Pacific Rim Mining Corporation
Encyclopedia
The Pacific Rim Mining Corporation is a Vancouver, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

-based multinational
Multinational corporation
A multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...

 mining company that works throughout the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

. It merged with Dayton Mining Corporation in 2002.

As the company's projects are still in development, it had no income in 2009. At the end of 2009 Pacific Rim's total assets were valued at $8.2 million.

Its largest project is the El Dorado project in El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...

. Environmentalist
Environmentalist
An environmentalist broadly supports the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities"...

s, expatriate El Salvadorans, and local people have campaigned for the project to be discontinued over concerns of pollution arising from the extraction of gold and silver. However, the company states that the mine would be an environmentally responsible operation that would provide hundreds of jobs and economic development to one of the poorest regions of the country. The company notes that dewatering activities in the mine would produce substantial amounts of water, which would be treated to meet international guidelines before being discharged to the Rio San Francisco. The mine was also planned to use runoff water collected on site during the rainy season for use in the mining operation. This water would otherwise have flowed into the Pacific Ocean. The water would be treated after use and the clean water discharged year round. This would actually increase local water supply in the dry season.

In June 2009 environmental campaigner Marcelo Rivera Moreno was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in Cabañas. In December 2009 two more activists (Ramiro Rivera Gomez on December 20 and Dora Alicia Recinos Sorto on December 26) that oppose Pacific Rim's activities in their home region were killed. Dora Sorto was eight months pregnant when she was shot dead, and her two year old son was also wounded in the attack.. While some anti-mining activists have suggested these murders are connected to the mining company, the local police believe that they are connected to a series of murders (six in total) between two neighbourhood groups - with the first murder victim being Horacio Sanchez Menjivar, who did not oppose the mine. It is Horacio Sanchez Menjivar's son who is accused of killing Ramiro Rivera Gomez.

In testimony in June 2010 to the Canadian government Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development
Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development
The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development is a committee in the Canadian House of Commons. It focuses on foreign affairs and international development...

, Mr. Thomas Shrake (Chief Executive Officer and President, Pacific Rim Mining Corp.) stated that the suggestions that the company has been involved in the murder of anti-mining activists to be "simply outrageous" and that this would be "contrary to everything we believe and practise". He noted that there are suspects in jail awaiting trial for the murders, and that there are no known connections between the accused and Pacific Rim, and that "A three-page investigative piece in the local paper concluded that there was no connection".

He also noted that the mine operation and employees have been the victims of attacks, such as a mob organized by an NGO that damaged their property and hacked down trees planted as part of the company's reforestation program. He also noted that the violence (at least some of which is perpetrated by people from outside the region) and failure of the government to issue permits for which they qualify under El Salvadoran law has led to job losses in Cabañas
Cabañas Department
Cabañas is a department of El Salvador in the north central part of the country. The capital is Sensuntepeque. Sensuntepeque means 400 hills because around the department there are small hills.One of the coldest regions in El Salvador and Certified place of Tourism , strongly recommended. Cabañas...

, which is the poorest department in El Salvador.
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