Unforunately, these things are not that common in Papua New Guinea. Companies typically dump waste into the river. Harmony Gold (whose recently spun a disaster into a media success story with the trapped miners in South Africa) claims that the Hidden Valley project will be the first. Though, this claim will depend on the dam making it into full production. The Ok Tedi dam, of course, was destroyed by an earthquake prior to completion and it was never replaced. And yes, Papua New Guinea does have regulations about these sort of things.
October 25, 2007
Hidden Valley tailings dam article
Posted by jamonhalvaksz under Uncategorized | Tags: gold, mining, Papua New Guinea |[2] Comments
March 7, 2009 at 8:17 am
I am currently doing my 4th year in Mining Engineering at the PNG University of Technology. I am working on my project ” Design of tailings dam at Hidden Valley”. I would like some data/information about the project so that I can do my project.
Regards
Nathan Suagaia
March 11, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Hi Nathan, sounds like a great project however I might not be the best person to discuss the actual design. I worked in the villages of Winima and Elauru looking at the impact mining and conservation were having on community social life. If you haven’t already, I would suggest talking with Ngawae Mitio, who teaches in the communications and development department at Unitech. He used to work for the mine and would be better suited to help you with information. Harry Sakulas used to be involved in Wau environmental issues before joining Unitech and he would also be a good source of information. I’d be happy to help where I can, but as an anthropologists, my primary focus was on the people. Best of luck. Jamon