Monday, March 28, 2011

Scientist Forgets the Ocean is Not a Dump

Dr Tracey Shimmield of the Scottish Association of Marine Sciences should be ashamed. She is being paid by the Ramu mining company to promote ocean dumping of mine tailings in Papua New Guinea. The ocean is not a dump.

This is where Ramu wants to dump in the ocean: 

"The area in which this occurs is within the “Coral Triangle”, an area described by marine biologists as having the highest diversity of corals, fish, crustaceans, molluscs and marine plant species in the world (Veron et al., 2009). SE Asian countries (including Papua New Guinea) have vowed to protect and conserve this region of exceptional biodiversity. This region is also the location of one of the few healthy tuna fisheries in the ocean (Lehodey et al., 1997)," according to Science Alert

This is why Ramu wants to dump in the ocean:

"...a conventional land-based tailings storage facility is too expensive," says Science Alert. 

This is how little Ramu cares about the ocean:


"Aside from a few scattered bottom samples, virtually nothing is known about the deep area that will be buried in Fe/Mn rich silty clay refinery tailings, that are enriched in a chemical soup of trace elements and refinery reagents."

Here's how you can help:

Make some noise - don't stand for this. Support organizations like culturalsurvival.org, which help indigenous people fight pollution.


Read
the full story here.

Other sources:
http://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/papua-new-guinea/world-bank-backs-marine-dumping-mine-waste-papua-new-guinea
http://ramumine.wordpress.com/
http://ramumine.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/ramu-mine-waste-dumping-trial-summary-day-2/

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