PART THREE: Conclusions

STD must be seen primarily in a political and human rights context. Its adaptation from the north (where its most passionate advocates fraudulently claim it has been given a clean book), primarily to the tropical waters of the Pacific, is a direct result of economic and policy decisions. These have been determined or dictated by leading mining companies, in order to move away from more costly or politically problematic mining in certain areas, and to exploit metallic deposits in areas of plate tectonic activity (islands and archipelagos). Here the potential for on-land catastrophic disaster is much greater than elsewhere. It is therefore argued that the "technology" of STD is cheaper than land-based methods and that it disposes of huge amounts of potentially toxic, acidic, heavy-metal laden, aesthetically ugly, and ecologically burdensome slurries of chemicals, particulates, polluted waters, soils, rock, and ores, which have no honourable place on land. Some of these justifications are made ex post facto: they are reactions to the mounting concern and - in some cases (like Bougainville) - outright rejection by land-based communities of conventional tailings disposal. Insofar as engineered STD has "another history" it derives largely from north America and to a lesser extent northern Europe. But, as we have seen, this is a distinctly tainted history. Although it is inaccurate to assert that regulatory authorities in these regions automatically reject marine dumping of tailings and minewastes, any near-future use of it would meet considerable public and political resistance. In short STD is neither a tried, nor recognised, technique for ridding the mining industry of its worst nightmares.

Its pretended economic worth is also highly speculative. It rests on the virtually impossible task of comparing the degradation of offshore waters and deep sea fishing resources, with the sustainable use value of land and waters where tailings are currently deposited, and which they will continue to adversely affect. Since STD has only recently been employed in tropical waters (effectively since Misima in 1989, if we discount "rogue" examples such as Atlas and Marcopper in the Philippines or tin dredging off the coasts of southeast Asia), such a comparison would have to wait many years for validation. There is an argument that sudden failure of a land-based tailings containment has proved to be the very worst case scenario [see Richard T Jackson op. cit.]. Therefore anything else is bound to be less costly and more desirable. This argument was made by BHP in its defence for not continuing with dam construction at its Ok Tedi mine (see above), after three successive collapses in the 1980's. However, the justification was undermined - and by the company itself - in 1999.

Then it was forced to acknowledge that riverine disposal - the alternative employed - has created unacceptable levels of siltation and contamination, and vegetation "die back" in a vast expanse of territory downstream. Is it fanciful to suggest that, after fifteen years operation of the Minahasa mine in North Sulawesi, or the Lihir mine in Papua New Guinea, the consequent smothering of benthic fauna and depletion of vital fish stocks might provoke an equally damning conclusion by independent analysts?

These arguments, though strong, nonetheless force us to look through the wrong end of the telescope. Surely the key question is whether both a community's social "fabric" and its biosphere can sustain a mining operation in the first place? To help answer this question, there must be, not only full life cycle assessment of all possible methods of tailings disposal, but also regional multi-disciplinary studies of the cumulative impacts of having several STD operations within a given sea, supported by comprehensive regional baseline studies for all social and biological parameters.

As Golder Associates concluded from their assessment of the impacts of the Island Copper Mine, the massive accumulation of tailings on the seafloor of Rupert Inlet may "alter the nature of the exchange processes through Quasino Narrows. The considerable accumulation of tailings on the seafloor of Rupert Inlet have changed the bathymetry of the inlet and this in turn may alter the circulation patterns and the nature of the ocean currents" [Golder Associates op. cit.]. It is striking that, despite Island Copper having utilised STD for 24 years and now closed for an additional five years (and though it is the most studied of all long term STD operations anywhere) Golder could only speculate about the long term impacts. Nonetheless it clearly feared the worst. Even if accurate assessments of such vast oceanic impacts were possible, two major political questions must be addressed.

Asserting and Exercising "rights"

First, what legislation should exist which would guarantee the quality of marine life, and grant community title to the coastal shelf and submarine resources? Who has the rights, to both the tailings and "waste" rock "disposed" of during mining, and therefore the right to decide how it is disposed of and (if feasible) re-used? This is not an academic question. Important mineral "values" may be left in tailings which could be recovered at a later stage (a point acknowledged by Dames & Moore in their 1991 study - q.v.). Indeed tailings "treatment" or "recovery" is now an acknowledged economic activity which (it is alleged) can also contribute materially to the detoxification of these dumps. (See above for further discussion of this point). Clearly, thrusting mineral-containing tailings onto the seabed renders them much more inaccessible than if they were retained in some form of land-based facility.

