JAKARTA — A controversial zinc-and-lead mine being developed on the Indonesian island of Sumatra has hit a roadblock after the country’s Supreme Court ordered the revocation of its environmental permit. In its Aug. 12 ruling, the court upheld a lower court’s earlier decision that the environmental permit should never have been issued in the first place in light of experts’ warnings of potentially disastrous fallout due to the project’s location on an active tectonic fault. “Now the Supreme Court has made it clear: further development of this mine is unlawful,” Mangatur Lumbantoruan, a resident of the village of Sumbari in Dairi district, North Sumatra province, said in response to the ruling. “The mine is dangerous. Government and financiers should withdraw their support.” Residents of Sumbari and other villages sitting within the project’s zone of influence have for years petitioned against the development of the mine. The central object of their criticism is the planned dam to hold mining waste, or tailings. An independent analysis by experts identified extreme risks of the dam collapsing because it would sit in one of the most seismically active regions in the world. Data from news portal Volcano Discovery show there are about 41 earthquakes on average per year in or near Dairi. So far this year alone, Dairi has experienced 27 quakes of magnitudes above 2, and up to 4.7. As a result of previous volcanic eruptions, the region is caked in a thick deposit of unconsolidated volcanic ash. And it’s on this relatively…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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South Africa Today – Environment
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