Nineteen years and counting in Papua New Guinea: MCC's permissable environmental impacts for Madang

Someone has slipped me a precis on the Ramu Niko Environmental Impact Assessment amended to permit chromite export from the mine. And it is a real eye opener. It would seem that all the noise local NGOs made during their trial about differences between environmental plans and environmental impact assessments has finally been translated for management at MCC. Unfortunately, however, we now learn that impact assessment in Chinese does not mean impact mitigation. I think the real theme is clear up front, on page 2, as MCC makes the case for moving this substances down our highways to the Madang or Lae port. “Annual production of Chromite is predicted to reach 160,000 tons and this was proposed to be buried on site in the original approved Environmental Plan. If this large quantity of Chromite is not safely removed from the site, it may cause serious environmental impacts because of the possibility of Chromite (VI) leachate run-off into the downstream water bodies and its ecosystems.” (p24) Note also: -Chromite to travel the roads only at night---and the details of the plan tell us the trucks leave the plant in the morning and return by 5.30 PM {?} (p 21) -Transport in DRY season [good luck figuring that out----for extended RAINY SEASONS we will therefore see chromite STORED at mine site] (p 18/23) -Trucks will carry 20-40 tons each, not the reduced-for-caution amunts we heard about in the public meeting (p 20) -Transport calculated at a 200 day/year period which roughly DOUBLES our estimates of trucks on the road PER DAY from 40 to 80. (p 21) And we learn that: -A storage port for 5000 tonnes of Chromite storage is to be built at MCC offices to contain 5-10,000 tonnes covering 5 Ha of land (p 9/20) [As the notes here indicate Bates over is 1.5 Ha----so an area more than THREE TIMES THE SIZE OF BATES OVAL will be set aside 'at MCC offices' ----here in town-----to store this highly dangerous substances before transport to China] Finally, in a gesture of generosity form the State of China to the State of PNG: -New road signs to prevent accidents will be erected (p 20) Phew. Now I really feel safe. Luckily we have all kinds of fresh water bottled at Ramu to wash the filth of this message away. ---Wait for it to yield that special chromite kick in a few months!