But there is an even more vital "right" which is denied by STD: that of locally-affected people to observe, monitor (or have monitored) the behaviour of tailings, and to use the evidence to secure remediatory action, or compensation. The 1996 settlement between Ok Tedi landowners and BHP would have been much less likely - if not inconceivable - had BHP, instead of piping its tailings into a relatively pristine overground river, cast them directly onto the bottom of the Torres Straits. This would have created huge difficulties in proving cause and attributing responsibility. The Independent Benefits Package, held up by Lihir Management Company as a ground-breaking best case example, does not include compensation for either the temporary or permanent loss of fish and benthic resources [Ron Brew, "The Lihir Experience - Project Development Issues in Papua New Guinea", presentation to the Madang conference on Monitoring Mine Operations and Environmental Performance, Papua New Guinea July 1998].

Finally,- whatever the consequences of land-based minewaste disposal (which this paper in no way endorses), STD constitutes a unique assault on the marine environment and its dependent life forms, and is the antithesis of any accepted definition of "sustainable development". If conventional tailings treatment for a specific project is reckoned to be prohibitively expensive, too risky, or proves unacceptable to local people, the viable alternative is not to dump them at sea. Quite simply, the mine itself must not be allowed to proceed.

Mines that currently use - or have recently used - STD

Listed here are "intentional" or "engineered" STD operations. Fuller descriptions are given of those which have not received much critical attention elsewhere. Not included are mines which dump wastes into rivers or estuaries or along shorelines, even if they may destroy part of the marine environment. (For a representative list of these see D V Ellis "Case Histories of Coastal and Marine Mines", in W Salomons, U Forster (eds) "Chemistry and Biology of Solid Wastes. Dredged Material and Mine tailings" [Springer-Verlag Germany 1986]).

Britain

Cleveland Potash at Boulby [see C G Down and A J B Mill "Marine disposal of Mine tailings" in MJ Jones (ed.) "Proceedings of 11th Commonwealth Mining and Metallurgical Congress", 1978].

Canada

Island Copper on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, which closed in 1995 after 24 years (for further discussion see text above).

Jordan River copper mine, operated from 1962-1974.

Kitsault molybdenum mine, British Columbia, which from 1967 to 1972 discharged tailings uncontrolled into a creek [D V Ellis, in Salomon and Forster op cit] and was reopened using STD in 1981. However, it operated for only 18 months (1981 -1982) (For a further discussion see above).

Chile

Huasco Iron Pelletising plant, which has operated from 1994 [S Jones op. cit.].

Greenland

The "Angel of death"

The Black Angel lead-zinc mine was opened in 1972, before home rule was granted to the Indigenous population, and it operated until 1991 [S Jones op. cit.] off-loading tailings onto a silled basin at the entrance to a fjord. Just over ten years later metals were discovered to have leached from these wastes into other fjords, while trace quantities of lead and zinc were found in three out of four species tested, with probable bioaccumulation in other species [J S Moller Hydrodynamics of an arctic fjord", Denmark 1984 quoted in D W Ellis in (eds) Salomons and Forster, op. cit.]. Another study showed that significant amounts of oxidised lead and zinc were also soluble at ambient pH sea water, exacerbated by use of sea water in the milling process [G W Poling and D V Ellis "Importance of Geochemistry: the Black Angel lead-zinc mine Greenland" in Marine Geosciences and Geotechnology no 13, 1995].

Indonesia

Major impacts at Minahasa

The Minahasa "case" is important because this is a recent, modest-sized project, delivering only one mineral (gold) and disposing of relatively small amounts of tailings (only 3% of the volume expected from Newmont's Batu Hijau mine - q.v.) into the world's deepest and most capacious ocean. When such an operation goes badly wrong, it augurs ill for bigger mines.

Minahasa Gold mine is operated by PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, (owned by Newmont Gold of the USA), and based in north Sulawesi. It opened in March 1996 and, by 1998, had produced 8.3 tonnes of gold [Suara Pembaruan, August 2 1999].

The tailings pipeline proceeds for 8.42 kilometres from the Mesel pit then enters the sea at Ratatotok on Buyat bay, where it travels just over another kilometre before disposing of around 2000 tonnes a day at just 82 metres depth [Website information from Rescan, the construction company for the pipeline]. This is just two metres below the accepted minimum level for STD discharge and about half the depth of the actual thermocline, according to one Indonesian authority; he also states that the thermocline does not operate anywhere in Indonesian coastal waters, above a depth of between 150 and 300 metres [John L Pariwonow, Oceanography Laboratory, Bogor Agricultural University, quoted in Suara Pembaruam, August 2 1999]
The mine purportedly removes cyanide, arsenic and mercury by neutralisation, and evacuates the tailings under vacuum pressure, to minimise oxygen bubbles [Jakarta Post September 7 1999].

