Buyat Bay
Encyclopedia
Buyat Bay is small bay
on the south coast of Minahassa Peninsula on the north of Sulawesi
island of Indonesia
. Since 1996, Newmont Mining Corporation
under its subsidiary
company, PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, has been using the bay as the tailing
(mine waste) dumping ground for its gold
mining activities. In 2004, local people in the area complained several unusual health problems which further suspected Newmont's for breaching the mining waste level regulation to had contaminated the area with hazardous materials. The Indonesian activist group on environment, WALHI
, claimed that Newmont has been dumping 2,000 tonnes of mine waste into the bay daily. A legal case between the government of Indonesia versus one of the company's top executive is still ongoing.
island, facing to the Maluku Sea. Buyat is a small bay where local fisherman villages are located. Since 1996 until August 2004, the bay had been used as tailing
area for the Mesel Gold Mine, operated by PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, 80%-owned subsidiary company of Newmont Mining Corporation. Tailings from the gold mine are finely ground rock which gold
has been recovered.
A pipeline was constructed to transfer the tailings from the gold mine area to the bay extended 900 m to the sea and dumping the material at depth 82 m. In July 2004, several non-governmental organization
s started a campaign accusing PT Newmont Minahasa Raya deliberately polluted Buyat Bay, which resulted in adverse health effect of the local residents.
and several fish species in the bay area. They also complained for unusual health problem including unexplained skin diseases, tremors, headaches, and unusual swellings on the neck, calves, wrist, buttocks and head. The research then found several heavy metals including arsenic
, antimony
, mercury
and manganese
distributions in the area with the peak density around the tailing ground.
In November 2004, WALHI
(the Indonesian NGO for environmental issues) together with several non-profit groups (the Indonesian Mining Advocacy Network, the Earth Indonesia, and the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law) compiled a more comprehensive report on Buyat Bay condition, concluding that the bay is polluted by hazardous level of arsenic
and mercury
, and thus highly risk to the community. Arsenic pollution from the Buyat Bay seabed
sediment samples revealed as high as 666 mg/kg arsenic level (hundred times than the ASEAN Marine Water Quality Criteria of only 50 mg/kg) and on average over 1000 µg/kg mercury level (the same standard defines 400 µg/kg level). Compared to natural control samples from sites not affected by mine waste dumping, the study also concluded that the arsenic and mercury levels were not natural and the only possible source comes from the Newmont's mine waste dumping. Mercury and arsenic accumulated in different living organisms in Buyat Bay including fish, consumed daily by the local people. Human health was at risk and the report recommended the fish consumption should be significantly reduced and the possibility of relocation of local people to other areas.
In 1994, Newmont's Environmental Impact Assessment stated a thermocline
layer at 50–70 meters depth as a barrier to keep tailings
from mixing and spreading in Buyat Bay. Despite of Newmont's claim, WALHI did not find the thermocline ocean layer.
n Ministry of Environment filed a US$133.6 million civil lawsuit
against Newmont, claiming tailings
from the company's Minahasa Raya mine
polluted
Buyat Bay in the North Sulawesi
province, causing nearby villagers to become seriously ill and contaminating local fish
stocks. Newmont denied the allegations, arguing that the illnesses had more to do with poor hygiene
and poverty
. On November 15, 2005, a South Jakarta
court
dismissed the suit on technical grounds, saying the government had breached the terms of its contract
with Newmont when it took legal action before seeking arbitration
. Environmentalists urged for the suit to be appeal
ed, but on December 1, 2005, Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar
said the government expected to reach an out-of-court settlement
with Newmont's local subsidiary
. "By negotiating a settlement, we hope to be able to quickly compensate people living near the mine," he said. The government negotiating
team was led by chief Economics Minister Aburizal Bakrie
. On February 16, 2006, the Indonesian government announced it would settle the civil suit for US$30 million to be paid over the next 10 years. The agreement also includes increased scientific monitoring and enhanced community development programs for the North Sulawesi province. Newmont, with a market value
of US$25 billion, is expected to make US$5 billion in revenues for 2006.
