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By Shannon TeohMarch 19, 2011

Signboard indicating the construction of an access road

to the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP).

Signboard indicating the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant

(LAMP) construction site and office.

Gebeng plant a time bomb, say NGOs

Construction work at the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) in Gebeng. Pictures by Choo Choy May

KUALA LUMPUR, March 20 Environmental groups renewed calls this week to stop work on the RM700 million rare earth plant in Gebeng, Kuantan.

Against the backdrop of the on-going nuclear plant crisis in Japan which was triggered by the huge earthquake last week, the NGOs said that the refinery will generate

radioactive waste that brings back memories of Bukit Merah, where a rare earth plant set up in the 1980s has been linked to at least eight leukaemia cases, seven resulting

in death.

As we are observing now in Japan, the waste is a sitting time bomb, said Environmental Protection Society of Malaysia (EPSM) president Nithi Nesadurai.

Local residents who formed Kuantan Environmental Watch Group (KEWG), an umbrella body for community stakeholders in the Pahang capital, have begun distributing

articles and pictures of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant as a warning to fellow residents of the possible disaster.

If Japan, which is known for its safety record and technology, cant avert disaster, how about us with our

inexperience? spokesman Jonathan Wong said.

The massive earthquake in Japan last Friday and the resulting explosions at nuclear power plants have fuelled fears

about the plant in Malaysias east coast which faces the Pacific Rims ring of fire.

The 9.0-magnitude earthquake sent a 10-metre-high tsunami surging into cities and villages, sweeping away everything

in its path.

Australian mining company Lynas Corporation has insisted that the rare earth ore to be refined in Gebeng has only

two per cent of the radioactive element thorium that was present in the raw material used in Bukit Merah.

The Bukit Merah plant, set up in 1985, was also subject to sustained protests by local residents. It is still undergoing a

massive cleanup operation that will cost RM300 million, nearly two decades after the plant was shut down.

But Lynas has already begun construction of the rare earth refinery in Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razaks home

state of Pahang where the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) is planning to drum up the issue ahead of a general

election expected to take place within the year.

Lynas expects to begin refining the rare earth metals, used in such high-technology products as smartphones, hybrid cars and even bombs, by the end of next year in an

operation that may be worth over RM5 billion in the first year, increasing to RM8 billion in the next.

Last week, Lynas told The Malaysian Insiderthat it is planning to reprocess the waste into a cement mixture for

road-building with approved levels of thorium, although it has not finalised details.

However, the environmentalists contacted were unanimous in their demand that work be halted until all issues had

been addressed, expressing a lack of confidence that the government would have the political will to withhold approval

should the plant not meet safety standards.

After Lynas has spent RM700 million to build the plant, is the government really going to say no? We are very

cautious of any assurance being given as were heard it all before when the Asian Rare Earth plant was being built in

Bukit Merah, Nithi said.

We have heard no solution at all to dealing with the waste. We want to know what it is before Lynas starts

operations, not just assurances that they will manage it, Wong, a founding member of KEWG, told The Malaysian

Insider.

He claimed that since the project was first mooted in 2007, Lynas has only met the residents once in late 2008 and did

not respond at all to the question of waste disposal.

Malaysia

ng plant a time bomb, say NGOs - The Malaysian Insider http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/gebeng-pla

3/20/2011