But local people at Buyat claim that details of the environmental impact assessment were never published for their benefit.
Within several months of opening, according to fishermen in Ratatotok, their catches had been reduced by 70%. In July 1998 around 300 local people demonstrated against Newmont, occupying the minesite for seven hours, accusing the company of imposing fines on smallscale miners and demanding that it pay taxes on material which had been removed and increase its royalties to the government (the tax issue remained a bone of contention until 2000).

In early August 1998 the tailings pipeline was discovered to have broken and be leaking: the breach might have occurred in July [Kabar, Yayasan Tanah Merdeka, Manado, Sulawesi, 15-22 September 1998]. Prompted by local people, the provincial legal aid organisation, LBH Manado, reported the incident, but the company did not halt production for several days [Down to Earth no 39, London November 1998]. Newmont's official explanation for this major failure was that excess water from a borehole entered the pipeline, causing a temporary blockage which was then "treated" with water. This in turn disabled the "choke station" near the exit point at the beach and consequent air pressure damaged the pipeline just ten metres below the surface ["Manado Post" September 12 1998].

At a seminar held in August 1999 in Manado, defenders of STD included L T Z Kakanebhum, a lecturer in Marine Biology at UNSRAT University, who claimed that reef fish had actually increased in numbers since 1998, even though he agreed bleaching had destroyed coral reefs up to ten metres depth ["Suara Pembaruan" op. cit.]. The national Indonesian Environment Forum, WALHI, stated that, between April and May 1999, nearly 50 fisherpeople were affected by various skin complaints, and had reported severe reductions in marine catches. Professor Max Rompas, Professor of Marine Biology at UNSRAT, demanded that another EIA should urgently be carried out ["Suara Pembaruan" op. cit.].

In an on-site survey at Ratatotok carried out by Minewatch Asia-Pacific and Nostromo Research, fishermen in Buyat Bay confirmed the drastic reductions of available fish catches (they claimed the absence of at least a dozen identified species since the mine came on stream). The main source of river water in the village was showing signs of unacceptably high siltation. Villagers said they had been assured by the company that marine tailings deposition would accumulate to only one metre thickness on the ocean floor, over the 12 years of the mine's operation. However they believed it had already climbed to three metres.

Using video footage shot around the breached pipe, Newmont has continued to insist that fish have been behaving "normally" and that catches have been maintained. When challenged on this by Professor Sam Ratulangi, whose own fish samples had shown dramatic pollutional impacts, the company retorted that these results were "completely different" from those of the company ["Jakarta Post" May 6 2000].

Batu Hijau

Newmont's only dedicated copper mine, this world-class (US$1.9 million) operation came on-stream in late 1999, and is planned to be producing 700,000 tonnes a year of concentrates by the close of 2000 [Mining Journal December 17 1999]. This will go to thirteen smelters in Japan, South Korea, Australia and Europe [Mining Journal ibid, and Jakarta Post September 7 1999]; the mine will also deliver half a million ounces of gold per year over the next two decades. Ownership is 45% Newmont (held through Newmont Nusa Tenggara, an 80% subsidiary of Newmont Gold), 26% Sumitomo Corp., 5% Sumitomo Metal Company (Japan), 2.5% Mitsubishi Materials Corp (Japan), 1.5% Furukawa Co Ltd (Japan), with the remaining 20% held by the Indonesian company PT Pukuafu Indah. Debt financing of a billion dollars was provided by government institutions in the US and Indonesia, and reportedly other investors from Germany [Jakarta Post September 7 2000 op. cit.].

Discontent over the manner in which Newmont appropriated land for the vast complex (mine, port, processing plant, satellite township, roads and an additionally financed tourist project) became widespread soon after acquisition commenced. Productive farmland was taken without landowner permission, or at well below prevailing commercial rates; the company was accused of paying discriminatory wages and reneging on the promised community facilities. Thirty farmers' land was acquired for the STD pipeline alone, which enters the water at the Rantung Sejorong/Tongo beach. Newmont set up a community development programme, the motives for which were exposed by the late Sander Thoenes for the Financial Times in 1999, aptly sub-headed: "A mining company has handed over responsibility for community funds without losing control over the projects". Although the rules insist on unanimous decision-making, by keeping a representative on the community board, said Thoenes, Newmont secures a "quiet veto" over anything it doesn't approve. "We try to avoid the problem of having to rush their community needs into our timetable" comments Stephen Ferer, Newmont's head of community development at Batu Hijau. [Financial Times' 'The Business", London, undated 1999]

Norway

The Ballangen mine in the north of Norway, from 1917 to 1964 under the management of Nikkel and Olivin AS, was permitted to discharge acidic tailings into a local river, then into a nearby fjord [S Jones op cit].

