Impacted communities in Panguna tailings areas want mine waste removed

Impacted communities surrounding the Panguna mine say they want the Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) to conduct a proper cleanup of its wastes in their community before it can continue to operate any new activities in the mining lease area.

The autonomous Bougainville government granted Exploration License (EL01) to the BCL early this year to conduct exploration work on Panguna Mine.

This has not gone down well with impacted local communities of the upper, middle and lower tailings and the coastal corridor communities across the west coast of Bougainville.

Director of the Lower Tailings Association, William Karioto, told NBC News that impacted communities in these areas have been devastated by wastes from the Panguna Mine for over 40 years and they want these wastes removed.

“We’re not happy with ABG president and the mining department for permitting the exploration license to BCL without consulting the people of lower tailings, middle tailings, upper tailings and coastal corridor,” Karioto said.

“ABG and mining department must treat us equally like the land owners.

“Currently, at this time, there is a huge impact of the wastes produced by BCL. It's taken us 40 years to wait for BCL and ABG to clean up this waste but nothing has been done since then.

“Now that BCL has been granted the exploration license, we want them to clean up the old waste before opening the mine.

Mr Karioto continued to say, “The tailings have been mainly affected with sediments building up and new analyst areas taken down by exploration impacting the livelihood of the people.

“There is no proper water for drinking, no land for making garden and no suitable area to build houses.

“Considering all of these, we urge ABG and BCL to address these issues accordingly. As the landowners of the tailings and coastal corridor, we want the ABG, BCL and mining department to have a round table discussion with us and come up with possible solutions before the mine opens.”