A fifth option for Ok Tedi disaster

AFTER reviewing the Ok Tedi mine’s draft future options report, WWF has called for an approach that mine operators BHP OTML have not dared to suggest.

This option would see an immediate end to the discharge of waste from the mine, the continued involvement of the company in rehabilitation of the river system after the mine is closed and a clear program of tran sition to a sustainable livelihood for the local people. Peter Hunnam, head of World Wide Fund for Nature’s program in Papua New Guinea, said BHP-OTML was asking the PNG Government to make decisions on the future of the environmentally disastrous mine with incomplete assessments and insufficient scientific information.

He said the company’s draft risk assess ment was glaringly short of detail in a num ber ftf the mine’s and long-term livelihoods and the potentially catastrophic effect^ofj the mine’s massive amounts of overburden. “It is deplorable that this company, which has

exploited the Fly and its people for 15 years by dumping 700 million tonnes of tailings and waste rock into the environment, has produced a report that is so startlingly short on fundamental detail,” Peter Hunnam said.

“At the very least, the PNG Government and the local people deserve a report that is complete and takes into consideration the fact that thousands of people will continue to live with this mineis toxic legacy for the next several generations.”

The company presented just four alter natives for the mine’s future - to close the mine and walk away; to continue pouring mine waste into the Ok Tedi and Fly Rivers and dredge until 2010; to pipe the tailings from the mine and store them on land; or to stop dredging at the end of 1999 and oper ate the mine for the next 10 years in the same manner. WWF wants to see a fifth option activated: an immediate end to dumping of waste into the river system; the company rehabilitates the river system; and supporting a comprehensive transition pro gram for local people. ■