There has been a serious chemical spill into Basamuk Bay in Papua New Guinea, at the site of the Ramu mine processing plant.
Local people fear sulphuric acid could be involved.
The mine owners are warning local people not to enter the water, stop fishing and not to eat anything caught in the area.
The incident occurred at the wharf last week while a cargo ship was unloading a chemical substance into storage tanks on the shore at the refinery site.
A villager from Mindere village which is located adjacent to the refinery site, Terry Kuning, reported the incident today after receiving warning from a village committee member yesterday evening.
Mr Kuning said they were warned not to fish, bathe, drink sea water or eat fish caught within the Basamuk Bay. This warning came 4 days after the spill and it was done door to door to the Mindere villagers in the night between 7pm to 8pm. Mr Kuning said the warning came too late because people have been using the sea during and since the spill.
He said the villagers are asking for immediate testing of the water to confirm the toxicity by an independent team so that they are told exactly what has spilled into the sea and how toxic it is. They also want to know how long they will have to wait until they can use the sea again.
The spill occurred in the same week as the visit to the refinery site by Justice Cannings and legal teams as part of the court proceedings over the mine’s marine waste dumping plans.
Will DEC and MRA investigate this? I doubt it!
MRA? DEC? anyone?
let’s see if the regulators can do what they keep telling us they will do when the mine is commissioned – to regulate its activities. if they can’t act on this, then they won’t act on dstp. or is this an unreasonable conclusion?
While this is a serious issue at Basamuk I doubt very much the regulators read this blog. Best to use another means of communicating with the DEC and MRA.
they do read this blog, Bill Jenkins, but they won’t admit it.
i am only prompting them to act and not necessarily discuss/debate the issue here. in fact, there is no point in debating. something has happened and they must act on it.
Well its been all over the radios – and who trusts the regulators anyway. More bullshit from MCC. When will it stop?
This is it!! Please report this to Tiff Nongorr to add to the plaintiff’s affidavit. The PNG Gov and Chinese company MCC have lied that there will be NO to toxic chemicals used in processing the nickle, what a lie. This puts their efforts in court where MCC subjects professed in court that toxicity will be minimal / LESS.
How ignorant could MCC be to say there’s no toxic chemicals involved?? There’s nothing wrong with the odd t0xic chemical in a manufacturing process but there are issues with the uncontrolled dumping of the substance.
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