The Konawaruk River is a river in
Potaro-Siparuni
Potaro-Siparuni (Region 8) is a region of Guyana. Venezuela claims the majority of the Region located west of the Essequibo River as part of Guayana Esequiba.
It borders the region of Cuyuni-Mazaruni to the north, the regions of Upper Demerara- ...
,
Guyana. About 60 miles long,
it is a tributary of the
Essequibo River
The Essequibo River ( Spanish: ''Río Esequibo'' originally called by Alonso de Ojeda ''Río Dulce'') is the largest river in Guyana, and the largest river between the Orinoco and Amazon. Rising in the Acarai Mountains near the Brazil–Guyana b ...
, joining it just south of the
Potaro River
The Potaro River is a river in Guyana that runs from Mount Ayanganna area of the Pakaraima Mountains for approximately before flowing into the Essequibo River, Guyana's largest river. The renowned Kaieteur Falls is on the Potaro.
Features
Nin ...
mouth at .
About two miles from the juncture at the Essequibo, is Temple Bar falls.
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...
, especially for
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
, was the primary industry along the river as early as 1900, and being mined by British Guiana Consolidated Enterprise Limited in the 1950s. In 2003, an assessment by United Development International "verified reserves of over 400,000 ounces of gold" in the claim encompassing the Konawaruk.
Pollution from extraction processes, including the use of
missile dredges, has had a severe effect on the ecology of the river and environmentalists have considered it "dead" for its inability to support wildlife.
Illegal dredging operations are a constant threat.
References
Rivers of Guyana
{{Guyana-river-stub