Deaths at Lynas’ rare earths plant evoke new calls for its shutdown

Calls renew for Lynas shutdown after third death at plant  Malaysian Insider, 14 Dec 13 Opponents of the Lynas Advance Materials Plant in Pahang have renewed calls for the closure of the controversial rare earth refinery following the death of an engineer who drowned in a pond at the facility yesterday. The Save Malaysia Stop Lynas (SMSL) movement said the fatal accident, the third in two years at the plant near Kuantan, Pahang, should be viewed seriously, and warranted a full investigation.

“This is very serious. We are demanding the government shut down the Lynas Advance Materials Plant immediately and cease all activities in the plant until a full and comprehensive independent investigation is completed by the relevant authorities like the Department of Occupational Safety and Health to establish the nature and cause/s of the fatal accident,” its chairman Tan Bun Teet said today…….

The plant in Gebeng has been mired in controversy after residents claimed it emits the hazardous thorium compound that can cause cancer among humans. It is known that the processing of rare earth materials would produce a thorium by-product.

The Australian-owned plant’s ability to obtain a temporary licence, despite not revealing a waste disposal facility, has enraged activists who have opposed the company’s practices and the government for allowing such a plant within a 30km radius of 700,000 residents.

Groups have called for the government and Lynas shareholders to remove the company’s operations from Malaysia amid the company’s poor performance in the Australian bourse due to weakened rare earth prices.

SMSL said although previously some of the firm’s shareholders had wanted to conduct best practices in its operations abroad, it has been business as usual for Lynas.

However, yesterday’s death has given the group more cause to question the plant’s operational procedures and safety hazards……http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/calls-renew-for-lynas-shutdown-after-third-death-at-plant

Sorry history of Australian rare earths company Lynas’ venture into Malaysia

Lynas was attracted to Malaysia because it was offered tax free status for 10 years.

there was little mention of the waste — or “residue”, as Lynas prefers to call it.

Lynas and its supporters assert its operations are completely safe, but as NM reported on Monday, others — including scientists — are less confident.

The IAEA also recommended that Lynas proceed no further until it had filed comprehensive plans for the permanent disposal of waste, decommissioning of the plant and remediation of the site at the end of its life.

Lynas’ waste plans a toxic pipe dream  Aliran,   19 December 2012 Scientists and community leaders are concerned about radioactive waste from Lynas’ Malaysian plant but the company representative who took Wendy Bacon’s questions brushed off the criticism. This is the second of two articles about Lynas by Wendy Bacon. Read the first here.http://aliran.com/11005.html Australian rare earth company Lynas has always known it had a waste problem.

It plans to process rare earth concentrate, imported from its mine at Mount Weld in Western Australia, at its Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (Lamp) in Malaysia. It will not only produce rare earths for export but also a huge amount of waste, including more than a million cubic metres of low level radioactive material.

Kuantan High Court to hear appeal against permit for rare earths reprocessing

Lynas will be in court in Malaysia on 19 December. The Save Malaysia Stop Lynas (SMSL) campaignerswill be appealing against the Kuantan High Court decision to lift its stay on the company being able to exercise its rights to proceed under the temporary licence.

The toxic waste that’s not in Australia’s backyard http://aliran.com/11005.html  18 Dec 12, Australian-owned company Lynas is quietly shipping rare earth to a processing plant in Malaysia – without a firm plan in place to dispose of dangerous radioactive waste. Wendy Bacon reports.

If a manufacturing plant involving radioactive materials moved into your community, one of the first things you would ask is, “what’s going to happen to the waste?”

This is exactly how residents of Kuantan on Malaysia’s east coast reacted when the Australian company Lynas announced plans to build Lamp, the world’s biggest rare earth processing plant in their area.

Several years later, they have no clear answer. Indeed last week, while the plant that will use concentrate imported from Lynas’s rare earth mine at Mount Weld in Western Australia was finally ramping up for production, the Malaysian government and the company were in direct conflict about what would happen to the waste.

Anti Lynas movement explained

Why should we allow anything less in terms of safety standards than Australia? Does the BN government feel that the Australian Government is being too fussy? Or that Malaysians can take more radiation than the Australians?

