Freeport must remove waste from Wanagon Lake: Minister
Wednesday, May 24 2000 - 04:00 AM WIB
Environment Minister Sonny Keraf said on Tuesday that giant gold and copper mining firm PT Freeport Indonesia must immediately remove its overburden waste material from the Wanagon Lake.
Sonny said that the toxic overburden material could pollute the river vital to the local people.
He was quoted by the Bisnis Indonesia daily as saying that the overburden must not be removed into the Carstenz valley.
Sonny said that his office would meet with Freeport and the Ministry of Mines and Energy to decide when Freeport should remove the overburden.
He also said that the meeting would also decide on the size of output reduction Freeport should make.
Sonny said that Freeport had generally agreed to reduce its gold output following the landslide incident at the Wanagon Lake waste dumping facility.
He said that the size of the reduction had yet to be decided, but he expected Freeport to reduce the output to the 16,000 tons of ore per day as stipulated in its first mining contract of work.
Freeport currently operates at 230,000 tons of ore per day.
Minister of Mines and Energy Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had said earlier that Freeport must lower its production because the company could no longer dump its waste materials into the Wanagon Lake.
The company has located a new dumping site at Carstenz, but the capacity was not as large as the one at Wanagon.
Meanwhile, a group of students called Lukka staged a demonstration at the Ministry of Mines and Energy on Tuesday, demanding the government to shut down the operation of Freeport because the company had destroyed local environment and violated human rights. (*)