Though the civil suit was dismissed, there is still pending a criminal suit against Newmont's top U.S. executive in Indonesia, Richard Ness, on charges stemming from the same allegations. His trial began in August 2005— if convicted, Ness faces up to 10 years in prison
. Prosecutors have recommended financial penalties of US$110,000 for Newmont and US$55,000 for Ness.
On April 24, 2007, Richard Ness was cleared of all charges relating to the alleged pollution in Buyat Bay. Furthermore, the Indonesian court held that Buyat Bay was not polluted and that Newmont's local subsidiary was in compliance with all environmental regulations and permits for the entirety of its operation from 1996 to 2004.
in the same year. Newmont Mining Corp. objected to the documentary saying that the film interferes with the controversial Richard Ness pollution trial.
Bay
A bay is an area of water mostly surrounded by land. Bays generally have calmer waters than the surrounding sea, due to the surrounding land blocking some waves and often reducing winds. Bays also exist as an inlet in a lake or pond. A large bay may be called a gulf, a sea, a sound, or a bight...
on the south coast of Minahassa Peninsula on the north of Sulawesi
Sulawesi
Sulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...
island of Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. Since 1996, Newmont Mining Corporation
Newmont Mining
Newmont Mining Corporation , based in Denver, Colorado, USA, is one of the world's largest producers of gold, with active mines in Nevada, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Ghana and Peru. Holdings include Santa Fe Gold, Battle Mountain Gold, Normandy Mining, Franco-Nevada Corp and Fronteer Gold...
under its subsidiary
Subsidiary
A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...
company, PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, has been using the bay as the tailing
Tailings
Tailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...
(mine waste) dumping ground for its gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
mining activities. In 2004, local people in the area complained several unusual health problems which further suspected Newmont's for breaching the mining waste level regulation to had contaminated the area with hazardous materials. The Indonesian activist group on environment, WALHI
WALHI
WALHI is an Indonesian environmental non-governmental organization, which is part of the Friends of the Earth network....
, claimed that Newmont has been dumping 2,000 tonnes of mine waste into the bay daily. A legal case between the government of Indonesia versus one of the company's top executive is still ongoing.
History
The bay is located at the southeast side of the northern peninsula arm of SulawesiSulawesi
Sulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...
island, facing to the Maluku Sea. Buyat is a small bay where local fisherman villages are located. Since 1996 until August 2004, the bay had been used as tailing
Tailings
Tailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...
area for the Mesel Gold Mine, operated by PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, 80%-owned subsidiary company of Newmont Mining Corporation. Tailings from the gold mine are finely ground rock which gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
has been recovered.
A pipeline was constructed to transfer the tailings from the gold mine area to the bay extended 900 m to the sea and dumping the material at depth 82 m. In July 2004, several non-governmental organization
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...
s started a campaign accusing PT Newmont Minahasa Raya deliberately polluted Buyat Bay, which resulted in adverse health effect of the local residents.
Pollution
In the mid 2004, local fishing community appealed the Indonesian government for independent research to investigate the level of Newmont's mining waste to Buyat Bay. Local fishermen witnessed of sudden increase in fish deaths, unusual swelling in the fish body, the loss of young milkfishMilkfish
The milkfish is the sole living species in the family Chanidae. - Description and biology :...
and several fish species in the bay area. They also complained for unusual health problem including unexplained skin diseases, tremors, headaches, and unusual swellings on the neck, calves, wrist, buttocks and head. The research then found several heavy metals including arsenic
Arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...
, antimony
Antimony
Antimony is a toxic chemical element with the symbol Sb and an atomic number of 51. A lustrous grey metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite...
, mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
and manganese
Manganese
Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a free element in nature , and in many minerals...
distributions in the area with the peak density around the tailing ground.
In November 2004, WALHI
WALHI
WALHI is an Indonesian environmental non-governmental organization, which is part of the Friends of the Earth network....