The Anti-Lynas movement: Are we being unreasonable? – Jeyakumar Devaraj, The Malaysian Insider , 13 Dec 12  Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj is a PSM central committee member and MP for Sungai Siput.“……..Vastly Differing Standards  First, a brief overview of the industrial process of separating the rare earths from the rest of the ore.

Lynas actually has the license to operate a refining plant in Australia itself. Lynas acquired this license upon buying over Aston, the company that owned the mine in Mount Weld. In the mid 1990s, Ashton applied for a license to refine the ore, and in the process of consultations with the public in the region, agreed to a set of specific performances. If Lynas wants to use the refining license that came with the purchase of Ashton, it is committed to observing all the procedures agreed to by Ashton earlier.The table below compares requirements that Lynas would have to observe in Australia with the requirements for it in Malaysia.

The government has said in Parliament that Lynas is keen on operating a plant here because the total cost in Malaysia is only 30 per cent of the cost of refining the ore in Australia! (Despite the fact that it has to be transported from Mount Weld to Freemantle Port, loaded on ships and then brought some 4000 km to Kuantan for refining!) That means safety precautions in Malaysia are so much more lax than those required in Australia.

This point alone makes me uncomfortable. Why should we allow anything less in terms of safety standards than Australia? Does the BN government feel that the Australian Government is being too fussy? Or that Malaysians can take more radiation than the Australians?
Lynas’ cavalier attitude with regard to solid waste

Did Lynas deceive the Malaysian government about radioactive wastes from rare earths reprocessing?

The Lynas management were able to avoid a Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment before the project was approved because they managed to mislead our authorities that the material being refined was not radioactive –

The Anti-Lynas movement: Are we being unreasonable? – Jeyakumar Devaraj, The Malaysian Insider , 13 Dec 12  Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj is a PSM central committee member and MP for Sungai Siput.”………..In any case, the IAEA team made 11 recommendations to ensure the safety of the Lynas Refinery, and one among these is that the manner in which solid waste will be managed should be submitted by Lynas and approved by AELB before Lynas is given approval to commence operation. However the Temporary Operating License approved on 7/2/2012 allows Lynas to start operations even before they present their proposed plan for comprehensive management of the solid waste – the TOL only requires them to submit the waste management plan within 10 months of starting operations!!

Ten months have passed, and a safe permanent depository has yet to be identified and agreed upon by all parties. Instead Lynas is still talking of rendering the waste “safe”.

In a statement on Monday, Lynas said it would convert LAMP’s water leach purification (WLP) residue which contains a low-level of naturally occurring radioactive material , into a commercially safe product called “synthetic aggregate”. Lynas also said that the plant to convert the WLP had been built in LAMP and was now ready for operation.

From information such as this I have come to the following conclusions

Lynas must export radioactive waste from Malaysia, to comply with Malaysian government

Four Malaysian cabinet MPs (responsible for trade, science, natural resources and health) have now released a joint statement, saying the temporary licence granted to Lynas requires it to remove “all the residue” from the plant out of the country.

They also warned that if Lynas does not comply, the Government can suspend or revoke the licence and order it “to immediately cease operation”.

Malaysia orders Lynas to ship out waste http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-11/an-malaysia-orders-lynas-to-ship-out-waste/4422084  Dec 11, 2012   . Australian mining company Lynas and its plans to process rare earths in Pahang state have caused local communities and environmental groups to raise concerns over the management of radioactive byproduct waste

Malaysia has ordered the Australian miner Lynas Corp. to ship out all the waste from its new rare earths plant, because of environmental and health concerns.

Lynas began processing rare earths at the $800 million dollar plant in
Malaysia’s eastern Pahang state last month.

However, residents and environmental groups are worried about
radioactive residue from the factory.

Four Malaysian cabinet MPs (responsible for trade, science, natural resources and health) have now released a joint statement, saying the temporary licence granted to Lynas requires it to remove “all the residue” from the plant out of the country.

