Making sense of the Buyat Bay pollution controversy

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