Police stand by Buyat Bay test results
Police stand by Buyat Bay test results
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said on Friday the
police were sticking to their laboratory test results, which
showed that Buyat Bay in Minahasa, North Sulawesi, was
contaminated with heavy metals, despite a complaint from PT
Newmont Minahasa Raya.
Da'i said the tests at the police's forensic lab were
conducted by experts from various branches of science who were
sworn to conduct their tasks correctly and independently.
"They can present their own findings, which could be different
from our results, but as far as the legal process is concerned,
only tests done by the police will be used," said Da'i.
He added that the police had made a legal record of every step
in the testing process to ensure that their results could be used
in court.
"The government has also established a joint team to
investigate the contamination. We can talk about the differences
in the teams' results later. But for now, we stand by our own
findings," said Da'i.
PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, the only mining company disposing
its tailings in the bay, questioned on Thursday the results of
lab tests conducted by the police, as other tests by different
institutions showed that the content of heavy metal in the bay
was far below the dangerous level.
Newmont said tests of 390 samples by PT ALS Indonesia showed a
mercury level of only 0.055 microgram/Liter (u/L) only, while
tests by the Office of the State Minister of the Environment
showed a level of 0.059u/L and Australia's Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) found
0.005 u/L of mercury.
The three test results all showed mercury levels far below the
standard of 1 u/L set by Ministerial Decree No. 51/2004 on
seawater pollution standards, Newmont said.
On Wednesday, police said their lab tests showed mercury
levels of 5.5 u/L, 4 u/L and 3.9 u/L in samples taken from
separate locations in the bay.
Meanwhile, Newmont said police should clarify whether they had
measured total mercury content or the dissolved mercury content
in the bay, because the first methodology would produce far
higher measurements than the latter.
The company said the 1 u/L standard set by the ministerial
decree was clearly the level of dissolved mercury, not total
mercury.
Coms. Sulistiandriatmoko, the lead investigator of the case,
said police were well aware of the different methods and that
police had measured the dissolved mercury.
"We are not that stupid. We measured the dissolved mercury,
not the total mercury. I think they are just trying to distort
the case," he said.
He revealed that while conducting field investigation at the
bay, he found the water was discolored 20 meters from the surface
because of a concentration of dissolved solids.
"We also discovered that Newmont disposed their tailings at 83
meters from the surface, because they mistakenly assumed that the
thermocline was located 50 meters from the surface,"
Sulistiandriatmoko said.
The thermocline is the region that separates oxygen-rich
surface water from oxygen-poor deep water.
He said the company made the erroneous assumption because it
conducted the thermocline test only during the dry season, while
the thermocline could be located at a deeper level in the rainy
season.
According to Sulistiandriatmoko, the Research and Technology
Agency later found that the thermocline of Buyat Bay was located
150 meters from the surface.