| Grasberg Mine |
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Dutch Geologist Jean-Jacquez Dozy visited Indonesia in 1936 to scale Jayawijaya Mountain Glacier in the Irian Jaya province in western Papua. He made notes of a peculiar black rock with greenish coloring. In 1939 , he filed a report about the Ertsberg (Dutch for "ore mountain"). However, the events of World War II caused the report to go unnoticed. Twenty years later, geologist Forbes Wilson , working for the Freeport mining company, read the report. He had been searching for Nickel deposits, but forgot them as soon as he read the report. He quit smoking and exercised to prepare for a trip to explore the Ertsberg. The expedition, led by Forbes Wilson and Del Flint , discovered huge copper deposits at the Ertsberg in 1960. With permission from the Indonesian government, the Ertsberg mine was built 4,500 meters (14,000 feet) above the sea level. It opened in 1973 , and was expanded by Ertsberg East, which opened in 1981 . Steep Tramway s were used to transport equipment and people. Ore is dropped 600 meters (2,000 feet) from the mine, then ground into a powder and mixed with water to form a Slurry . The slurry is then pumped through pipes to the mine's port. After Smelting , each ton of Ore Yields 317 kilograms of copper, 30 grams of gold and 30 grams of Silver . By the mid-1980s, the mine had been largely depleted. However, Freeport did not sell the mine for $75 million, as had been offered. Instead he sent geologists for further search. In 1988 , Freeport identified reserves valued at $40 billion at Grasberg, just three kilometers (two miles) from the Ertsberg mine. The winding road to Grasberg was estimated to require $12 million to $15 million to be built. An Indonesian road-builder who contributed to Ertsberg road, took a Bulldozer and drove it downhill sketching the path. The road cost just $2 million when completed. As copper wires are being replaced by fiberoptics worldwide, low copper prices (historically lowest in 2000 ) have negatively impacted the profitability of the mine. The mine's Tailing s, generated at a rate of 700,000 tons per day, are the subject of some environmental concern. The waste rock remains in the highlands, up to 900 feet deep and covering 3 square miles, but the finer material gets washed into the headwaters of the Aikwa River and settles out all along the course of the river. Some 90 square miles of lowland areas along the river are extremely high in copper and sediment, and the fish have nearly disappeared from the river. In 1995 , the Overseas Private Investment Corporation revoked Freeport's insurance policy for environmental violations of a sort that would not be allowed in the US - a first for the OPIC, resulting in a lawsuit by Freeport. Various proposals were put forth by environmental ministers Sonny Keraf and Nabiel Makarim beginning in 2000, but nothing has yet come of these. EXTERNAL LINKS
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