T

he local government of West Sumbawa regency in West Nusa Tenggara province will no longer allow PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara (NNT) to dump its mine tailings into the sea after its permit to do so expires this month.

The local administration’s spokesman, Najamuddin Amy, said that the company’s activities had caused unrest among people and environmental activists in the regency.

He added that the people complained that the dumping of the company’s tailings into Senunu Bay waters not only damaged the environment but also could negatively impact the local people’s health.

He said the regency had a sent a letter to Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta asking him not to extend the permit.

“Through the letter, the government of West Sumbawa conveys its rejection of Newmont’s tailings in Senunu Bay waters,” he said as quoted by detikfinance.com on Tuesday.

NNT is a subsidiary of the United States-based Newmont Corporation, which operates a massive copper-gold mine in Batuhijau in the regency. It has dumped its tailings into the bay since 2000 under a license from the Office of the State Minister for the Environment. The permit is renewable every four years. NNT’s current permit expires on May 8.

As many as 50 activists from several green organizations staged a rally in Mataram, the capital of West Nusa Tenggara, Wednesday demanding that the government not extend the permit to dump into the bay.

“We urge the government to not renew NNT’s permit to dump its mine tailings into the Senunu bay because it has damaged the environment,” said Supriadi, the coordinator of the activists.

Activists said the company’s tailings that were dumped into the bay had caused damage to the marine flora and fauna in the surrounding waters, especially among fish. Local fishermen’s catches have continued to decline since the company was allowed to dump its tailings in the area, the activists claimed.

Newmont spokesperson Kasan Mulyono told The Jakarta Post that his company had accepted a letter from the local authority about its plan to stop using the Senunu bay as a dumping site.

He said the mining company was studying the order from legal perspectives to determine the best way to respond to the letter.

“We’re reviewing all the possible options we can take to find the best solution,” he said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

The local authority’s move to ban the company from dumping its mine tailings into the bay came following the central government’s recent decision to buy the remaining 7 percent of NNT shares, which would be sold to locals as part of the mandatory divestment program imposed on foreign mining firms.

The West Sumbawa regency administration has threatened to close NNT’s Batuhijau mine after the central government decided recently to buy the shares through a state-owned investment agency, Pusat Investasi Pemerintah (PIP), instead of giving the local administration the chance to buy the shares.

In previous years, the central government pegged the local authority to buy the shares.

NNT’s foreign shareholders are required to gradually divest up to 31 percent of their shares to locals. They have so far sold 24 percent of the shares to a joint venture between the local government and a subsidiary of coal giant PT Bumi Resources.