Never repeat such destruction

 ENVIRONMENT and Conservation Minister John Pundari’s comments earlier this week that Papua New Guinea’s longest river, the Fly, in Western, is so badly polluted that it is ‘gone’ is, although an apt description, not a startling revelation. 

It is common knowledge that the activities of one of the country’s largest mines, Ok Tedi, in the province’s North Fly district, are solely responsible for the state of the Fly.  

Pundari condemned the damage done to the river system over the three decades that the mine had been in existence. 

The Ok Tedi Mine is an open-pit copper and gold mine located near the headwaters of the Ok Tedi River, in the Star Mountains Rural LLG of North Fly. The Ok Tedi River is a tributary of the Fly.

Discharges from the mine have caused widespread and diverse harm, environmentally and socially, to the estimated 50,000 people who live in the 120 villages downstream of the mine. 

The mine is operated by Ok Tedi Mining Limited (OTML), which is majority owned by the PNG Sustainable Development Program Limited (PNGSDPL). 

Before 2002, it was majority owned by BHP Billiton – the largest mining company in the world since a merger in 2001. Ok Tedi came into full operations in 1984 after cooper and gold deposits were first sampled in the 1970s.

Located in a remote area of PNG, above 2000-metres on Mount Fubilan, in a region of high rainfall and frequent earthquakes, mine development posed serious challenges. The town of Tabubil was built to serve the mining operation.

In 1999, BHP reported that the project was the cause of “major environmental damage”. The mine operators discharge 80 million tons of contaminated tailings, overburden and mine-induced erosion into the river system each year. 

Chemicals from the tailings killed or contaminated fish, which subsequently caused harm to all animal species that live in the area as well as the indigenous people. 

Some scientists have described parts of the river as a dead zone where plant and animal life has been affected to the extent that the population numbers of aquatic life and the diversity of flora will not be seen again in pre-mining time. 

The dumping of tailings changed the riverbed, causing a relatively deep and slow river to become shallower and develop rapids thereby disrupting indigenous transportation routes. 

Flooding caused by the raised riverbed left a thick layer of contaminated mud on the flood plain where the plantations of taro, bananas and sago palm that are the staples of the local diet grow.

About 1300 square kilometres were damaged in this way. Although the concentration of copper in the water is about 30 times above the standard level, it is still below the World Health Organisation (WHO) standards.

Pundari told Parliament on Wednesday that the situation was a lost cause and a plan to build a tailings dam was pointless because the damage to the river could not be undone.

The problem with Pundari’s remarks is that everyone is already aware of the seemingly irreparable damage wrought on the environment of Western by this miner. 

What the people deserve to know is what is being done to assist the people of Western move on from this man-made disaster?

If the Government, through the minister responsible, has already given up on finding a solution to the problem, then what hope do the people of Western have?

Pundari should be looking at ensuring that what happened in Western does not occur in other parts of the country. 

One should remember that there are several mines in operation in the country and more planned in the short and medium term, so the State, at the very least, should be wary of the risks that are posed on the environment. 

The rhetoric does not put one at ease though. “What difference will it make when we have damage already? The livelihood of our people, if any, is gone,” Pundari said.

Instead of lamenting the destruction of the Fly, Pundari should be coming up with alternatives to rehabilitate the Fly and limit further damage. 

Of course, the irony is that the state has majority ownership of this mine through the PNGSDP and nothing has been said about closing the operations to protect the people and environment.