More mess
Mr Blenkiron says the oil is not the only potential hazard left behind when the mine was abandoned in the late 1980s.
A few hundred metres up the road are the rusting remains of a storage area for chemicals used in the mining process.
Mr Blenkiron has written to the mine’s Australian owner, Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL), and offered to clean up the area for a price.
But BCL has declined.
“I believe that BCL is morally responsible to clean up,” Mr Blenkiron said.
“I mean, sure they may have got chased out of here rightly or wrongly a number of years ago but there’s no danger in coming down here. The people are welcoming. They’re easy to work with.”
BCL’s chairman Peter Taylor, based in Port Moresby, does not believe the leaking tanks pose a danger to the environment.
“There’s no disaster there,” he said.
“There is what I call a relatively minor oil spill that’s been contained by the safety systems that were put in place. And really it seems to me it’s just a case of going in and cleaning that up.”
Mr Taylor says vandals caused the leaks and most of the oil has already been stolen.
He rejects the claim there is other toxic chemicals in the area, saying New Zealand peacekeepers assessed the port in 1997 and removed anything dangerous.
Dangerous region
Mr Taylor says BCL wants to clean up the spill, but more than a decade after the civil war ended, he believes Bougainville is still not safe for his employees.
“Unfortunately there are a few people, and I think they’re now well and truly in the minority who refuse to allow us access and some of these people unfortunately have got guns,” Mr Taylor said.
There is no doubt law and order is still a problem in Bougainville.
Twice this year foreign ships have docked at Loloho without customs clearance and pumped oil out of the tanks, without approval from BCL.
There are also plenty of guns on the island that are yet to be disposed of in line with the Bougainville Peace Agreement that ended the civil war.
So why doesn’t BCL use South Pacific Environmental, who are already on the ground, to clean up the leak?
“We’ve done some research to try and find out what their credentials are and as far as I can see they have no experience in actually doing any sort of environmental remediation work,” Mr Taylor said.
Mr Taylor is hopeful BCL will be able to return to the island soon, not only to clean up but also to resume mining.
“The landowners are now approaching the company and saying ‘we’d like you to come back, we’d like you to do various things including the remediation of anything that might be in any way dangerous’,” he said.