Last week’s 11th International River Symposium heard how sulphur-laden tailings that have fanned out across the Ok Tedi floodplain pose a threat to animals and plants well into the future.
Rhithroecology Ltd consultant Ian Campbell, whose work on the Mekong River was recently blogged on New Mandala, told the ABC on Friday that if the sediments dry out and are exposed to oxygen, the sulphur will oxidise and create sulphuric acid, which dissolves toxic metals and creates a long-term toxicity.
From his conference abstract:
A mine waste tailings treatment project is being implemented to reduce sulphur content, and thus potential for acidification, in the tailings discharged to the river. However, potentially acid forming sediment from the mine has already been deposited over large areas of the middle Fly River floodplain.
While under water these sediments pose a low environmental risk, but if they are exposed to air they will oxidise and release water low in pH and high in metals potentially killing wetland plants and animals. The mine waste treatment project will dump the sulphide materials from the tailings in pits a few hundred metres from the river upstream of the Ok Tedi Fly-River junction. This material will be safe until river erosion cuts through to the pit releasing a pulse of the material into the river. The government and the company hope that some third party will intervene and re-mine the material before a catastrophe occurs.
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| A Middle Fly scene in 1994. |
Tags: pollution
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You will have to email the author. I googled for him and found: I.C.Campbell [at] bigpond.com.
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John
Is there any chance of getting a copy of the conference paper?
The ABC article is informative but the actual paper would be better.
I can only get into the conference program.
David Lawrence
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