Jakarta – A group of environmental NGOs say they will ask the State Administrative Court in Jakarta to overturn the government's decision to permit PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara (NNT) to continue dumping its tailings into the sea.
"We want [the government] to revoke the permit and admit to having made a mistake," Jumi Rahayu, the legal and policy advocacy manager of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), told reporters at her office in South Jakarta recently.
Walhi and several other NGOs, including the People's Coalition for Equal Fisheries (Kiara) and the Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam), said in a statement that issuing the permit to NNT to dump its mining tailings into Senunu Bay would endanger marine life.
The bay is located in the southern part of Sumbawa Island. Newmont Nusa Tenggara is a subsidiary of the US-based Newmont Corporation, which operates a massive copper and gold mine in Batuhijau in the regency.
The company has dumped mine tailings into the bay since 1999 under a license from the Environment Ministry. Jumi said that NNT was allowed to dump 148,000 tons of mine tailings into the bay a day, or about 51.1 million tons a year.
"Right now our legal team is preparing documents and we will file them with the court next week," Wahli campaign manager Deddy Ratih said on Tuesday.
Jumi said that issuing the permit was controversial as the West Sumbawa administration already issued a letter to NTT telling it to stop dumping tailings into Senunu Bay on April 27. "The local government didn't know about the permit renewal."
As reported earlier, the local government sent a letter prohibiting the company from dumping residue from its operations into Senunu Bay effective May 9.
According to Wahli, the Environment Ministry previously issued a regulation based on government regulation 19/1999 on the control of marine pollution and destruction, which is managed by the ministry.
Meanwhile, Wahli assumed that the government regulation was not applicable because it contradicted the Environmental Protection and Management Act, which limits the government's authority to issue permits to dispose of waste in the sea, maintaining that permit issuance should not be monopolized by the ministry.
Jumi said that the central government should have discussed renewing the permit with the local government, which had better knowledge of local conditions.
Both the local government and residents have complained that the dumping of tailings into Senunu Bay has damaged the environment and might negatively effect the health of residents, according to Jumi.
Kiara research coordinator Mida Saragih said that the company's tailings had damaged flora and fauna in the surrounding waters.
According to data released by the local government in 2010, several commonly found aquatic animal species had disappeared from the bay, including snapper fish, grouper fish, pomfret, shrimp, tuna, and mackerel.
Mida also said that the catches of local fishermen have continued to decline since the company was first allowed to dump its tailings in the area. (drs)