GOVERNMENT officials from the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Mines and Energy have visited the Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) at Gold ridge last week.
The visit was to carry out normal monitoring of the dewatering operations that is still underway.
During the visit, those from the Ministry of Environment have raised a concern regarding the location of the intake pump suction pipe, during the dewatering process.
The TSF weekly report for last week has confirmed that concerns were raised by the director and deputy director of the Environmental Division of MECDM.
“The director felt the pipe was sitting on exposed sediment, inspection by TSF supervisor and GCIL chairman proved otherwise”.
However, the location of the suction pipe for the intake pump was explained to MECDM officers last Friday and the information will be passed on to the Director.
The report also highlighted some issues with the TSF generator.
“The oil pressure has dropped slowly over the past few weeks, a leaky seal is believed to be the cause, maintenance continuing to monitor and Island Enterprises may be contracted to resolve the issue.
“After making adjustments to the system in the previous week operators have confirmed through observation that the Chlorine dioxide dosing rate has been successfully reduced to conserve reagent stocks,” it stated.
The 14th batch of samples was dispatched to ALS last week.
Continuous monitoring of the downstream environmental issues with communities is also still ongoing.
Meanwhile, there will be a possible site visit by government consultant from UQ Dr. Simon Albert, this week.
By RONALD TOITO’ONA
