Making sense of the Buyat Bay pollution 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 the environmental activists claiming that the bay is polluted. On the other hand we have venerable institutions such as the Sam Ratulangi University (UNSRAT), The 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 claims and counter claims and what seems to be complicated science beyond the understanding of most Indonesians. This is an unnecessary condition because the matter can be resolved easily by asking a simple but fundamental question: what is the definition of 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 use of Buyat Bay. One of its main functions and use 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 are unsafe to consume.

This, however, is not the case. Study after study, including that of the Technical Team itself, have found the heavy metal content -- including mercury and arsenic -- to be below World Health Organization (WHO) and Indonesian standards. In fact, the heavy metal content in the Buyat Bay fish are no different from fish caught anywhere else, either in Indonesia or the world.

It is therefore clear that in this function and use -- to supply us human beings with a source of food -- 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 itself and replenish its resources, and this is where the controversy hots up.

The Technical Team and environmentalists say that the Bay is polluted because the sediments contain elevated levels of Arsenic as a result of the tailings that Newmont places in 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 understand the issue. The question is whether the 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 the fish, which means that the water and the fish would have to also have 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 or Arsenic on the seabed and yet not have pollution?

The answer to this is to understand 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 the sea level.

Some environmentalists argue that the practice of placing tailings in the sea affects the function and use of Buyat Bay because it covers the bottom of the sea and affects the biodiversity. This is true but misleading and is akin to saying that a forests function and use has been changed because five trees have been felled for timber. Felling five trees has in impact, but the impact is too small to change the function and use of the forest. It is also reversible -- the trees would 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 is the definition of pollution?" and apply it to Buyat Bay the answer can only be that there is no pollution.

So why are the environmentalists still so dead set in 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 the help grow our economy. Mining is one such activity where we do this. Mines provide jobs to thousands of Indonesians and millions of dollars to our economy. The more responsible ones also help the local communities to build an economically and socially sustainable community for the day the ores are exhausted and the mine has to close.

Mines, by their very nature, do 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 it pollutes the environment. In its wisdom the Indonesian Government has defined pollution as intrinsically changing the function and use of an area. It 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 on environmental affairs. He can be reached at fountain@cbn.net.id