Oil, gas firms not processing wastes could be shut down

The Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal) has required all oil and gas companies operating in Indonesia to submit report on their waste and waste management system.

If they ignore it, the agency would take legal actions against them, with the heaviest penalties of sealing off their waste disposal sites, according to Bapedal's deputy chairman IV for legal and environmental management, Masnellyarti "Nelly" Hilman.

In addition, Nelly said, according to Environmental Law, regent or district heads or governors could stop the operation of a company in their areas which violated the law.

Nelly made the statement to comment on a report about environmental pollution caused by toxic materials (B3) or sludge resulted from oil mining activities in Tarakan, East Kalimantan, filed to State Minister of Environment/Bappedal Chairman Sonny Keraf last week.

So far, Nelly said, there are two other sludge cases reported in Indonesia, one in Riau by Caltex Pacific Indonesia and the other one in Irian Jaya.

If such environmental pollution caused by sludge has reached an alarming level, Nelly said, a regent or district head has the authority under Article 25 of the Environmental Law to close down the company that produces sludge.

In Addition, Nelly said, Bapedal could also issue warning letters to the guilty company. If the company does not respond properly to the warning letters, Bapedal could seal the company's waste disposal sites.

Nevertheless, Nelly said Bapedal would sent warning letters in stages because it's not easy and would take time to establish a sound sludge treatment system. It could take up to one year to build a sludge treatment system.

As for the sludge case reported in Tarakan, Nelly said, Bapedal would check the report with local administrations. After that, Bapedal would require the company accused of producing sludge to make report on its sludge treatment and demand follow up actions.

"If there is a villager's well found polluted by sludge, the company must clean up the well," Nelly said.

Nelly noted that Bapedal had actually reminded state oil and gas firm Pertamina about environmental pollution caused by sludge. And Pertamina responded that the sludge had been disposed in a special way, and therefore would not endanger the people and not cause pollution.

Nelly speculated that the Tarakan sludge case was similar with that of Caltex's sludge case in Riau. At that time, Caltex proposed to re-inject the sludge into old oil wells. But this Caltex proposal had not yet been approved because it needed research first whether injecting sludge into old wells would create pollution to people's wells or not.

Nelly said Bapedal, with approval from Pertamina and also the Directorate of Oil and Gas at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, would draft a standard operating procedure to manage sludge waste. (*)