Papua New Guinea

The Lihir Gold mine on Lihir island has been operating since 1996, managed by Rio Tinto (though the British-Australian company is taking steps to sell its holding). The mine disposes through a marine pipeline a cocktail of tailings including sulphides, copper, cadmium, lead, and arsenic. The company has admitted that leachates will destroy 7km of coral reef ["Taking Responsibility: Metal mining, people and the environment", Milieudefensie, Amsterdam, December 1997].

In 1995 OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation), the US government political risk insurance agency, refused to insure the Lihir mine, on the grounds that its employment of STD would contravene various US domestic acts, including the Clean Water Act and Marine Protection Research and Sanctuaries Act [Goldland ibid.] as well as the London Convention on dumping at sea (see Appendix: Questions).
The following year the World Bank did grant political risk insurance via MIGA (Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency) [Peter Bosshard: "Tainted Gold from the Pacific; paper on Lihir", Berne Declaration, Zurich 1996]. But it seems to have seriously considered rejecting Rio Tinto's application beforehand [information from Peter Bosshard 1996]. WB President James Wolfensohn reportedly told a meeting of Swiss parliamentarians in May 1996, that the project would be "disastrous" ["Taking Responsibility..." op. cit.; see also Goodland op. cit.].

Since coming on-stream, conflicts among Lihirians have been prompted, among other factors, by allegedly unfair distribution of benefits, ethnic discrimination, environmental problems and social tensions deriving from precipitate industrialisation [see for example "Lihir workers call off strike" The National, Papua New Guinea, April 23 1998; "Apartheid on Lihir island" Post Courier, Port Moresby, April 27 1998; "Locals at Lihir shut mine for short time" Post Courier, July 7 1998; email statement to Partizans, London from Lihir Landowners, February 1999].

It is difficult to determine what role the massive use of STD has had in propelling such dissent. However, as early as 1997, one report commented on the "littering" of the sea near the tailings outfall of gull and albatross carcasses. And in 1999 a foreign tourist took an aerial picture of a large tailings plume emanating from and around the Lihir tailings, which seemed to be the result of "upwelling" in the bay.

Misima

Misima Gold Mine (Highland Pacific Gold, formerly Placer Pacific) has operated STD since 1989, on the island of Misima, 200 km east of Papua New Guinea. It dumps up to 22,000 tonnes of tailings a day into the Solomons Sea at a depth of 112ms. A "...carpet of tailings 75 km thick already covers 20 square kilometers of seabed, obliterating all life" [Fred Pearce "Tails of Woe", New Scientist, London November 11 2000]. Stephen Jones - a leading advocate of STD (he works for NSR Environmental Consultants, in Australia) - admits that, while some of the organisms will eventually return "...they will inhabit a much poorer ecosystem in which "hard-bottom" habitants are gone for good" [Pearce, ibid.]. In 1997 a submarine landslide broke the discharge pipe, although the company claims the tailings settled swiftly onto the ocean floor.

Philippines

Marinduque

The Marinduque copper mine, managed by Placer Dome of Canada (through its stake in Marcopper Ltd.), was closed in 1996 after catastrophic failure of a "plug" inserted in a tunnel separating the old Tapian mine pit used for tailings and the Boac river [see FPP et al "Undermining the Forests" op cit]. Previously the Tapian mine had disposed of its tailings - some 200 million tonnes between 1975 and 1991 - into the coral-rich shallow waters of Calancan Bay. Defenders of STD would claim that this is not an acceptable implementation of practice, since the tailings were discharged at surface (albeit via a 14km pipeline} where they eventually formed a toxic plateau [Undermining the Forests, ibid.].

However, in response to the Boac river disaster, and a damning UN on-site study of its impacts, Placer Dome in 1997 proposed STD as its preferred option for final disposal of the tailings which accumulated in the near-shore "dredge channel". Although the company's request was denied by the Philippine Environment Secretary, he was overruled later than year. Placer was permitted to include the option in its environmental impact assessment, so long as this focussed "a major part on alternative land based disposal options…" The stipulation did not prevent the Canadian company from continuing to lobby strongly for STD among local people [Catherine Coumans "Should tailings be pumped out to sea" Institute of Church and Social Issues, 29 December 1998].

Atlas doesn't bear up

The Atlas Consolidated copper mine on Cebu Island opened in 1971, using a nearby strait for tailings disposal [S Jones op cit]: it is therefore debatable whether this could be described as STD. A typhoon in 1993, followed by heavy mudflows, closed the operation and, by the end of 1994, the company was losing money hand over fist. [South East Asia Mining Letter January 27 1995]. Atlas reportedly suffered its worst catastrophic "event" in mid-1999 when millions of gallons of barely-contained acidic wastes spewed into rivers, creeks and into coastal waters [information from Philippines to Minewatch Asia-Pacific August 16th 1999].

