‘I’ll prove it’s safe’ Ongkili to visit Bkt Merah

The minister says he will visit Bukit Merah along with Pakatan Rakyat MPs to prove that the place is safe from 'hazardous' radiation pollution.

KUALA LUMPUR: In a bid to prove that Bukit Merah is safe from radiation pollution, the Science Technology and Innovation Minister Maximus Ongkili will personally visit the allegedly hazardous dump site there.

Speaking to reporters in the Parliament lobby, Ongkili said that he would willingly accompany Pakatan Rakyat MPs as well as an anti-Lynas group there.

However, he said that he would only do so after he had settled his business with the Parliamentary Select Committee on electoral reforms.

“I will go down. I want to visit Bukit Merah myself. I’ll bring the gadget myself. I will bring some of you (reporters), the NGOs, together with (DAP Batu Gajah MP) Fong (Po Kuan). But let me finish my PSC first,” he said, adding that this would probably happen during the first or second week of April.

Ongkili said this after Parliament had debated on suspicions of radiation pollution in Bukit Merah, where the Mitsubishi Asian Rare Earth plant once operated.

Fong, who filed an emergency motion on the matter yesterday, had cited a Malaysiakini report where anti-Lynas group Save Malaysia Stop Lynas (SMSL) had obtained supposedly “hazardous” readings there.

Readings at the former rare earth plant and the Bukit Kledang toxic waste dump site showed readings of 0.19 and 0.2 microsieverts respectively.

SMSL said that these readings showed that Bukit Merah’s levels went beyond the Atomic Energy Licensing Board’s (AELB) safe level of 1 milisievert a year.

During the debate, however, Ongkili said that SMSL’s findings were inaccurate, as SMSL had failed to take background radiation into account.

He said that the background radiation reading in the Bukit Merah area was found to be in the range of 0.2 to 0.75 microsieverts an hour.

Ongkili said that the reading there was higher than many parts of Malaysia because Bukit Merah used to be a former tin mining area.

‘You just can’t interpret readings’

In fact, the minister said that SMSL’s readings were actually lower than the Bukit Merah norm. The group also, he said, did not subtract this number from the background reading.

“The reading of 0.2 microsieverts an hour is also 1.6 milisieverts a year. But when this reading is subtracted with the background reading -of 1.6 milisieverts a year, the final reading is zero,” he told the House.

Holding a radiation detector (called the “Identifinder”) during the debate, the minister showed the House that the Parliament lobby actually showed a reading of 0.25 microsiverts an hour; higher than SMSL’s Bukit Merah findings.

Ongkili added that there were different radiation readings in different parts of the country, with Kuala Lumpur showing the highest readings in the country.

Speaking to reporters later, he said that the anti-Lynas group was not qualified to handle radiation detectors.

“There is some confusion, when you go and measure (it) yourself. Even the reading of the metre, you have to be qualified and certified to read and interpret.

“When they talk about 1 milisievert per year, it is on top of background readings, which is what is in the natural environment…You cannot simply go and read and interpret the facts!” he said.

On a related matter, Ongkili said that there was no link between Bukit Merah’s birth defects and leukemia cases to the rare earth plant.

Nevertheless, the minister said that he had asked the Health Ministry to see if there was indeed a link between the rare earth plant and these problems.

“…insufficient basis to establish the link, but of course, they (Health Ministry) are still monitoring the numbers on this particular case,” he said.

The Asian Rare Earth plant in Bukit Merah was closed in 1992 following years of protests from local residents.

The area is still undergoing a massive RM303 million clean-up by Mitsubishi Chemicals.

None of the people in Bukit Merah were compensated, although Mitsubishi Chemicals donated RM500,000 to the community’s schools in an out-of-court settlement.

Locals in the 11,000-large town have blamed the plant for the population’s many birth defects and eight leukemia cases. Seven of the leukemia cases have since died.