirements. According to the company, the withdrawal of the permits comes after it had spent some GH¢15.2 million on prospecting. Deputy Director and Head of Mining at the EPA Ransford Sakyi tells Joy Business the mining operations would be dangerous for the dam. According to him, Volta Resources was engaged a UK firm to make an environmental assessment of the site but the report on the study turned out to be contradictory. “In one sense the report was saying that not enough investigation has been done; at a different breadth the report also indicates that mining can go on. If a detailed investigation has not be conducted, then how come the report can conclude otherwise,” he said. The prospecting areas affected by the suspension of the licenses include Akrobi Akum, Brohani, Cluster and Kuri. The dam The Bui Dam is a 400-megawatt hydro-electric project currently being built at the Bui Gorge at the southern end of Bui National Park in Ghana. The project is a collaboration between the government of Ghana and Sino Hydro, a Chinese construction company. It will be the third major dam in the area. It would flood nearly a quarter of the Bui National Park. It would also completely destroy habitats for the rare Black Hippopotamus. The dam would affect a large number of the native wildlife species, forcibly resettle about 2,600 people and affect thousands more. The mining activities of Volta Resources would have posed a major threat to the dam but questions still abound why the EPA granted the company to explore in the first place. Source: Joy Business/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana