Bapedal rejects Newmont's ecological risk assessment

State Minister for Environmental Affairs and Chairman of the Environmental Impact Management Agency, Sonny Keraf, has rejected the ecological risk assessment (ERA) on PT Nemont Minahasa Raya's submarine tailings ground.

The minister said in Jakarta on Tuesday that the ERA studies were rejected because Newmont Minahasa, which dumps its mineral waste in the Buyat bay, did not use the assessment procedures as agreed with the government.

"We have received the ERA studies from Newmont Minahasa but they were turned down due to procedural mistakes," he said in a hearing with the Commission VIII of the House of Representatives.

He said that Newmont Minahasa, one of two Indonesian subsidiaries of the United States-based Newmont Corporation, was required to carry out the ERA studies to allow the company to get a permit for its submarine tailings ground in the Buya bay near its gold mines in Minahasa, North Sulawesi.

The minister said that Newmont Minahasa should repeat its ERA studies if the company still needed a permit to operate its submarine dumping ground.

Newmont Minahasa and its sister company Newmont Nusa Tenggara have all adopted submarine technology to dump their tailings or mineral waste but the use of the technology has sparked criticism from environmental activists and the local residents due to their negative impact on the environment.

Both companies have only secured provisional permits from the government for the operation of their submarine tailings grounds.(*)