NSR backs ocean dumping

From Mining Monitor Volume 5 Number 3 September 2000

NSR Environmental Consultants Ltd, a Melbourne-based consultancy turning over millions of dollars and employing over twenty people, is often called on by mining companies for advice on controversial projects.

Over a period of 26 years NSR has worked on more than 400 projects, advising clients on projects as diverse as a woodchip plant, the Tasmanian Hydro Electric Commission’s proposed Franklin River dam, BHP’s Ok Tedi mine, a gas project in Burma and the Esmeralda disaster in Romania.

NSR has carved out a niche working on mining projects involving the dumping of tailings into rivers and oceans. Since 1982 NSR has advised companies on 24 ocean disposal projects which have been clustered in just eight countries ­ Papua New Guinea (4), Chile (1), Fiji (1), the Philippines (3), New Caledonia (4), Indonesia (6), the Solomon Islands (1), and Canada (1).

NSR goes beyond scientific advice to corporate PR work. In a promotional brochure NSR boasts that it “provides advocacy support and strategic advice to clients and offers environmental services for the planning and permitting of new resource development projects, principally for the mining and petroleum industries”.1

When BHP was desperately seeking to defeat legal action by PNG landowners over the impact of tailings dumped in the Fly River, NSR was hired to provide assistance. NSR also advised Placer Pacific on river dumping of tailings in the Strickland River from the Porgera mine.2

When NSR was contracted by Minorco Services to advise on the proposed Weda Bay Nickel Project on Halmahera Island in Indonesia’s Maluku province in 1998 it advised on the ocean disposal of mine wastes as well as on “non-technical issues i.e., permitting/public opinion/NGOs”.3

While the international community was working to isolate the Burmese military regime, in 1994 NSR was working for US oil giant Unocal to prepare a “pipeline route analysis” on the controversial Yandana gas project pipeline.4

When Placer Pacific was seeking Fijian government approval for the Namoisi project, NSR was brought in to do presentations on ocean disposal of mine wastes to government officials.5 To assist it with its lobbying efforts NSR has prepared an “introductory video” on ocean disposal of mine wastes in English, French, Indonesian and “other languages as required”. NSR has advised governments on mining regulations and policy. In Ghana NSR was hired between 1989 and 1993 to advise the Minerals Commission of Ghana on environmental regulations for new mines, as well as environmental impact assessment at 11 operating mines and advanced prospects.6

NSR was also hired in 1999 by the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources to provide advice “to the Mines and Geosciences Bureau on the formulation of a DSTP policy for the Philippines”.7

Two years earlier, Western Mining Corporation (WMC) had hired NSR to advise it of the prospects of ocean disposal of mine wastes being used at WMC’s controversial Tampakan project and the implications on this of the 1972 London Dumping Convention.8

When it came to the Simberi Gold Project on Simberi Island, New Ireland Province in PNG, NSR was hired by the US-based Kennecott Corporation to advise on ocean disposal of tailings. Between 1988-91 and again in 1996-97 NSR was advising the joint venture on ocean disposal of mine wastes and other environmental and social issues. In 1999 NSR was called in once more to advise on how the project could qualify for financing by the US funded International Finance Corporation.9

In 1999 NSR was hired by Rio Tinto to provide advice on how to maintain access to a potential orebody, the Palu gold prospect in central Sulawesi Province, that was located within a Forest Park. According to NSR it “developed an investigation program including consultation with government and non-government organisations”. Rio Tinto hired NSR the year before to evaluate environmental issues in reopening the Bougainville copper mine.10

On several occasions Mining Monitor sought an interview with NSR Director, Alistair Sharp-Paul, who declined. “I have given this matter some thought and it [an interview] is not something that I think we can oblige you with unfortunately, so sorry about that, so there it is”, he told MM.

Bob Burton

1 Natural Systems Resources Environmental Consultants Ltd (NSR), Oil and Gas Project Listing, www.nsrenv.com.au, 15 November 1999, page 3.
2 NSR, Mining in High Rainfall Tropical environments: Project Listing, www.nsrenv.com.au, 15 November 1999, page 9.
3 NSR , Mining: Deep Sea Tailing Placement (DSTP) Project Listing, www.nsrenv.com.au, undated.
4 NSR, Oil and Gas: Project Listing, op cit, page 3.
5 NSR, Deep Sea Tailing Placement: Project Listing, op cit, page 1.
6 NSR, Mining in High Rainfall Tropical environments: Project Listing, op cit, page 3
7 NSR, Deep Sea Tailing Placement: Project Listing, op cit, page 5.
8 Ibid.
9 Natural Systems Resources Environmental Consultants Ltd, Mining in High Rainfall Tropical environments: Project Listing, www.nsrenv.com.au, 15 November 199, page 9.
10 Ibid.