The OK Tedi Mine is located in Folomian, Papua New Guinea. Folomian is located on the west side of Papua New Guinea, which is the eastern half of an island of Indonesia (Google Maps). This mine is an open pit mine for copper and gold. The OK Tedi Mine, which has historically been known as the largest copper mine in the world (Campbell), is taking on the new title of being one of the most disastrous mines in the world (Kennedy), with having a history of dumping over 80,000 tons of waste into the Tedi river in the 1980s and 1990s (Bice), and currently dumping about 80,000 tons into the river every year (Mining Technology). In 2013, a planned closure was supposed to occur in order to evaluate the possibility of the expansion of the mine (Mining Tech). However, this closure never occurred and led to more problems later down the road.
Background Information
The OK Tedi Mine is occupied in an eastern section of Papua New Guinea, which is the eastern half of an island of Indonesia (Google Maps). This island of New Guinea is located just west of Indonesia, and is considered a region or state of Indonesia. Folomian, which is where the OK Tedi Mine is located, occupies an eastern portion of Papua new guinea, which is the eastern half of the island of New Guinea (Google Maps). The town of Tabubil, located just southeast of the mine, is a small town that was established to support the OK Tedi mine (OKTM). This town is developed, with its’ own government, social clubs, schools, hospitals and many locally owned businesses. The purpose of this town’s economy is to support the OK Tedi Mine financially, as well as to govern the mine.
In west Papua New Guinea, around the mine and Tabubil, there is an abundance of rainfall annually. Overall, the island of New guinea is tropical (Nat Geographic). The mountainous terrains are covered in rainforest, which could classify this region as a rainforest. However, there is a large variety of biomes surrounding the mine (Muller). The abundance of rainfall, as well as variety of biomes contributes to an incredibly biodiverse ecosystem in and around Folomian (Muller).
(PNG)
The OK Tedi mine participates in open pit mining. The purpose of open pit mining is to extract large quantities of the ore by exposing it through excavating and relocating large quantities of waste rock. This waste rock is dumped elsewhere, so that the mine workers can extract the ore and continue to rid of more waste rock. Different levels of “benches” are created to try and most efficiently get to the ore while still being able to have a path up and down the mine (Mine Engineer).
(Mine Engineer - Basics of an Open Pit Mine)
Throughout the years, there has been a huge controversy over who owns the mine or who will be owning it. The debate involved development funds with granting immunity to a corporate giant (Reuters). But in the end, Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Government had taken control over the mine in 2013. However, the OK Tedi Mining Limited (OTML), a owned company by the PNG Sustainable Development Program Limited, operates the mines workings (Mining Technology). The geology surrounding the mine is continental margin marine sedimentary siltstones, mudstones, and limestone (Mining Technology). But the mine mines gold, copper, and silver minerals including chalcopyrite with pyrite marcasite and trace amounts of bornite and molybdenite (Mining Technology). With the extraction of these minerals, this makes the mine a moderate-grade ore, mining valuable material but still giving off waste.
It’s smart to ask how these mining processes are benefiting us and society. But, the minerals that are being extracted are sometimes used in everyday life situations. Gold is typically used for jewelry (not usually important in society), finances or money, electronics and computers, and dentistry (Scottsdale). Copper is one of the most beneficial minerals. It plays a role in electronics and can help conduct electricity. Not only that, but it is also involved in building, workshop, processing and car industries (Boliden). Along with gold and copper, silver is also used for jewelry, money, and sometimes electricity. But to make silver more useful, it is used in bandages, dressings, and antibiotics to help stop spread infection of injuries (Dave). These uses for these materials are important because it ensures health for people and builds and sustains an ecosystem with a money system and electronic resources that benefit a growing society.
Throughout the year, over 78,000 tons of ore is extracted from the OK Tedi mine, while approximately 80,000 tons of waste is produced and dumped away from the pit of the mine. By working with an open pit, mine workers use blasting and drilling methods to extract the ore. The blasted rock is dug out from the pit benches and hauled away by different kinds of extremely large haul trucks. Excavators, drill rigs, graders and dozers are also tools used to dig up and get rid of expendable rock. In order to process the ore, it is crushed to less than 200mm in size by a crushing machine called gyratory crushers. After this, the pieces are put into a stockpile that feeds into a grinding circuit that grinds the ore and reduces it into a sand. In flotation cells, the ore is added to collector and frother reagents, in order to allow the copper and gold to attach to the air bubbles, and then the froth is collected which has the minerals concentrated within it. The concentrate is thickened and sent as a slurry to a river port where it gets filtered, dried and stockpiled (Mining Tech).
Because of the methods used for extraction and processing, the OK Tedi mine has created environmental degradation and pollution. Every year, over 80,000 tons of the mine waste is dumped off site of the mine, usually into the river (Mining Tech). This has very obvious negative effects on the river ecosystem. The mine waste contains traces of copper, zinc and lead, all harmful to plants and animals. When this waste is dumped into the river, the quality of the water decreases greatly and becomes acidic, which affects the vegetation in and around the river (MMSD). The acidic water also depletes the amount of fish stocks there are. After all of this degradation of the river ecosystem, other systems that rely on the river's ecosystem are also negatively affected and degraded. With the extraction process, though much of the waste rock is collected, some of it also gets into the air and causes pollution. The persistent use of heavy, gas run vehicles and tools, also contributes to the pollution caused by the mining processes (Skwirk).
