Freeport and the environment
In his letter (The Jakarta Post, March 7, 2000 Not a catastrophe), Mr. Bruce E. Marsh sounds like a nice and sincere person. However, he is in the mining business, so there is one question he will not ask and that is whether the destruction of a mountain, a river system and its associated delta is worth the ore taken out of that mountain. For Mr. Marsh as a member of the mining industry, the answer has to be yes. For the rest of us, the answer is not so clear.
Mr. Marsh points out the number of experts working with Freeport. So? This is a public relations war, so each side can find experts to promote their point of view. The term "expert" sounds so neutral, so objective -- not so. There are conservative experts and liberal experts, and I am sure that Freeport uses only the experts that agree with Freeport.
Mr. Marsh talks about the community and social programs run by the mine. I have seen some of them and they have their good points, but they are peripheral. Freeport is a business and Freeport's purpose is to make money. There is nothing wrong with that, but Freeport is an industry which traditionally destroys an area to get to the ore and then walks away. This industry has been fighting environmentalists and the socially conscious forever, and like most mining companies, Freeport will only go as far as it is pushed. Being socially and environmentally responsible costs money -- environment and social programs are cost centers, not profit centers.
Then we get to the options for disposing of the tailings. I enjoyed Freeport's advertisement in the name of "Transparency". I didn't find it all that transparent given the jargon and convoluted language of the report. Here is what I got out of that report. Two alternative options, upland and lowland storage pose environmental risks and would be expensive. So, the best practice is to damp the tailings into a river, turning it gray from top to bottom and destroying the ability of the rivers delta area to maintain its original vegetation.
The "best practices" designation for dumping the tailings in the river was decided because all three are environmentally bad, but dumping in the river is free to Freeport. Therefore, there is no "best practice". It is not clear if the actual environmental impact of using the river is worse or less worse than the potential environmental impact of the other methods, but the use of the river is cheaper for Freeport than the alternatives.
That begs the real question. Is the current method good enough. It may be "best practice", but it is still bad. Freeport claims this is international standard. Well it appears that "International Standard" isn't very high. If they were serious about being environmentally responsible, I would think they would choose U.S. or European standards to shoot for. Of course, that would be expensive. I am pretty sure, that if that mine was located in the U.S. or Europe, freeport would not be dumping those tailings in the river. But since the mine is out in the wilds of Irian Jaya and the New Order government was much more interested in cash than the environment, they dump away.
The bottom line here is what are the actual costs (financial, environmental and social) of getting the copper and gold out of that mountain in Irian Jaya and who bears those costs. Destruction and degradation of the environment is a major component of those costs, and one that is getting higher as the world continues to rapidly loose its forests and biological resources. Freeport clearly doesn't want to pay the cost -- so Irian Jaya, Indonesia, and "the environment" are paying.
This represents quite a large subsidy to Freeport, its shareholders, and consumers of copper. The only real, long term, sustainable solution to this problem is for Freeport to internalize all the costs of production, including protecting the environment, and pass that cost on to its customers. If we, since we all use copper, refuse to pay that cost, then the mine in Irian Jaya is not viable and should be closed down. If we all agree to pay the full cost, including protecting the environment, then no problem. In either case, we all win.
FRANK PAGE
Jakarta