THE people of Kuantan are facing health risks from the waste generated by the Lynas rare earth plant in Gebeng, while the Australian rare earth miner and its suppliers enjoy the profits, Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh said.

Reacting to the cabinet’s announcement yesterday to grant the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant a conditional licence extension of six months, Fuziah said Malaysia is now “forced to accept toxic waste” from the plant.

“Lynas is the winner. Also the suppliers to Lynas who will profit, while the people and the environment will be the ones to bear the health and pollution risks

“The people have to bear the risk of exposure and the effects from the radioactive water leach purification (WLP) residue produced by the plant for the last 4 years

“Kuantan residents have to accept the reality that radioactive WLP waste will now have to be kept in Pahang,” she said in a statement.

Fuziah, who is also a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, is currently in Mecca and issued her press statement from there.

The conditional extension granted yesterday requires Lynas to identify a site to build a permanent disposal facility for its WLP waste or move the waste out of Malaysia.

There are currently more than 580,000 tonnes of WLP residue at the plant, which began operations in late 2012, according to the Atomic Energy Licensing Board.

As such, plans to build a PDF to manage WLP residue must commence immediately, it advised.

Another condition is that Lynas must within the next four years build a cracking and leaching facility overseas, for the process of rare earths extraction, instead of conducting that process in Gebeng.

It must also stop all research and development work on using WLP radioactive residue in the making of “Condisoil” for agricultural purposes.

Fuziah said it was “madness” for the previous Barisan Nasional government to have agreed that radioactive WLP waste could be processed into Condisoil in Malaysia.

Lynas should never have been allowed to operate in Malaysia without a clear and definite waste management plan, she said. – August 16, 2019.