Govt prepares four emergency plans for Lapindo mud flows

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro said late last week that the government had prepared four emergency plans to handle the massive mud flows from one of Lapindo Brantas' exploration wells in Sidoardjo, East Java.

He said that the four emergency plans would include channeling the hot mud to the Kali Porong river, or to Kali Mati or to the sea water in the Madura Strait or re-injected them into the earth.

"We will choose the one which poses less environmental risk. For this, we will have to get a permit from the state minister for environmental affairs," he was quoted as saying by Koran Tempo Monday.

Lapindo said recently that it was installing a 50-cm diameter pipes on 14-km pipeline network to dump the mud into the water sea in the Madura Strait. The mud would be first processed in the water treatment facility before being channeled through the pipe into the sea.

In order to reduce the possible pollution, state minister for environmental affairs asked for the processed channeling mud water into the sea to be located about four kilometers from the beach.

Elsewhere Trijana Kartoatmodjo, deputy chairman of oil and gas upstream regulator BP Migas denied the previous news that the mud water has channeling to the sea through Wangkal and Renokenongo rivers. (*)