More confusion about Lynas rare earths radioactive waste disposal plans

Hello, didn’t Lynas say wastes to be exported? Malaysiakini  Dec 10, 2012 
‘Now is the time to ask the court to suspend the TOL because AELB has said that they will enforce Lynas pledge to export the waste.’

Wastes won’t be exported out of Malaysia, says Lynas

Odin: Lynas Malaysia managing director Mashal Ahmad, you have been reported to have said no residues from your plant would be exported out of Malaysia, as your company needed to abide by international conventions that prohibit the export of hazardous wastes to other countries.

This means that the residues which your plant will produce are toxic. All this while, however, we have been told that the residues would be safe to humans and the environment.

Does this not mean that your company, and those outside it but who support your operations, have been lying?
If the residues are toxic in the sense that they are fatal to you only if you ingest it, but it is non-toxic in the sense that it does not radiate any rays or exude any gases in strengths or in amounts, whichever applies, that are highly deleterious to your health, why then can they not be exported?

In an earlier comment of mine, I said that this project might indeed pose no hazards to the well-being of humans and the environment within its proximity, but the way the matter had been handled had caused suspicion in some people as to its harmlessness.

A few things have not been made clear. For example, there has been no statement on what exactly will be done with the residues. So far, we have heard that there have been no plans yet on where and how to store these.

Next, we heard that these would be exported. We have also heard that these would be processed into commercial products for export and left zero wastes.

We shall assume that by ‘residues’ and ‘wastes’ here, they have referred to the solid discards. Or, are fluids included? http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/216281

Lynas rare earths tax-free status not popular with Malaysian people

Hello, didn’t Lynas say wastes to be exported? Malaysiakini  Dec 10, 2012 Xabiso: Do the people know about the 12-year tax free incentive gifted to this foreign company listed in Australia? Why am I not surprise that they are keeping the toxic waste in Lynas?

I remember someone giving an assurance last time that the waste will be exported back to Australia. We are talking about the toxic waste from processing rare earth, not the raw material (if the raw material is radioactive, Australian can’t even send it to Malaysia).

Before plant operation – apa pun boleh (everything can be done). After start-up – dah tunjuk belang (show true colours). http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/216281

Malaysia will enforce Lynas pledge to export radioactive wastes

Hello, didn’t Lynas say wastes to be exported? Malaysiakini  Dec 10, 2012 Blogsmith: Now is the time to ask the court to suspend the temporary operating licence because AELB DG has said that they will enforce Lynas’ pledge to export the waste.

From this Malaysiakini report: Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) director-general Raja Abdul Aziz Raja Adnan has clarified that the regulatory body will enforce Lynas’ pledge to export all its waste in the form of commercial products overseas.

“The management and removal of residue is an integral part of the Temporary Operating Licence (TOL) conditions and agreements and is permanently documented in the licence document issued to Lynas on Sept 5, 2012.

“Issue of removal of residue being non-binding for Lynas, does not arise. It is legally binding and AELB will enforce it.” http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/216281

Malaysia a dumping ground and tax haven for Lynas’ rare earths company?

Hello, didn’t Lynas say wastes to be exported? Malaysiakini  Dec 10, 2012  Kgen: What cheaper production cost? What about the cost of transporting the earth from Australia to Malaysia? Most of the processes are automated so labour cost does not factor significantly in the production cost.

Does the 12-year tax holiday, lax environmental standards and an authoritarian regime which can impose its will on the people have anything to do with the choice of location?http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/216281

Hello, didn’t Lynas say wastes to be exported? Malaysiakini  Dec 10, 2012  Not Confused: So, the waste from the Lynas plant cannot be exported from Malaysia because it is hazardous, as defined under the international convention.

I had refrained from commenting on this issue as I felt that too many professionals, supposedly with some integrity, had reported and clearly stated that there was no risk to any Malaysians from the operation of the plant.

However, it is now confirmed that the waste from the plant will indeed be toxic so will have to be “disposed of” in Malaysia.

This seems like Malaysia is being used as a dumping ground simply because operating costs here are less and we have a corrupt government which is presumably being paid handsomely for licensing their operations. http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/216281