Turkey

The Cayeli Bakir copper and zinc operated from 1994 until present [S Jones, op. cit.] with Inmet of Canada writing down its investment in the faltering project in late 1996 [MJ 8/11/99].

Projects recently considered for STD

Canada

Voisey's Bay nickel-cobalt-copper prospect in Labrador (owned by Inco).

Fiji

Mount Kasi Gold mine on Vanua Levi island.

Namosi Copper and gold project (formerly Placer Pacific, now Royal Oak Mines) on Viti Levu.

Indonesia

PT Meares Soputan Mining at Likupang/Toka Tindung, North Sulawesi. This potentially largescale gold mine (the company has also been prospecting elsewhere in the region [Aurora Gold Annual Report 1997]) is located at the boundaries of the famed Tangkoko Nature reserve (Cagar Alam Tangkoko), an area of great natural beauty, lapped by crystal clear waters, visited by white mariner birds, and abundant in fish. Its unique beach-forest biosphere was "introduced" to the West through the scientific exploits of Alfred Wallace, the precursor of Charles Darwin [see Tim Servin "The Spice Islands Voyage" Little Brown and Co New York 1997]. It is a refuge for several endemic species, including a unique small deer and the Sulawesi black macaque [Information from Konservasi Flora dan Fauna Sulawesi (Koffas) MWAP field trip March 1999]. The village of Batu Putih, which will almost certainly be wiped off the map if commercial mining is permitted, depends on fishing (around 60% of families in a population of more than 3,000) and the management of "home stays" for a steady, if currently modest, stream of "eco tourists"
The local company is 85% owned by Aurora Gold, an Australian company whose unacceptable exploitation at another minesite - Mount Muro Kencana Gold in Kalimantan - provoked a peaceful Dayak occupation and blockade in 1999 [JATAM press release, Jakarta, September 29 1999]. This triggered vicious counter-actions by company security personnel recruited from other settlements in the concession area [Jatam press release, Jakarta, October 11 1999]. The other 15% of Soputan is owned by PT Austindo, a company controlled by the Tahija family [Jakarta Post August 27 1997] with investments in Australia and recently active in Burma [see Roger Moody Grave Diggers: the unacceptable case of mining in Burma, Burma consortium. Nostromo Research, Minewatch Asia-Pacific et al Canada 2000, in press]. Drilling at Toka Tindung started in 1995 [Southeast Asia Mining Letter, March 29 1996] and initial government approval was given in late 1996 [Yayasan Suara Nurani data base, Manado 1998]. Dames & Moore was employed as consultants.
The likely route of the STD pipeline is downhill from the minesite into the Likupan bay via a narrow volcanic beach (the company has bought nearly 90% of the land required from a local headman [Mining Advocacy Report - PT Meares Soputan, March-April 1999, Yayasan Suara Nurani and Koffas, Manado] then across the limpid shallow fishing waters, to an atoll less than one kilometre offshore [Site investigation by Minewatch Asia-Pacific March 1999]. Villagers living at the main coastal settlement of Batuputih, backed by regional environmental organisations, solidly oppose the whole operation, pointing out that the bay is subject to monthly "circular" currents which would lead to upwelling. The company told students of the Marine Sciences department at Manado's UNSRAT University, that the thermocline in the bay was situated at 100 metres [MWAP report op. cit.]; nonetheless, local fisherman have claimed to catch a variety of deep-water fish, called malkera, at twice this depth. In welcoming a critique of STD presented by this author in a seminar at Batuputih in early 1999, one fisherman commented: " A professor came from the company who made it all sound okay. But your explanation now makes sense, because it corresponds to what we know of how the ocean behaves" [MWAP op. cit.].

As 1999 drew to a close, Aurora seemed to be having second thoughts about this controversial project despite reportedly spending US$52 million on infrastructure. According to the Far Eastern Economic Review, the local government was allowing 1,500 local smallscale miners to reclaim parts of the site, a situation one western diplomat was said to have described as "anarchy" [Far Eastern Economic Review December 16 1999].

Awak Mas Gold (Lone Star Explorations, along with Gascoigne Gold Mines and PT Asmincoi Bara Utama) [Mining Journal January 26 1996] South Sulawesi [personal communication Robert McCandless to Minewatch October 29 1999].

