The Ok Tedi Mine:
Copper and Gold Tailings
Papua New Guinea
Broken Hill Propriety (BHP), Australia's largest mining corporation, has worked along with the Papua New Guinea goverment in hiring the Ok Tedi Mining Limited to operate the mine in 1980. The current state of the mine and river systems affected is due to poor political choices. Back when the mine first opened a trailings dam had been in the makings but had been destroyed by a landslide in January of 1984. The PNG government, receiving pressure from BHP not to spend more money on another dam, granted OTML temporary permission to dump the tailings into the Ok Tedi River. However, the temporary permission to dump tailings has continued for the last 20 years due to the governments' fear they will loose valuable revenue if the mine is closed.
The pollution had caught the attention of almost 30,000 landowners and in 1994 they decided to take BHP to Supreme Court in Australia. Two years later, the out-of-court settlement stated that BHP would
- Stop mine trailings from entering the Ok Tedi/Fly River system
- Dredge the Ok Tedi River to relieve the effects of flooding, erosion, and deposition of sediment on riverside land caused by the many years of dumping into the River, and
- Pay a total of $28.6 million to affected villagers (Multinational Monitor, 1996).
In 1999, the dredging process was started by OTML and BHP had for the first time since the mine began operating, made a public statement that indeed the Ok Tedi Mine had been polluting the areas downsteam of the river. This was also the year the the World Bank suggested the immediate closure of the mine as the best resolution to the pollution problem.
On February 8, 2002, BHP had released itself from any responsibilities to clean up the destroyed environment. The company had taken its 52 percent share in the mine and had transferred it to the PNG.
Because obvious signs point to the fact that BHP had breached it's 1996 settlement by failing to build the tailings dam and by not compensating villagers the amount in the settlement, many villagers have now taken both BHP and OTML to court. They believe that they should not be free of the settlements they are bound too. The case is believe to reach a conclusion in early 2004.
As of Thursday, April 1, 2004, OTML said that their profits
were continuing to rise however they still plan to close in 2010. Another
positive course of action that OTML had to share was that it would be
setting aside about 100 million US dollars to help clean up the environmental
devastation that has been an outcome of the mine.
This website was created byHeather Eslinger
Geography 361:Environmental Hazards University of Wisconin- Eau Claire
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