The Scottish Association of Marine Science was commissioned by the Papua New Guinea government to conduct a study on the marine dumping of mine waste in Papua New Guinea. This was in response to community concerns about plans for the Ramu nickel mine to dump 100 million tons of waste into the seas off Madang.
Ramu Nickel Mine Watch has been given exclusive access to the complete SAMS DSTP Final Report (but note the pdf file is 25mb if you want to download it).
Below we also have the 14 Appendices (each file is between 10 and 30mb – and 4a is 100mb)
1 Bathymetry & Seabed sediment Fig 1.1 – 1.24 Complete
2A Combined Physical Oceanography Figures 2A.1.1 – 2A.3.12 Complete
2B SAMS CTD data processing protocol Complete
2C PNG 2008 CTD Salinity Calibration Complete
2D Fluorescence Calibration Complete
3A Water Column Geochemistry Figures 3A.1 – 3A.68 Complete
3B Water Column Geochemistry Tables 3B.1 – 3B.77 Complete
4A Sediment Geochemistry Figures 4A.1 – 4A.280 Complete (warning – 100mb)
4B Sediment Geochemistry Tables 4B .1 – 4B.292 Complete
6 Pelagic Tables 6.1 – 6.4 Complete
7 Cruise Report Lihir & Misima Complete
8 Cruise Report Bamuk Complete
9 DSTP Review Master 040610 Complete
10 Draft General Guidelines Final (2) Complete
Thanks for posting that. Its a shame they weren’t able to publish this earlier as we may have avoided the current confrontational situation and got a better result all round.
The key findings don’t seem to have changed much from the draft, they still dismiss the possibility of upwelling or vertical mixing. They identify one or two knowledge gaps. They say it would be “highly desirable” to do some more sea-bed photography for the baseline (as I said a pity they weren’t able to just get on and do this). But that’s not an argument against DSTP, its only about whether or not its worth delaying it. I guess it will be up to a court to determine what “highly desirable” means, and whether or not the company’s losses are justifiable given they have only been informed of this “requirement” in hindsight.
The recommended guidelines for operating and monitoring a DSTP seem mostly sensible and reasonable (one or two maybe a little over the top). It will be good for future projects to have these guidelines in place (if officially adopted by the government). Miners and investors generally don’t deliberately try to avoid environmental responsibilities, they face these wherever they operate in the world. They just need to know what the rules and processes are, and not have them changed half-way through the game. They can then make decisions on a project’s viability, and plan for any additional costs or variations to time-frames that they need to at the outset.
sure it’s a shame that the findings of the report were not published. but it is an absolute scam that the findings were suppressed in the manner that they did.
bottom line: we don’t trust this ‘developer’ and how it deals with our government. what is the guarantee that the well thought out monitoring plan as proposed will actually get implemented (and implemented properly)when the mine is up and running?
solution: kick the damn chinese out with their tails firmly tucked under their hind legs and send out an almighty signal that Papua New Guineans will NOT allow them or whoever to come here and knowingly corrupt a handful or morons in the government and get away with it.
never mind how much yuan they’ve already spent. that’s rubbish!
Very few of us in Madang can download the full report plus the appendices. Is there anyone who can do this and burn onto a disk? Drop me an email if you can.
I think the inclusion of the draft guidelines ‘cushions’ the report’s findings considerably.
Whichever way one looks at the report, the conditions for a good functioning DSTP system rely heavily, if not entirely, on there being a set of regulations in place to provide for internationally acceptable standards of safety, monitoring, clean-up and compensation etc. The absence of these mechanisms throws significant doubt on the integrity of any DSTP system. This is probably (at least one of the reasons) why the govt has been hesitant to publicly disclose the final report – ie. they haven’t done enough to protect our people from all the known risks.
Understandably, the report leaves the decision to allow DSTP squarely in the hands of govt. A responsible govt would not expose its people to harm by allowing DSTP to proceed without at least having a stringent system of regulation. Yet, that is exactly what our govt is proposing now at Basumuk. It is not enough to allow a developer to self-monitor the safety of its own operations – the responsibility has to be legally enforceable with very severe penalties for non-compliance. This discourages the developer from breaking rules and taking reckless shortcuts.
Apart from the much talked about geographic conditions, one of the main reasons why DSTP is a so-called viable option in PNG is because of the weak regulatory system our country has. Developers can escape liability if things go wrong. That is the risk we are taking at Basumuk without a stringent set of regulations in place. And in any given scenario that risk is unacceptable.
I agree with you Watchman, the government has no regulatory system in place for this technology. I recall reading an earlier blog by Dexter Bland that an independent environmental research monitoring may be the way to go. I agree that that may be the way to go, with no strings attached by the developer and the Govt as they will provide funds (as their statutory requirements) for that type of work. Of course the reports, be they monthly, quarterly or annual, would all be subject to peer review before being released to the State and all stakeholders. I believe this is the way forward.