Fidelis E. Satriastanti – A coalition of environmental groups said on Sunday that they had filed a suit against the Environment Ministry for renewing the waste-dumping permit for the operator of a major gold mine in Sumbawa, West Nusa Tenggara.

The permit for Newmont Nusa Tenggara, the local unit of US mining giant Newmont Mining, to dump tailings from its Batu Hijau gold and copper mine into the sea was renewed on May 5. Environmentalists said the decision ignored the concerns of the local community about the damage to the marine ecosystem.

"We filed a lawsuit with the Jakarta State Administrative Court on Friday demanding it scrap the decision to extend Newmont's tailing permit, because we consider all waste-dumping activities in the sea to be dangerous," Jumi Rahayu, policy and legal advocacy manager for the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said on Sunday.

"Not to mention there was little participation from the local people in making this decision."

Walhi, along with the Fisheries Justice Coalition (Kiara), Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam) and People's Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Masyarakat), said the ministry had neglected "principles of caution" about the damage resulting from the dumping.

The groups, under the Restore Indonesia Coalition, also said the ministry had ignored the West Sumbawa administration's opposition to the dumping in Buyat Bay.

Newmont's new five-year permit allows the miner to dump up to 51 million tons of waste into the sea annually, the same as in its last permit. The miner could increase that to 54 million tons, on condition that it first reported it to the ministry. The company is also obliged to test local water sources and communities for signs of exposure to toxins.

Jumi said allowing Newmont to dump waste into the sea contradicted the government's wider marine pollution policy, including ongoing efforts to seek damages from an Australian-based company responsible for an oil spill in the Timor Sea.

"We're taking the oil spill very seriously, yet we're still allowing the dumping of waste into the sea in our own country," he said. "If we're working on the principle that the sea should not be a dumping ground, then we shouldn't be throwing anything there."

Sudariyono, deputy for environmental compliance at the ministry, said the decision to renew Newmont's permit complied with prevailing regulations.

"In principle, there are no specific laws about tailing permits," he said. "There are still no derivative regulations on it from the 2009 Environmental Protection and Management Law, so we're going by the 1999 government regulation on ocean pollution damage control, which allows tailing permits to be issued by the environment minister."

Sudariyono also denied that local communities had been left out of the decision-making process. He said the ministry had worked with provincial and district authorities to review Newmont's request to renew its waste-dumping permit.