My thought My World

Bukit Koman is a smal town located in Raub Pahang which was known for its gold mining activities years ago. The mining activities begin active again when an Australian company invested in the town after gaining approval from the BN government. Of course, all this was not known to the locals until they saw the mining construction as well as the approval from the Pahang government for the usage of cyanide for their gold mining activities. According to the locals, previously, those cyanide tanks were visible from outside, but when the company were aware of the locals resistant to their activities, new walls were built to cover the area, and now, nothing were visible from the outside.

When the locals becomes aware with the hazardous of cyanide, they formed a Bukit Koman committee to appeal and highlight their plights to the government. Numerous attempts to get their elected Yang Berhormat Dato Ng Yen Yen proved futile. The same with YAB Abdullah Badawi, as well as a numbers of MCA leaders including previous President Ong Ka Ting, Pahang MCA State Chief, YB Dato Chan Kong Choy and Bentong Parliament YB Dato Liow Tiong Lai. All seems to have brush off the issue.

A review by Dr. Glenn Miller (one of the steering committee member who drafted the International Cyanide Management Code) on the report of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of gold mining in Bukit Koman, reveals that certain important specification were absent from the report regarding the tailings of the mine, which directly affects the environment. There’s also a lack of information available on the expected chemical composition of the treated tailings regarding the toxic substance and acid-generating potentials. The greatest environmental and the public health risk of the project is the potential release of heavy metals that could contaminate groundwaters and surface water supplies in the vicinity of the project area. Also, the Carbon in leach facility were built on much closer than 500 meter of residential in Bukit Koman, something which violates the policies set by the Government of Western Australia. This also violates the policies set in Nevada, US, where the facility must be built 1000 feet away from residential area.

According to the report given to Dr Miller, the factory proposed to process 2,000,000,000 kg of old tailings per year. Based on his conservative assumption, the tailings will contain roughly 1% arsenic, in the form of arsenopyrite, that is 20,000,000 kg (20k metric tons) of arsenopyrite flowing through the facility. The sodium cyanide used in the facility will convert much of the arsenopyrite to arsenate, but, some arsenic will vapourize and contaminate the air in the vicinity. (THIS IS ONE OF THE COMPLAINT FROM THE LOCALS, FOUL AIRS, ESPECIALLY DURING THE MOONSUN WHEN THE WIND WERE BLOWING FROM THE FACTORY TO THE RESIDENTIAL AREA)

From the EIA report, there is no mention about how the facility would be designed to withstand any catastrophic event. There is a mention on detoxification of cyanide, but not other toxic contaminats (eg. arsenic, lead and cadmium). Based on the updates dated 2007 and 2008, Dr Miller claimed that the operation seems to larger than the earlier proposed. According to the company updates, there is slightly over 200,000 ounces of gold in the tailings but another 200,000 + ounces in the ore to be mined. Thus the gold, is twice the amount of what considered in the original report (the 1996 EIA report) that considers only the tailings. Tile impacts of the larger operation are potentially more severe, since it will create more waste rock, and require a bigger operation to handle the underground mining. This would argue strongly for a new complete environmental study. (However, the locals were left to fend for themselves, no new environmental reports from the government agencies, and the locals were expected to get their own report, which a quotation from SIRIM bills up to RM20k++!!!, Is this how they claimed to be tightly monitoring the situation??? Plus, in rejecting the locals appeal, the court said the 1996 EIA report were too outdated to be use now and that they should have made the appeal earlier. However, the locals argue that they only awares of it in 2006 when the mining construction begins, they have no knowledge prior to that.)

The strategy used by the mining company is call a “bait and switch” strategy, where they proposed a small mine, get the permits, and then use the permitting process for a larger mine. Since the updates reveal a larger operation, Dr Miller concludes that the 1996 report for proposal were in addition to being inadequate even at the time it was written (1996), does not now even consider some of the major impacts of waste rock dumps, major milling and metallurgical processes that would be required to process the new ore being mined. The human and environmental risks of the tailings and contaminated water that will drain from the tailings are of such magnitude that it is my opinion that the entire EIA process should be started over, using current international standards for an environmental analysis.

Now, while the information given for the review were very lacking, it could be that the company never intended to care much on the impacts to the surrounding or they are hiding something. Not to mention that the construction itself is already too closed to residential areas which violates the laws in US and Australia. However, to our Minister, this is a politicize issue, nothing to do with the locals or the mine company. The video below is a footage taken during the recent MCA’s 60th Anniversary, of which Liow Tiong Lai claimed that the issue of Bukit Koman were blown up by the opposition party, thus being politicize. The issue according to him, was a small one as no casualties from the usage of cyanide (again typical BN waiting for disaster to happen before they’ll act, err isn’t this is what happened to the stadium in Terengganu where engineer have not once warned the government on the defects, but nothing was done, until the roof collapse!!!! ). The locals, as Liow said, were very accepting to the new investment, and if there were resistant was from a small group of people incited by the opposition party. It’s either Liow and Ng Yen Yen never see the review or the environmental report or they just don’t care those who vote for them.

For more information on the use of cyanide click HERE, and HERE for the hazardous of cyanide.

Almost forget to mention that, since the Bukit Koman residents were abandoned by their own elected reps Dato Dr Ng Yen Yen, as well as a host of national leaders from the BN, plus the shun by the mainstream media (prior to March 2008 where numerous letters were sent to the msm but nothing were reported), and with LIOW TIONG LAI claiming that the help from the opposition party as “politicize” the issue, the locals hope through the internet, the bloggers especially, can help them to spread their message across. Since, LIOW TIONG LAI mention that the resistant comes from a small group of villagers only (as if 1 people is not enough to get their attention), i’ll checked with the Bukit Koman people, whether there is a signing petition from them, if there was one, how many of them signed, and if there’s none, maybe they should start one (but i guess this have been done by them years ago, if not they will not be so desperate to call on the bloggers).