JEMIMA GARRETT: The dredging program is part of the settlement of court action brought by landowners against BHP.
Removing the pyrite from the tailings reduces the risk of acid rock drainage and the release of copper into the environment.
Dr Gavin Mudd is a lecturer in Environmental Engineering at Monash University and chair of the mining watchdog, the Minerals Policy Institute.
He says the damage done by the Ok Tedi during the BHP era is one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of mining.
GAVIN MUDD: There is only really about one mine that I would consider worse in its scale of impacts than Ok Tedi and of course that is the Grasberg or Freeport deposit or mine just across the other side of the border into Papua Province in Indonesia.
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