In the 90's I worked for a mining group as an Environmenta Manager.  I guess my rationale is that if you really want to make a difference to the environment (and the environment includes the community) you need to be in the thick of it where your decision can make a difference.

The environment is always a politically sensitive area.

To take a not so hypothetical example to illustrate this, let's imagine that you work for a mining group somewhere in Europe.  There are two main factors in risk. They are community perception-based  and physical risk.  So at this hypothetical mine in Europe, for whatever reasons, you're stuck with a situation where a tailings dam has lost some containment and some of the solution has flowed into a tributary of the Danube.

The best that you can do is advise which actions to take to mitigate the risks.  In this example, the tailing dam contains dilute levels of cyanide, complexed with iron, so that its inherent toxicity is relatively low. The plume of liquid may cause some minor fish kills in the upper reaches of the tributary, but nothing major. So having addressed the question of containment and "stopped the leak" we then move on to mitigation. A well known neutralising agent for cyanide is sodium hypochlorite, and under controlled conditions (elevated pH) it is very effective. However, and here's the big problem - chlorine, despite its great public image for the treatment of water supplies, happens to be a major environmental pollutant with about the same toxicity as cyanide itself, and in this case, "the barn doors are open and the horse has bolted"

Apart from that, chlrine and cyanide forms a fairly stable intermediate at the typical pH of river water, called cyanogen chloride, and that's 40 times more toxic than cyanide itself.

So one one hand, we have the site management confidently telling the local community that they have neutralising agent in stock should anything go wrong, and on the other side, we have technical people telling them that maybe the "do nothing" option would have the lowest consequences in this case.

News footage of mine workers adding neutralising agent must have been quite inspiring. They were seen to be doing "something". Management could not contemplate the option of doing nothing. After all, the Environmental Protection regulators had all kinds of penalties lined up for those companies which "did nothing".

Meanwhile the blissfully unaware fish in the Tisza and the Danube  were hit with two plumes. The cyanide itself probably would not have done so much damage, but the  combination with the second plume of chlorine probably did. 

It's strange how the actual detailed circumstances of this tragedy never saw the light of day. It's also interesting how technical advice (if taken) could have reduced the severity of this incident.  I should add that I wasn't involved in that incident personally, but I have colleagues who were.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Baia_Mare_cyanide_spill

In this case, attempting to minimise the consequences came first. Apart from loss of profit, a bad corporate reputation is the worst thing that can happen.

The point is that from the point of view of mine management, it was a catch 22 situation. They were damned if they did and damned if they didn't.

To suggest that they don't give a damn about the environment is erroneous. They care about the environment because their  corporate reputation depends on it.

When this happened to Esmeralda Exploration, they never recovered. They were placed in the hands of an administrator in 2000.

Yes, what Shell has done in the Nigerian delta is absymal. Of course a lot of people in positions of authority get major handouts.

Talking about third world countries (in terms of safety and environmental standards), what BP did in the Gulf of Mexico amounted to disgustingly poor governance and dereliction of corporate responsibility. That's a growing trend in the US because of the continuing economic crisis. People, including managers are scared to flag major defects because they're worried about their job security.  I anticipate an increase in industrial incidents in that part of the world.

In the case of the Gold Mine in Indonesia (Minahasa Raya) where the Mine Manager was imprisoned, that should have never happened. The pollution was a result of prospectors who used mercury to extract the gold. The company didn't want them there, and complained about their activities (which was not on their lease) , but the Indonesian government turned a blind eye. I had some involvement at that mine, and they did all the right things. There are always two sides to every story.

We need mining and industry to support our lifestyle and technology. Generally in Australia, these companies do the right thing - and that's not entirely because they are regulated.