BHP's annual general meeting on September 26 was disrupted by protests against environmental destruction by the company's Ok Tedi mine in Papua New Guinea. A week earlier, BHP was found in contempt of the Victorian Supreme Court for its efforts to have the PNG government block a lawsuit against it by villagers. MATTHEW MERRALL describes the troubled history of the mine.
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The PNG constitution states: "We declare our fourth national goal to be for Papua New Guinea's natural resources and the environment to be conserved and used for the collective benefit of us all, and be replenished for the benefit of future generations".
Attempts to implement that goal included, in 1978 the Environmental Planning Act and the Environmental Contaminants Act. But harsh western-style economic reality appears more powerful than legislation.
On the 20th anniversary of independence, PNG is on the brink of economic and political ruin. A Third World country rich in natural resources, until recently PNG had the reputation of being one of the world's last great wildernesses. This no longer stands up to scrutiny, especially since the two environmental acts of 1978 exempt mine development and operation.
The Ok Tedi mine began operating in 1984, with three phases planned. Stage one would mine gold, stage two would extract high grade copper ore, and stage three would take the residual poor quality copper ore. The mine is located on the Ok Tedi river, close to the border with West Papua. The Ok Tedi is a tributary of the Fly River which discharges into the Gulf of Papua.
At the D'Albertis Junction, where the Ok Tedi and Fly rivers meet, there begins a plethora of varying ecosystems, including open rainforest, swamps and savanna. During the wet season, the lower areas of the Fly, as well as Lakes Bosset, Pangua and Daviumbu, are flooded. The aquatic life is similarly diverse, with several tribal groups relying on it for subsistence. The Fly contains two separate species of turtles, crocodiles which are unique, rare fish life and dugongs in the lower reaches.
Mining began with only token regard for environmental considerations. Gold extraction and smelting involves the use of toxic ferrocyanides. Copper ore processing was to involve the creation of a 2.8% concentrate, leaving the other 97.2% as waste.
From day one, these waste tailings have been dumped into the Ok Tedi river. This has been the main concern for traditional landowners.
BHP has delayed the construction of a tailings dam for 12 years, making economic excuses. A tailings dam would reduce the environmental impact of the tailings, treating the cyanide and coarse particles before releasing them.
A 1988 UN Environmental Program report was damning of the environmental destruction of the area to that point. Tests of the waters and aquatic life showed traces of heavy metals, cyanide, soluble copper, high levels of cadmium, lead and zinc. At the start of operations in 1984, it is estimated some 20,000 tonnes of waste were poured into the Ok Tedi per day; in 1988 it totalled 60,000 tonnes per day and in 1995 some 80,000 tonnes.
The project also has a very poor accident record. In 1984, 2700 60-litre drums of sodium cyanide and hydrogen peroxide were lost into the river, never to be recovered. There was also an accidental release of pure cyanide into the river which resulted in a large scale poisoning of fish.
One section of the UNEP report, written by David Mowbray, is entitled "Giving the River Away: Environmental Considerations in the Construction of the Ok Tedi mine". It notes, "... the project is judged to have a poor environmental and accident record ... when the project was considered economically marginal, Ok Tedi Mining Limited was not willing to include the environmental protection that the state required."
The state, however, was never truly willing to enforce guidelines because it has a minority stake in the mine. The report found also that BHP did its best to keep government officials away from the mine and clear of decision making.
BHP refuses to consider a tailings dam because it would cost too much and "reduce the benefits to shareholders", as Kipling Uiari of BHP in PNG so eloquently put it. The cost is variously estimated at anywhere from $400 million to $2 billion. Kipling Uiari says, "We are under no obligation to build the dam ... legally".
BHP, in the action which left it in contempt of the Victorian court, drafted for the PNG government legislation which would make it illegal for any person to take legal action against BHP over the environmental destruction. This in itself is a tacit admission of the crime. Even foreign minister Gareth Evans of Timor Gap fame said that this legislation is "a bit unusual". He has been notably silent since.
BHP has offered traditional Ok Tedi and Fly River landowners a compensation package of $110 million, but refuses to agree to build a tailings dam.
The people of the Ok Tedi and Fly rivers have to date pursued peaceful redress of their concerns through the courts. Many aren't too concerned about compensation, but want BHP to build the tailings dam to prevent further environmental damage, and to save whatever is left of their traditional lifestyle. Others want BHP to stop operations altogether.
Most of them want peaceful mediation rather than the confrontationist position which has been forced upon the people of Bougainville. But BHP refuses to mediate, despite being advised by the Victorian courts to do so.
One landowner, Rex Dargie, has said that if BHP will not listen to the people it is affecting, "We will take the mine by force ... we are not threatening BHP, we are telling them."
US consumer rights activist Ralph Nader is now beginning to focus attention on BHP and Ok Tedi, as the multinational moves into Canada and the USA to "acquire" sites. On September 7, Nader led a protest of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth activists outside the Australian and PNG embassies in Washington.
Nader said, "This is the single biggest mining devastation of the environment in the world ... and it is being defended by outrageous laws cooked up by an authoritarian government". He went on to say, "... what astonishes me is the 'looking the other way' attitude of the Australian government while this goes on".