Asia-Pacific Nickel (BHP and PT Aneka Tambang) at Gag Island, north of Papua [McCandless ibid.]. Wed Bay prospect (BHP and Strand Minerals (Indonesia) Ltd) in Central Halmahera
[Mining Annual Review 1999]

Kanaky (New Caledonia)

Late last year, the Canadian nickel giant INCO commissioned a pilot plant employing pressure acid leach/solvent extraction for its nickel-cobalt project on the island of Goro. The mine is managed and 85% owned by the Canadian company, with the French BRGM holding the remainder. If commercial production follows, Goro could be delivering 54,000 tonnes of nickel and 5,000 tonnes of cobalt annually - making it one of the world's major ni-co producers [Inco Newswire October 22 1999], and one of the planet's most significant practitioners of STD.

Panama

Petaquilla copper (S Jones op. cit.)

Papua New Guinea

Sumberi Gold project, Sumberi Island, New Ireland province (in the hands of Nord Resources Pacific Pty, owned by Nord Resources of the US, itself majority owned by Consolidated Rutile of Australia) [McCandless op cit].

Woodlark Gold (Highlands Gold) Woodlark Island, Milne Bay province [McCandless ibid].

Ramu prospect (Highlands Gold and Nord Resources) at Astrolabe Bay, Madang province.

This nickel-cobalt-chromite project, owned 65% and managed by Highlands Pacific Ltd (set up by BHP), is planned to have a working life of 20 years at a (1999) cost of US$838 million, generating a life-time income of US$5,400 million. US$100 million of this would go to the Madang provincial government (in addition to any community package or equity shares for local landowners). But, according to the National Fisheries Authority of PNG, the project will jeopardise some US$200 million income from the development of tuna fishing along the coast, if it employs the intended DSTD method of tailings dispersal.
Although the environmental management plan was approved by the PNG government last year (Highlands Pacific claiming that the national and local review process "did not identify any [negative] issues" [The National, 28 October 1999]), the project has come under heavy attack from both local residents and national organisations (including the respected Individual and Community Rights Action Forum, ICRAF). At Mindere village, along the Rai coast, villagers destroyed company property and fought with company guards, despite the police arguing the mine "was the best way to come up in the world like a whiteman" [MPI Briefing Paper on the Ramu Nickel-Cobalt Project, Sydney 1999].

The most strident criticism has come from the National Fisheries Authority (Fisheries Management and Industry Support division) which, in its 1999 examination of the mine's environmental plan, made (inter alia) the following points:

* The Vitiaz Basin (including Astrolabe which will initially receive the Ramu tailings) is the site of frequent upwellings from cold waters that are critical for the fertility and prosperity of fisheries (especially tuna) as vital sediments are moved up and down the whole Madang coast. The company's proposal to pipe tailings out at 150 meters depth is unacceptable since, during monsoons, upwelling can occur at 140 metres depth.

* "The bathymetry of the "canyons" leading into the Vitiaz basin cannot support DSTD (Deep Seat Tailings Disposal) - at least as proposed - since the slopes are "gentle" (only 3 degrees).

* Fast westward winds blow through the Vitiaz strait, entraining nearshore waters along the Eastern Rai coast, which are then replaced by colder waters. This presents the danger that particulates from the STD outfall pipeline "may be discharged to the archipelagic waters" [Kokolo et al ibid.].

The National Fisheries authority concludes that, instead of promoting mining, Highlands Pacific should devote its resources and capital to promoting sustainable fishing:

"Once the economic engine which is Ramu Nickel shuts down, the land has been damaged, the fish are gone from the streams, the people have grown lazy and do nothing. This is totally against the Constitutional rights of Papua New Guinea citizens for integral human development" [Ursula Kokolo et al, National Fisheries Authority, Fisheries Management and Industry Support Division Recommendations on the Ramu Nickel project Environmental Plan, Port Moresby March 31 1999].

Peru

Toquepala and Cuajone copper prospects [S Jones op. cit.]

Philippines

Kingking Copper-gold (Echo Bay Mines) in the Davao Gulf, southern Mindanao (McCandless op. cit.).

Mindoro Nickel (Mindex, owned by Crew Resources of Canada and Norway and backed by Kvaerner AS as a consultant) on the island of Mindoro is vigorously opposed by an alliance of local Indigenous organisations, Philippine Indigenous Links (Britain) and Norwatch (Norway). A misinformation campaign by the operating company, aimed at getting endorsement for STD from local communities, abjectly failed during 1999 [Minewatch Asia-Pacific briefing documentation, Philippines and London 1999].
Tampakan copper-gold project, southern Mindanao [S Jones op. cit.], operated by Western Mining (WMC) of Australia; the company has since announced its withdrawal from the project.

Solomons

Bugotu nickel prospect in Santa Isabel province [McCandless ibid.]

