Newmont not serious enough in handling tailings: Walhi

PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara's (NNT) tailings pipeline leak has indicted that the company, which operates gold and copper mine in Sumbawa, West Nusatenggara province, lacked seriousness in handling its mining waste, the Indonesian environmental group Walhi said.

In a press conference in the provincial capital of Mataram on Friday, the outspoken environmental organization said the leak, which was found on Jan 22, was the fourth occurred in the copper and gold mine operator's tailing pipeline.

"The frequency of the leak indicates that the company lacked seriousness in handling its tailings," Bambang Mei Finarwanto, the organization's senior executive, was quoted by Tempo Interaktif as saying in the press conference.

Walhi said that the leak also indicated that there must be something wrong in the construction of the tailings pipeline, which could in the future pose a serious problem to the environment. In order to prevent such unexpected consequence, Walhi urged the company to reduce the volume of the tailings transmitted through the pipeline to its undersea dumping site from about 120,000 metric tons per day at present to 10,000 tons.

Bambang said that NNT should not repeat the mistake made by its subsidiary Newmont Minahasa Raya, which operated a gold mine in Minahasa, North Sulawesi.

According to him, Newmont Minahasa's tailings had polluted the seawater, with mercury level of between 0.02 and 2.04 ppm, far higher than the ideal level of 0.01 ppm. He said that the tailings dumped by the company in the sea contained heavy minerals such arsenic (As), Barium (Ba), Cadmium (Cd), Copper (Cn), lead (Pb), Selenium (Se) and Silver (Ag),

Walhi also charged NNT's executives of misleading the public when they told the local people that the tailings coming from the leaked pipeline were not poisonous.

Separately, NNT said in a statement published by The Jakarta Post on Saturday that since conducting line tests after a similar leak in early November, the company has known that several lengths of pipe had a defective rubber lining allowing the seawater inside the pipe to corrode the steel pipes' outer shell and produce small leaks.

NNT has ordered replacements and has been waiting for the manufacturer to ship replacements for those sections where problems have been identified.

All of the defective sections are in the onshore section of the tailings pipeline and will be replaced by March, when the new pipe sections will be delivered by the manufacturer. Until then, the company will maintain its constant monitoring of the pipeline to minimize any possible impact of such leaks, the company said. (*)