(ABC News CMCA Review)
The environmental degradation and pollution not only affects the mine site and surrounding areas, but can permeate through other areas and have a further environmental impact. By dumping the mine waste into a river, the waste and pollution is carried south through the rest of Papua New Guinea and connects with the sea. Environmentally, the degradation not only occurs at the site where the mine waste is dumped, but brought throughout the rest of Papua New Guinea, affecting the rest of the river and surrounding area, as well as pollution being brought to the Arafua, Solomon and Coral seas (MMSD). Because of this river to sea connection, the pollution not only affects the rivers of Papua New Guinea, but the sea as well. Organisms and vegetation are all degraded because of the waste initially created at the mine site. Environmentally, the quality of the air and water is decreased because of the degradation and pollution that occurs because of the OK Tedi mine (MMSD).
(ABC News CMCA Review)
(OK Tedi River. N/A) Drudging
In terms of restoration or reclamation, in 2015, it was said that the mine would restart operations when there are better weather conditions, but no specific ideas on rebuilding the wall that had collapsed have been mentioned yet (Cochrane). However in the early 2000’s, when vegetation was at it’s lowest levels and many floods continued to occur, the previous owners initiated four development options. The options were ceasing mining, continuation of river disposal, ceasing or continuing dredging (MMSD). They concluded that stopping or limiting the dredging would definitely impact the dieback, but even if the mine was to close the next day, the waste of the mine was still very severe (MMSD). Earlier, to ensure that the mine would be dealt with in healthy conditions, in the year of 1976 The Mining OK Tedi Agreement Act was passed by parliament (MMSD). The act was set up in a series of supplemental agreements. One of the most important agreements to the act involved the environmental management of OK Tedi (MMSD). This agreement ensured that in the future the mines inner and surrounding environment would be managed correctly. This is why a four part idea was implemented dealing with vegetation. But, as years progressed, the mining operations began to go downhill.
Currently, or in the past five years, there has been a big situation that has impacted the mine socially, politically, and economically. The mine was in a big controversy over who would take over and control the mining’s operations. Companies and businesses were fighting over a find or trust that were associated with the mine (Reuters). The government ended up taking control as the mine was planning to close in 2013. The reason for closing in 2013 was to expand the mine, combining two underground mines into one big pit(Mining Technology). In assumption, the closing never occurred and continued to run. This must have resulted in the mines low health and construction. In June of 2015, a wall holding up one of the pit benches collapsed, causing a large amount of debris to fall into the bottom of the pit and cause damage to machinery and tools, limiting the access for food and diesel trucks, also blocking the access to high grade ore at the bottom of the pit (Cochrane). This stopped all production and a stand down in almost all of the staff (Cochrane). This disaster showed a loss in jobs, money, and materials for the people associated with the mine.
In summary, the Ok Tedi mine was very successful to the surrounding workers and citizens and countries partnered with it for some time. It was able to produce copper, silver, and gold helping people’s everyday life uses in technology. But as it usually happens in any mine, their time ended or paused with disaster. The mine gave off tons of waste and created arguments for their money. Not only that, but they allowed their mining structure to get so bad that it fell apart. Essentially they set up their own obstacle that affected jobs and the producing of their material. Although what mines produce benefit society, it may not be worth ruining the economy and environment at the same price.
Work Cited
ABC News. CMCA Review. 24 Aug 2015. Web Image. 13 Jan 2016.
Bice, Sara. "Ok Tedi Immunity Gone, with Implications beyond BHP." The Conversation. 22 Oct. 2013. Web. 13 Jan. 2016.
Boliden. “Uses of Copper.” New Boliden. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
Campbell, Ilan. "OK Tedi Mine." Web. 13 Jan. 2016.
Campbell, Ilan. "OK Tedi Mine." Web. 13 Jan. 2016.
Cochrane, Liam. “OK Tedi Mining confirms wall collapse at massive open-cut mine in PNG, denies link to shutdown.” ABC News. 24 Aug 2015. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
Dave. “101 USes of Silver in Everyday Life.” Silver Coins. 2016. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
G, Banks. “Belching out Copper, Gold, and Waste.” World Wide Fund For Nature. WWF. 2015. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
Kennedy, Danny. “Don’t Abandon Environmental Responsibilities or Affected Communities.” MiningWatch Canada. Mineral Policy Center. 2012. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
Mine Engineer. “Basics of an Open Pit Mine.” 1994 - 2012. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
Mining Technology. “OK Tedi Mine, Oceania - Papua New Guinea.” Kable Intelligence Limited.2016. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
MMSD. “OK Tedi Riverine Disposal Case Study.” World Business Council for Sustainable Dev. April 2002. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
Muller, K. “Terrestrial Ecosystems of New Guinea.” World Wide Fund for Nature. WWF. 2015. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
National Geographic, LLC. “Fast Facts.” National Geographic Partners. 1996 - 2016. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
National Geographic, LLC. “Papua New Guinea Facts”. National Geographic Partners. 1996 - 2016. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
OK Tedi River. Google Maps. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
Ok Tedi River Image. No photographer. People edu. 13 Jan 2016.
Ok Tedi Mining. “Townships.” Ok Tedi Mining Limited. 2016. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
Ok Tedi Mine. Google Maps. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
Reuters, Thomas. “PNG Government takes full ownership of OK Tedi Mine.” Industries. 19 September 2013. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
Scottsdale Bullion & Coin. “Top 6 Common Uses for Gold.” 30 May 2012. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
Skwirk. “Mining Pollution in Papua NG.” Red Apple Education, Ltd. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
WWF. “List of Ecoregions.” World Wide Fund for Nature. 2015. Web. 13 Jan 2016.
