Police tests confirm bay polluted

Abdul Khalik and Fitri Wulandari, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Police laboratory tests have found heavy metal contamination in Buyat Bay in Minahasa, North Sulawesi, silencing doubts over the pollution that has allegedly caused health problems for residents.

Although not blaming PT Newmont Minahasa Raya mining firm, which has for years disposed of its tailings in the bay, National Police chief of detectives Comr. Gen. Suyitno Landung said on Friday the police would ask the company to suspend operations in a bid to prevent the pollution from further affecting locals' health.

"Our laboratory tests show that Buyat Bay is contaminated. The tests on several samples we took from several locations in the bay indicate that the level of metal exceeds the standard set by the Office of the State Minister of the Environment," said Suyitno.

Newmont Pacific Nusantara's environmental advisor Ali Sahami had told The Jakarta Post the company was aware of the high concentration of mercury and arsenic in the sediment of its tailings and frequently reported it to the government. He said the tailings were detoxified before they were deposited anywhere in the ocean or on land.

Suyitno would not confirm whether the findings would enable the police to charge the company with environmental crimes as the demand to halt its operations will have little impact. The company will close down in October, when its license expires.

Simon Sembiring, director general of geology and mineral resources at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, said the company may stop operations earlier than October as it had processed most of its stockpiles.

"It is still processing roughly 40,000 tons of ore stockpiles. It's not much, so it may be completed by the end of this month," Simon told reporters on Friday.

The company ceased mining operations in 2001 due to depleting gold resources.

Simon added that the company would have to do reclamation work at the mining site until it met requirements under a post-closure plan.

"They have to make sure the mining site is safe," Simon said.

Kasan Mulyono, PT Newmont's public relations manager, said he could not speculate on the police announcement as the company had not received officially notification from the police.

"To date, all reliable results from independent and accredited laboratories verify that Buyat Bay is not contaminated," he said in a press released made available to the Post.

Suyitno revealed no details of the heavy metals that had contaminated the bay.

The National Police earlier this month sent a team to take samples in 10 locations in the bay and surrounding areas. The samples included water, mud from the floor of the bay, fish and blood and hair of residents.

In 2001, the Office of the State Minister of the Environment established that 0.008 milligram per liter (mg/L) of mercury in every 5,000 cubic meter was disposed of by PT Newmont per day. The arsenic level was 0.5 mg/L, while cyanide was 0.5.

Chandrawati Cahyani, a biology expert from the Office of the State Minister of Research and Technology, said Indonesia had set the mercury level at 0.002 mg/L for safe drinking water while a colleague, Amin Soebandrio, an expert on physical health, said mercury could endanger human life if its content in the blood exceeded 30 micrograms per liter (ug/L).

Several earlier tests indicated that the mercury content in residents' blood exceeded the average level of 8 ug/L set by the World Health Organization.

Aside from mercury, tests also found that the urine of residents contained between 85.63 parts per million (ppm) and 188.13 ppm of arsenic.

The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) said the contamination must have originated from Newmont as there was no other source in the area. Besides, Walhi said that only 95 percent of mercury could be separated from ore while the rest was released into the environment.