DENR urged to stop construction of nickel plant

Sen. Edgardo J. Angara is urging the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to stop the $150-million construction of a Filipino-Japanese-owned nickel processing plant in Palawan, saying the facility will cause irreversible damage to the country’s last environmental frontier.

Angara’s move is being backed by the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) which called on the DENR to review the possible impact and dangers posed by the mettalurgical facility.

Majority-owned by Japanese company Sumitomo Metals, the plant is designed to produce 10,000 metric tons (MT) of nickel to be recovered from low grade ore coming from the Rio Tuba open pit mining activity. Sumitomo Metals’ Filipino partner is the Rio Tuba Nickel Mining Corp. (RTNMC) which has an existing mining concession in the area.

"The nickel processing plant is an ecological time bomb which threatens to ravage Palawan and the DENR’s issuance of an environmental compliance certificate (ECC) to RTNMC to construct the plant must be revoked," Angara said .

The entire nickel output will be exported to Japan. However, a massive volume of sulfuric acid, a highly toxic chemical used to produce nickel will be imported from Japan at the rate of 270,000 MT yearly or 5.4 million MT in 20 years.

The facility is 70 percent complete.

"Everything about the project is wrong. Sumitomo and the Japanese government are contributing to the environmental degradation of Palawan," Angara said.

Angara attended the special meeting called by the PCSD which included Senator Robert Jaworski, chairman of the Senate committee on environment, Palawan representatives Abraham Mitra and Vicente Sandoval who is also PCSD chairman, scientists, geologists and leaders of environmental groups in Palawan.

Angara stressed there are several uncalculated risks in the storage, delivery and use of sulfuric acid and other toxic chemical substances.

RTNMC’s mining concession covers 5,265 hectares and is located at Barangay Rio Tuba in Palawan. It has already stripped about 11 million MT of ore from its Rio Tuba concessions, almost all of it shipped to Sumitomo Metals.

Dr. Romeo Quijano, a toxicologist from the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital, who conducted studies on the impact of mining disasters like Marcopper in Marinduque, said mine tailings like mercury, arsenic and cadmimum turn to dust and may settle in the water system. He added that methanol, sulfuric acid and sulfur gas to be used in the operation of the processing plant are all deadly.

Methanol can cause blindness when it penetrates the skin. Hydrogen sulfuric acid gas can cause respiratory paralysis and brain damage due to hyperventilation while sulfuric acid can cause coughing, irritation of the eyes and respiratory tract as well as dental problems.