USA

Alaska Jumeau (AJ) Gold , where STD was planned but not used [S Jones op. cit.].
Quartz Hill molybdenum (Rio Tinto Borax) Alaska. This was the first US STD project initially approved by the USEPA under the National Environmental Policy Act, after widespread opposition from environmental organisations and fisherpeople [D W Ellis, in Salomons and Forster, op. cit.]. Thanks partly to widespread popular opposition the mine has not opened.

Appendix: Four important questions asked about STD

1) Are STD, STP, DSTP the same animal?

It seems you can take your pick: Submarine (or seabed) tailings may be "discharged", "dispersed" (never merely "dumped") but "disposal" is the commonest industry term. STP ( "placement") is a later euphemism, as is Deep Sea Tailing (sic) Placement (DSTP) [see Jones op. cit.]. They are all meant to imply that the toxic or negative impacts of tailings can be discounted, because they're being unproblematically siphoned out and permanently kept on the ocean floor. "Marine" is also being used instead of "submarine" (it was adopted in 1991 by Dames & Moore) which tends to suggest that some advocates aren't completely convinced they can keep a bad thing down for ever.

2) Who are the main advocates and practitioners of STD?

Dames & Moore, one of the world's biggest consultancy offering services to mining companies, has been solidly in favour of STD since at least 1991, when it was commissioned to prepare a report on tailings disposal options in the Philippines, for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Dames & Moore acted as consultants for the Minahasa gold mine in north Sulawesi (Indonesia) where it conducted a baseline oceanographic survey and designed, as well as supervised construction of the STD system [Dames & Moore website 1999] and for the Aurora gold project (PT Meares Soputan) in north Sulawesi (see Figures 1 and 2). The D&M team leader in this instance had also assisted in the social impact study of the Freeport-Rio Tinto operations at Grasberg, Papua (see above) where, though identifying room for improvement, it essentially acquitted the company of responsibility for unprecedented contamination of the Ajkwa river system.

Rescan Environmental Services of Canada has been associated with various design stages of some of the world's most notorious mining projects of recent years: including Omai and Marcopper. It constructed the STD pipeline for the Minahasa mine and prepared "conceptual designs" (its own term) for Batu Hijau, both projects managed by Newmont [Information from Rescan website 1999].

A director of Rescan, Professor D V Ellis (see above) has also worked as a consultant for Placer Dome of Canada, which is manager of the notorious Marcopper mine, operator of the Misima gold mine, the original owner of Fiji's Namosi prospect, and part-owner of the Lihir mine (through a stake in Vengold [see Forest Peoples' Programme et al "Undermining the forests" op cit]. Partly due to Ellis' influence and advocacy Placer has become the most powerful corporate advocate of STD (see Marcopper case study above). Another Canadian mining Multinational, INCO, in 1999 put forward STD as an option for dealing with tailings from its now-stalled Voisey's Bay nickel-cobalt project, and the company is likely to employ the method at its Goro nickel mine, should it move to commercial production (see above).

Golder Associates, the engineering consultancy which prepared the most important document yet that advocates STD, has a literally disastrous reputation at two major mine sites. It assisted in "capping" the failed Omai tailings dam in Guyana, for which it was cited by the Canadian lawyers' group PRIO in 1996 as violating professional engineering standards [Minewatch memorandum, London 1996.] The same year, the Golder-constructed Porco tailings dam collapsed in Bolivia (see above). According to Thomas Siepelmeyer (who trained as a mining engineer), this dam was only two years old at the time - a fact which made Golder's involvement particularly reprehensible [Minewatch ibid.; see also Metals and Minerals Latin America December 18th 1996].

BHP of Australia in 1997 took over all assets of Highlands Gold, other than the Porgera mine, and set up Highlands Pacific, which has been pushing STD for the Ramu nickel-cobalt project (see case study above), as well as at the Woodlark Gold project in Milne Bay. BHP also holds the Gag island nickel prospect, off north-western West Papua, through Asia Nickel, and the Weda Bay nickel prospect in Halmahera - both putative employers of marine dumping.

The main US proponent of the practice is Newmont Gold. Parent company Newmont has a better reputation than Placer and BHP, for both its community programmes and environmental provisions. However, this reputation has been undermined by its recent record at two major Indonesian mines, Batu Hijau and Minahasa (q.v.) where itsadoption of STD clearly violates the company's longstanding pledge to adopt the "strictest US environmental standards wherever [it] operates" [Southeast Asia Mining Letter August 26 1994].

Rio Tinto (Britain and Australia) employs STD at Lihir and in 1988 accepted the recommendations of a study commissioned from the Australian National University (ANU) to pipe tailings from its Panguna mine into the Empress Augusta bay - a move opposed by landowners, which helped trigger the "revolt" of 1988, leading to formation of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army and a bloody ten year war.

