Police to determine source of contamination in Buyat Bay
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Police are investigating who is responsible for the contamination in Buyat Bay and Totok Bay in Minahasa, North Sulawesi.
National Police Director of Special Crimes Brig. Gen. Suharto said on Monday that after determining both Totok Bay and Buyat Bay had been polluted, his officers were now looking for the sources of the pollution.
Investigators announced on Friday that Buyat and Totok bays, which are separated by Cape Ratatotok, were contaminated with heavy metals.
Suharto said the larger Totok Bay was allegedly polluted by illegal miners using mercury to separate gold from other minerals.
However, no illegal miners operate around Buyat Bay, and the only mining company operating there is PT Newmont Minahasa Raya.
"We have yet to conclude which party has polluted Buyat Bay because several sources of pollution are possible. One possibility is that the undercurrent swept away contaminated seawater from Totok Bay to Buyat bay," said Suharto.
He said officers would question experts about whether it was possible for contaminated water from Totok Bay to find its way into Buyat Bay.
"Newmont is located on Buyat Bay and illegal miners are operating on Totok Bay. However, we will determine who will be held responsible for the contamination after we hear from experts on all the possible sources," Suharto said.
Suharto said police had questioned 21 people as witnesses in the case, including 15 residents of Buyat and Ratatotok, four local employees of PT Newmont and an expert staff member of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.
He said test results on the bays would be officially announced sometime this week, after which his office would summon more officials from PT Newmont.
A police expert on the environment and an investigator on this case, Comr. Sulistyo Indriatmoko, said on Sunday the police would officially announce the laboratory test results on Wednesday, and subsequently would summon PT Newmont's president director and relevant staff to explain their waste disposal system.
Sulistyo said he could not give the specific levels of all of the heavy metals contaminating the bays because the police laboratory had only finished testing 80 percent of the 54 samples taken from the bays earlier this month.
Suharto confirmed that of samples tested so far, police had concluded that the bays had been contaminated because the heavy metal levels exceeded the standards set out in Decree No. 51/2004 from the Office of the State Minister for the Environment.
The decree stipulates that mercury, lead, cadmium and copper levels should not exceed 0.001 milligram/liter (mg/L) or (1u/L), 0.008 mg/L, 0.001 mg/L and 0.001 mg/L, respectively.
National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said on Saturday police were still trying to determine the suspects in the contamination case after determining the heavy metals in the bays exceeded allowed levels.
Suharto said the police would speed up the investigation and would finish it before PT Newmont stopped its operations in September.