Govt lacks facilities to settle mining disputes

JAKARTA (JP): The government is often unable to settle pollution disputes between mining companies and local communities and administrations due to a lack of laboratory facilities, a senior official said.

A staff expert for environmental affairs at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Surna Tjahja Djajadiningrat, said on Monday the Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal) at the Ministry of Environment had a laboratory in Serpong, West Java, to examine industrial waste, including the tailings from mining companies, but the laboratory's test results were unreliable.

"The laboratory has yet to be nationally and internationally accredited," Djajadiningrat, a former top official at the Ministry of Environment, said.

He said the Serpong laboratory was built "many years ago" with funds provided by the Japanese government but Bapedal did not seem committed to gaining national and international accreditation.

Djajadiningrat said the Ministry of Mines and Energy would hire internationally accredited laboratories to settle disputes over pollution in the mining sector, including a current dispute between gold mining company PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, a subsidiary of American gold mining company Newmont, which operates a gold mine in Ratatotok, North Sulawesi, and the local community.

Local villagers, who mainly earn their living by fishing, have accused Newmont of killing the fish in the nearby sea with its tailings.

Minister of Mines and Energy Kuntoro Mangakusubroto said on Friday he had formed a team, including the ministry's top officials and officials from the Indonesian Forum for Environment, to investigate the case.

Another Newmont subsidiary, PT Newmont Nusatenggara, which is developing a large gold mine in Batuhijau on the island of Lombok, West Nusatenggara, also has been accused of pollution by locals.

Gold mining company PT Kelian Equatorial Mining, a subsidiary of British-Australian mining company Rio Tinto, which operates a gold mine in the Kutai district of East Kalimantan, also has faced accusations of pollution.

The province's environmental office accused the company of polluting the Kelian River with tailings containing mercury and cyanide above the minimum level set by the government.

The company has put the lives of hundreds of families living along the river in danger, the office said.

The province's environmental office referred to a test result from Serpong laboratory in making its accusations.

Kelian, however, rejects Serpong laboratory's test results, saying that tests performed by its own laboratory and two independent laboratories prove the company has not polluted the river.

Djajadiningrat said he would visit East Kalimantan to settle the dispute between Kelian and the local administration. (jsk)