Indonesian Minister of Environment: Detoxify Newmont's Tailings In Sulawesi

In his statement published in a North Sulawesi local daily (20/06/00), the Minister of Environment/Head of the National Environmental Impact Analysis Board (Bapedal) said that Newmont Minahasa Raya (NMR) in Minahasa, Sulawesi, must carry out an Ecological Risk Assessment (ECA) on its tailings dumping system into Buyat bay. Moreover, the company must detoxify its tailings before dumping them into the ocean as a guarantee that the tailings will not destroy the marine habitat located around the dumping point in Buyat bay.

The Minister also added that the government will give warnings to the company should this order be ignored. Furthermore, he also said that should these warnings still be ignored the government will impose the strictest possible sanctions on the company. However, when asked whether the sanctions could include orders for closure, the Minister refused to comment further.

Several months prior to the statement, the Minister stated to the press that NMR’s ocean dumping system is illegal. Reliable sources confirmed that actually BAPEDAL (the Environmental Impact Monitoring Agency) has not issued a license for NMR submarine tailing disposal system. Publicly, NMR stated that the system is included in the company’s AMDAL (EIA), which has been approved by the AMDAL commission from the Department of Mines and Energy. More info from reliable sources stated that NMR has been secretly applying to get this particular permit as well.

Since implemented, NMR’s submarine tailings disposal system has generated considerable protests both from local NGOs and communities living around the Buyat Bay area. Protests began when the company dumped 2000 tons of tailings per day into the ocean in 1996. Since then, the community has reported several serious problems, including several discoveries of dead fish in the area, the decrease in fish in the local waters, mud covering the coastline, and skin rashes on women and children who are frequently exposed to sea water. All of these complaints were submitted to the company. NMR experts took samples of the dead fish, claimed they weren’t polluting the sea, and did nothing else.

After peoples’ and NGOs’ protests surfaced, NMR, supported by local government, formed several investigation teams, which made public statements claiming that NMR was not polluting the sea, yet at the same time also refused to release the results of their research to the public.

However, one particular team, a joint team formed by the local government and led by Professor Dr. Ir. Rizal Max Rompas, M. Agr, announced that NMR was in fact polluting the sea. Professor Rompas, a highly reputable toxicologist from Sam Ratulangi University, recommended that NMR tailings disposal system be evaluated and redesigned. Yet his recommendations were never taken into account both by either NMR or the government.

The three-month study (April ­ June 1999) of the team resolutely concluded that, ”The mining activities of PT. Newmont Minahasa Raya in Minahasa regency and Bolaan Mongondow need to be reviewed. The detection of several toxic compounds in Buyat Bay indicates high amounts of toxics dispersed in the tailings. The amount of toxic compounds in the seawater has surpassed the tolerable threshold allowed by the government law PP No. 20, 1990. Moreover, the research has found some indication of contamination of the planktons and pelagic fish living in that area.”

The report also stated that the highly toxic compounds in Buyat bay are bio-accumulative, and carcinogenic. Mentioned also in the report are several heavy metal compounds in the tailings of NMR. These heavy metals are: Mercury (Hg), Lead (Pb), Arsenic (As), Copper (Cu), and Cadmium (Cd). To top it all, the team has also denied the existence of a permanent thermocline in NMR tailing dumping area.

Theoretically, the presence of a thermocline (division between two stable layers of water of differing temperatures) is an essential requirement for implementation of any submarine tailing disposal system because it determines whether or not the tailings will remain contained at the bottom of the sea trough. However, it is still far from certain whether any subsea tailings disposal method is safe. In its government-approved EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment), NMR described the existence of a permanent thermocline in Buyat Bay, while the Rompas team confirmed otherwise. Should Rompas’ research prove correct, it would mean that NMR’s tailing could not be contained in the designated sea trough.

Professor Romps even publicly stated in one local paper that there is no permanent thermocline in Buyat bay. He stated to the media, as well as in the report, that while NMR’s rules for tailings dumping stipulate that the tailings to be dumped at 82 meters below sea level, the team has already found tailings particles floating about at 20 meters below sea level. This data provides a very strong indication of the absence of a thermocline in Buyat bay.

More indications were discovered following several incidents in which the talilings pipe ruptured. The pipe was tightly clogged at its mouth, which caused the pipe joints to break. If a permanent thermocline indeed existed, such clogging of the pipe could never have taken place because the tailings would have dispersed into the deep-sea trough and remained there. One incident, on July 26, 1998, took place at the Choke Station area near the local village where a tailings pipe burst and sludge came bursting out of it, spreading a high stench that dismayed the surrounding community. After the incident, NMR fixed the pipes, yet more similar incidents still occurred. According to the community, in some incidents, the pipes burst very near to the surface and turned the water around the pipe yellow.

Several environmental groups have maintained a constant campaign on the danger that NMR’s submarine tailings disposal system poses to the environment and human health. Heavy metal compounds can easily spread in the water. It is feared that they will contaminate fish not only in Buyat Bay’s waters, but also around Sulawesi’s waters in general. With the bio-accumulative nature of the compounds and the high fish consumption of the Sulawesi people, environmentalists are anxiously watching out for another Minamata disaster.

On May 25, 2000, another environmental blunder by a Newmont mine, Newmont Nusa Tenggara (NNT), in Sumbawa, was also reported to have caused panic throughout the local community. The Santong tailings dam, in which the company keeps mud and residues from their drilling operations, overflowed and flooded down the Sejorong river. A Local NGO, Lembaga Olah Hidup, and locals from the nearby village of Tongo have reported that the community’s plantations along the river were buried under contaminated mud. Up to now, the community is concerned about the spread of skin rashes and diseases due to exposure to the pitch black river water. In his press statement (30/05/00) on the incident, JATAM’s co-ordinator, Chalid Muhammad, urged the government to immediately launch an investigation into the incident, and urged the company to come clean to the public. NNT countered the news in its media statement, saying that the unusual rush of the river water on the date mentioned was in fact caused by a water treatment method that the company was practicing. The company said that the method was carried out effectively and efficiently, and also that the quality of water released during the process remained in compliance with the standard water quality.

Newmont’s Batu Hijau mine in Sumbawa, which also applies the submarine tailings disposal system, was officially opened by the Governor of West Nusa Tenggara on June 17, 2000. Four days earlier, JATAM, in its press statement, strongly advised the government not to officially open Batu Hijau. “By officially declaring the mine open, the government has in effect given support to the existence of a mining industry that will only destroy the marine ecology of the island of Sumbawa. Thus, the government should also be made accountable for the possible impacts the mine will have on the future generations of Sumbawa.” [E]



For further information: Contact JATAM
(Indonesian Mining Advocacy Network)

Back to top