Authority prioritises river issues

By PETER ESILA
THE Conservation and Environment Protection Authority (Cepa) has concluded all activities in the environment impact statement (EIS) of the Frieda River project, says acting managing director Jude Tukuliya.
“Cepa must ensure that all the issues in relation to the Sepik River, the integrity of the integrated storage facility and of course all the unknowns identified during the review processes are assessed and screened properly before the environment council meets for the permitting process,” he said.
The Frieda River copper-gold project consists of infrastructure projects, the mine itself, power grid and integrated storage facility.
“Cepa has generally completed all the road shows and public consultations in the two project provinces (Sandaun and East Sepik),” he said.
“Consultations with the provincial governments have all been completed and we also have received comments and feedbacks from other interested individuals and groups as well.
“The last infrastructure consultations were conducted in July.
“The independent peer review teams have in their reports, identified a number of important issues, particularly in terms of the dam’s integrity and the stability. They have requested project proponent PanAust to test the core samples again in a different testing laboratory in Melbourne and that is still outstanding.
“In general, both the East Sepik and Sandaun governments want the Frieda project to go ahead. Even the project’s footprint communities that were consulted do want the projects to progress sooner rather than later.
“However, their main concern is in relation to the safety of the Sepik River and the possible collapse of the integrated storage facility.
“They recommended that the tailings be transported in in a pipeline to Sandaun to an identified bay and allow for DSTP (deep sea tailings placement). The current mine plan is not quite accepted.”
Tukuliya said Cepa now needed to collate the reviews comments from the IPR teams and the feedbacks and reports received during the consultation process before presentation to the environment council for the minister’s approval.