Article 33: Public Health Cost around Mining Is Higher

PURUK CAHU, 30/ 1- BEST COAL. An employee of one of the coal companies is standing in a four-meter coking coal outcrop flowed by a small river that forms a waterfall in Lampanut Block, Barito Tuhup Raya District, Murung Raya Regency, Kalimantan Tengah, Thursday (29/1). Coking coal is the best black gold type compared to thermal one that is used as raw material in steel factory industry. PICTURE BY ANTARA/KASRIADI/ss/pd/09

Halimah’s hands were scraping the sands in Sungumai river that was as shallow as an inch of a hand again and again. She made a basin so that she could take the water from the river free from the sands by using a bucket shower. Halimah and other residents of Rangkiling Bakti have made use of the river to take a bath and wash dirty clothes for decades.

“The water was clear, now it is polluted,” said Halimah while rubbing clothes. This story is taken from Mongabay.co.id page uploaded on 13 March 2018.

The flow of the Sungumai river has been diverted to fulfill extractive needs since the operations of mining firms in 2016 despite hundreds of residents living in neighborhood units 03 and 04, Rangkiling Bakti, who have been confused of looking for clean water.

Senior researcher from Article 33 Indonesia, Ermy Ardhyanti, said that coal mining had created problems for people living surrounding it. Households around mining sites tend to bear more expensive health costs, longer time for collecting water and poor water quality.

“The households that stay in mining sites spend higher health cost per capita, the difference may reach Rp238,000 per year compared to those that don’t live in the areas,” Ermy said during the discussion of Road to Indonesia Development Forum (IDF) 2018 titled National Coal Vision: Scaling Production and Environment Impacts, at the start of June 2018.

IDF 2018 is a forum held by the National Development Planning Agency or Bappenas and is supported by the Government of Australia through Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI). IDF 2018 drives accelerated development in Indonesia to be more equal and more sustainable based on knowledge, experience and fact.

This year, IDF takes a theme of “Pathways to Tackle Regional Disparities across the Archipelago”. The result of this year’s forum will be used as materials to compose National Medium Term Development Plan 2020-2024.

In regards to the impacts of coal mining, Ermy said the additional total of implicit public health cost living around mining sites were about Rp1.77 trillion per year or around 0.02% from Gross Domestic Product or GDP. The number is the result of multiplying the total of population around mining sites who suffer from general illness.

From clean water access, Ermy said the households who were living in mining areas tended to have spent longer time gathering drink water. They were forced to have consumed polluter drink water. As a result, drink water consumption was lower.

The households in mining sites must allocate longer time to collect clean water. They need additional time between 5 and 30 minutes to ensure collected water don’t smell bad or don’t produce foams.

“Based on revenue value in 2015, the wasted time was valued at around Rp1.15 trillion, or about 0.01% of GDP,” said Ermy.

As such, Ermy said coal mining must consider the spreading of public residences and river flow area. She said the government must examine coal mining permits with contributions to the state revenue and development.

In response to Ermy’s inputs, Executive Director of Indonesia Coal Mining Association Hendra Sinaga said mining companies must paying attention and were complying with some aspects related to environment. According to Hendra, the reference was a Regulation from the Ministry of Energy and Human Resources No. 34 Year 2017.

“The companies must apply good technical mining rules, implement reclamation and post-mining procedures, conduct development and public empowerment programs, obey environment supporting power tolerance limit, guarantee standard implementation and environment quality standard according to region’s characteristic and maintain the sustainability of the function and water resource supporting energy,” Hendra said while reading the Ministry Regulation.

Head of the Sub Directorate of the Mining Mineral Geology and Geothermal of the National Development and Planning Ministry Togu Pardede said the government was limiting coal production only up to 400 million tons per year in 2019. In 2016, national coal production reaches 434 million ton or 3.57% exceeding targeted 419 million tons.

Last year, coal production achieves 461 million tons, well above targeted 413 million tons. For this year, the government hopes coal production will reach about 406 million tons. The coal limitation is important to keep environment at balance, especially coal mining in conservatory areas.

Shifting to Green Industry

Senior Fellow Researcher of the Center of Climate Change Funding Policy and Multilateral of the Fiscal Policy Agency of Finance Ministry Joko Tri Haryanto said regions that were able to manage State Budget on their own usually had high Original Local Government Revenue. Commonly, the regions with high Original Local Government Revenue rely on gas and oil or mining sectors.

Mining centers, such as Kalimantan and Sumatera, have strong fiscal capacity and autonomy. However, Joko said the regions were facing declining growth prospects. He cited East Kalimantan that was recording negative growth between 2010 and 2017. The similar thing also occurs in Sumatera and Sulawesi.

“Five big areas in Kalimantan are experiencing negative economic growth, the dusk of mining is happening,” Joko said.

Before it gets too late, East Kalimantan formulates Green Kaltim that marks its shifting from the mining sector to other sectors. The province looks for developing other sectors after mining concludes some years from now. Joko wishes the plan will be followed by other regions that have so far depended solely on mining outputs. ***