How to understand the Buyat Bay controversy JP/7/NEW
Understanding the Buyat Bay controversy
Siegfried Lesiasel Jakarta
The Indonesian public is understandably confused over the controversy surrounding Buyat Bay.
On one hand we have the Technical Team and environmental activists claiming that the bay is polluted. On the other hand we have venerable institutions such as the Sam Ratulangi University (UNSRAT), Manado University, the North Sulawesi Provincial Government, the Ministry of Energy and Mines, and Newmont itself saying that there is no pollution.
The controversy has degenerated into an orgy of claim and counter claim, and what seems to be complicated science beyond the understanding of most Indonesians. This is an unnecessary condition because the matter could be resolved easily by asking a simple but fundamental question: what constitutes pollution?
The answer to this question is very clear in Indonesia's Environmental Law. It says a place is considered polluted if its function and use has been intrinsically changed by a particular activity, which, in Buyat's case is mining by PT Newmont Minahasa Raya.
Consider then, what are the possible functions and uses of Buyat Bay. One of its main functions and uses is to provide food for humans in the form of fish. It follows that there would be pollution if the fish caught in Buyat Bay became unsafe to consume.
This, however, is not the case. Study after study, including that of the Technical Team itself, have shown that levels of heavy metals -- including mercury and arsenic -- are below World Health Organization (WHO) and Indonesian standards. In fact, the levels of heavy metals in Buyat Bay fish are no different from fish caught anywhere else, either in Indonesia or the rest of the world.
It is therefore clear that in this particular function and use -- as a human food source -- there is no pollution in Buyat Bay.
The other function and use of a coastal maritime area is to provide a healthy environment where nature can sustain and replenish itself, and this is where the controversy hots up.
The Technical Team and certain environmentalists claim that the bay is polluted because sediments contain elevated levels of arsenic as a result of tailings that Newmont dumps onto the seabed. The opposite camp says that the elevated levels do not constitute pollution. Who are we to believe?
Again, it is useful to go back to the fundamental definition of pollution if we are to properly understand this issue. The question is whether elevated levels of arsenic intrinsically change the function and use of the bay.
The function and use would be intrinsically changed if the elevated levels of arsenic posed a danger of contaminating fish life, meaning that the water and the fish would have to show higher than permitted levels of arsenic.
But this is not so. The Technical Team's own data confirms this. So how can you have elevated arsenic levels on the seabed and yet not have pollution?
The answer to this requires an understanding that arsenic comes in several forms, not all of which are dangerous to human beings. The form of arsenic on the seabed of Buyat Bay is biologically inert and just sits there in the bottom of the ocean doing nothing and posing no harm to any creature above or below sea level.
Some environmentalists argue that the practice of placing tailings on the seabed affects the function and use of Buyat Bay because it covers the bottom of the sea and affects biodiversity. This is true, but misleading, and is akin to saying that a forest's function and use has been changed because five trees have been felled for timber. Felling five trees has an impact, but the impact is too small to change the function and use of the forest. It is also reversible -- the trees will grow again given time.
Similarly in Buyat, the area covered by the tailings does not affect the function and use of the bay and is reversible by nature. This was expected in Newmont's AMDAL that predicted that the condition of the bay's seabed would be restored within three years of the mine's closure.
It seems very clear that if we ask the fundamental question of "What constitutes pollution?" and apply it to Buyat Bay, the answer can only be that there is no pollution.
So why are certain environmentalists still so dead set on insisting that there is pollution in Buyat Bay? It seems to me that this country is being taken hostage by puritanical environmental activists.
They are puritanical in the sense that they want nature to be totally pure and untouched, to the extent that they refuse to acknowledge that life is a series of trade-offs. All of us would love to see nature untouched, but that is a Utopian dream.
The reality is that we need to exploit the land for resources to feed our nation and to help our economy grow. Mining is one such activity that does this. Mines provide jobs to thousands of Indonesians and millions of dollars for our economy. The more responsible mining companies also help local residents to build economically and socially sustainable communities for the day when the ores are exhausted and the mine has to close.
Mines, by their very nature, make an impact on the environment. There is no escaping that fact. But the important factor here is whether this impact is minimal and temporary, or whether it pollutes the environment. In its wisdom the Indonesian Government has defined pollution as intrinsically changing the function and use of an area. This is a good definition and one that should be applied when we are trying to decipher the arguments surrounding the Buyat Bay controversy.
The writer is a consultant in environmental affairs. He can be reached at fountain@cbn.net.id