3) Has any administrative authority made STD illegal?

According to Dr Robert McCandless of EnviroCanada, both Canada and the US ban STD, but allow for special exemptions, an option which the US has never exercised. In 1994 the US Bureau of Mines (part of the Department of the Interior) carried out a series of case studies of submarine tailings disposal which concluded that - at least theoretically - STD could only be considered where a proposed disposal site had no history of "upwelling", because of the dangers of tailings rising to the surface [US Department of the Interior, Case studies of Submarine Tailings Disposal; Volume II - Worldwide case histories and screening criteria, Bureau of Mines 1994].

In the case of Canada, the signal legislation is the 1977 Metal Mining Liquid Effluent Regulations (MMLER) which forbids submarine solid tailings deposition, but theoretically would allow liquid effluent disposal, if it complied with the limits set out in the MMLER. However, the only exemption to date has been that extended to the Kitsault mine (see above) which closed after one year in November 1982. In any event this decision was strongly criticised by a joint Senate-House oversight committee and it is highly doubtful whether either EnviroCanada or the Canadian public would permit any similar operation today. According to Dr McCandless such a submission "might not survive a court challenge, to say nothing of today's rigorous environmental assessment process". McCandless also points out that, if Canada were to permit STD, while the US continued to object, this would put Canada in breach of the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) which requires uniform application of environmental laws. [Email from McCandless to Minewatch Asia-Pacific and Down to Earth, London June 7 1999].

As already noted (see Figure 1) the US government credit and political risk insurance agency, OPIC, refused to insure the Lihir mine operated by Rio Tinto, on grounds that STD would violate treaties to which the US was a party. Although the full grounds for OPIC's decision have not been made public, it is believed that the agency relied partly on the 1972 International Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter (aka the London Convention) and its 1996 Protocol. Inter alia this bans the deposition at sea of wastes from "man-made structures", though not specifically pipelines originating on land. Stephen Jones, a strong defender of STD, has quixotically claimed that such methods of disposal "...[do] not... constitute an act of dumping" under international law [S Jones, op. cit. 1999].

More than twenty years ago, the Philippine government rejected STD into the Lingayen Gulf, as a solution for the huge tailings contamination in the Bued and Agno river system [Dames and Moore Final Report : Detailed policy guidelines for mine tailings disposal, June 14 1991 op. cit.]. The Philippine DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) in 1997 refused a request by Placer Dome to use STD, following the Marinduque disaster (see Figure 1) on grounds that government regulations ruled it out in areas "considered to be environmentally critical" [Catherine Coumans, December 29 1998 op. cit.].

The Norwegian state body responsible for pollution control (Statens Forensningstilsyn, or SFT) is reportedly bucking the trend by proposing new legislation to "demand" that tailings be discharged into the sea [Harald Eraker, Norwatch, Oslo, email to Minewatch Asia Pacific, July 16 1999], in order to reduce the bio-availability (through oxygenisation) of heavy metals in the wastes.

4) Is there a direct relationship between STD and deep sea mining?

Coastal, continental shelf and sea bed dredging and mining have a long history - as do the problems of disposal of their wastes [see D W Ellis The need for exchange of Reclamation Information between Surface and Marine Mining Operations, paper delivered at National Symposium on Mining, Hydrology, Sedimentology and Reclamation, University of Kentucky, Lexington, December 1986].

To date, little public attention has been paid to the potentially huge social and environmental consequences of massive exploitation of the seabed, under the aegis of the United Nations Council for Law of the Sea. There is no doubt about the existence of unprecedented quantities (mostly as nodules) of manganese, cobalt and other strategic minerals within the EEZ (exclusive economic zones) of Pacific island nations. But there are major questions about their extraction and waste-disposal should they come onstream.

Among the countries which have permitted STD, Papua New Guinea stands out as having much bigger identified seabed mineral resources than those identified on land - though the two do not automatically equate with each other in terms of economically recoverable reserves. US institutions have long-established programmes investigating inter alia the disposal of tailings from oceanic (platform) mining operations, back to the seabed.[see for example Michael J Cruickshank, Ramona Kincaid, Harry J Olsen, "Marine minerals development in the Pacific Ocean", paper delivered to the Pacrim 90 Mining Congress, organised by AIMM, Australia, 1991]

July /November 2000

[This paper was researched and written by Roger Moody of Nostromo Research, London and commissioned by Down to Earth (DTE) and Minewatch Asia-Pacific (MWAP). The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the commissioning organisations. Reproduction, with acknowledgement to Nostromo Research, Down to Earth and Minewatch Asia-Pacific is welcomed and encouraged].