Govt slammed for not halting MSM mining operation

Govt slammed for not halting MSM mining operation

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Environmental activists have lambasted the government for its
lack of commitment in protecting the environment as it did not
immediately halt the operation of mining firm PT Meares Soputan
Mining (MSM), which plans to dump its tailings in the sea off
North Sulawesi.

Executive director of Mining Advocacy Network (JATAM) Siti
Maimunah said the operation of MSM should be halted as the Office
of the State Minister of the Environment had stated that the
necessary environmental impact assessment (AMDAL) approval had
already expired.

"Without the AMDAL, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral
Resources should stop their operations," she said at her office
on Friday.

MSM, which plans to extract gold at a 741,000-hectare mining
site in North Minahasa and Bitung municipalities starting next
year, faces complaints from environmental groups and North
Sulawesi residents over its plan to dispose of its tailings in
the sea via a mechanism called submarine tailings disposal (STD).

NGO activists and residents say toxic wastes from the firm's
tailings may pollute the waters of Lembeh Strait, thereby
endangering people's livelihood there.

The company responded earlier by saying that STD was the best
mechanism to dispose of tailings, guaranteeing that it would not
harm the biodiversity of the strait as the tailings would be
deposited on the ocean bed 800 meters to 1,200 meters below the
surface of the ocean and would be similar in character to the
sediments on the ocean floor.

Maimunah regretted that no measures had been taken by the
government to make sure that MSM would not carry out any work
before it was granted a new AMDAL.

"The fact that the company's operation is not being halted,
shows that government institutions don't speak the same
language," she said.

Director General of Geology and Mineral Resources Simon
Sembiring, whose office is in charge of monitoring mining
operations across the archipelago, refused to comment further,
saying that he had not received any letter from the Office of the
State Minister of the Environment regarding the MSM case.

He said his office would comply with any regulation issued by
the ministry in protecting the country's natural resources, but
would not halt the company's work in constructing the sites
because it did not mean that MSM would start dumping its
tailings.

Executive director of the Indonesian Center for Environmental
Law (ICEL) suggested that the general public and NGOs push the
government to suspend MSM's operations by invoking Environmental
Law No. 23/1997.

"There are articles in the law that allow a third party, the
citizens, to demand that the government halt the operation of
companies that will and are damaging the environment," he said.

He added that people should also urge the government to issue
a permanent ban on the disposal of toxic waste into the sea, such
as STD.

"After what happened in Buyat, there should be no more STD in
the country. The government should declare that tailings cannot
be disposed of in that way here," he said.

JATAM data shows that currently, only PT MSM, PT Newmont Nusa
Tenggara and PT Newmont Minahasa Raya have obtained licenses to
carry out STD. The latter is facing a criminal lawsuit at a North
Sulawesi court for polluting Buyat Bay.