(the Indonesian NGO for environmental issues) together with several non-profit groups (the Indonesian Mining Advocacy Network, the Earth Indonesia, and the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law) compiled a more comprehensive report on Buyat Bay condition, concluding that the bay is polluted by hazardous level of arsenic
Arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...
and mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
, and thus highly risk to the community. Arsenic pollution from the Buyat Bay seabed
Seabed
The seabed is the bottom of the ocean.- Ocean structure :Most of the oceans have a common structure, created by common physical phenomena, mainly from tectonic movement, and sediment from various sources...
sediment samples revealed as high as 666 mg/kg arsenic level (hundred times than the ASEAN Marine Water Quality Criteria of only 50 mg/kg) and on average over 1000 µg/kg mercury level (the same standard defines 400 µg/kg level). Compared to natural control samples from sites not affected by mine waste dumping, the study also concluded that the arsenic and mercury levels were not natural and the only possible source comes from the Newmont's mine waste dumping. Mercury and arsenic accumulated in different living organisms in Buyat Bay including fish, consumed daily by the local people. Human health was at risk and the report recommended the fish consumption should be significantly reduced and the possibility of relocation of local people to other areas.
In 1994, Newmont's Environmental Impact Assessment stated a thermocline
Thermocline
A thermocline is a thin but distinct layer in a large body of fluid , in which temperature changes more rapidly with depth than it does in the layers above or below...
layer at 50–70 meters depth as a barrier to keep tailings
Tailings
Tailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...
from mixing and spreading in Buyat Bay. Despite of Newmont's claim, WALHI did not find the thermocline ocean layer.
Legal Case
In August 2004, the IndonesiaIndonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n Ministry of Environment filed a US$133.6 million civil lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
against Newmont, claiming tailings
Tailings
Tailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...
from the company's Minahasa Raya mine
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
polluted
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
Buyat Bay in the North Sulawesi
Sulawesi
Sulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...
province, causing nearby villagers to become seriously ill and contaminating local fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
stocks. Newmont denied the allegations, arguing that the illnesses had more to do with poor hygiene
Hygiene
Hygiene refers to the set of practices perceived by a community to be associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. While in modern medical sciences there is a set of standards of hygiene recommended for different situations, what is considered hygienic or not can vary between...
and poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
. On November 15, 2005, a South Jakarta
South Jakarta
South Jakarta is a city within Jakarta Special District, Indonesia. It had a population of 2,057,080 at the 2010 Census, and is the third most populous among the five cities of Jakarta, after East Jakarta and West Jakarta...
court
Court
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...
dismissed the suit on technical grounds, saying the government had breached the terms of its contract
Contract
A contract is an agreement entered into by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing. Contracts can be made orally. The remedy for breach of contract can be "damages" or compensation of money. In equity, the remedy can be specific...
with Newmont when it took legal action before seeking arbitration
Arbitration
Arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution , is a legal technique for the resolution of disputes outside the courts, where the parties to a dispute refer it to one or more persons , by whose decision they agree to be bound...
. Environmentalists urged for the suit to be appeal
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
ed, but on December 1, 2005, Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar
Rachmat Witoelar
Rachmat Nadi Witoelar Kartaadipoetra or Rachmat Witoelar was the State Minister of Environment of Indonesia in 2004-2009....
said the government expected to reach an out-of-court settlement
Settlement (law)
In law, a settlement is a resolution between disputing parties about a legal case, reached either before or after court action begins. The term "settlement" also has other meanings in the context of law.-Basis:...
with Newmont's local subsidiary
Subsidiary
A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...
. "By negotiating a settlement, we hope to be able to quickly compensate people living near the mine," he said. The government negotiating
Negotiation
Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties, intended to reach an understanding, resolve point of difference, or gain advantage in outcome of dialogue, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, to craft outcomes to satisfy...
team was led by chief Economics Minister Aburizal Bakrie
Aburizal Bakrie
In this Indonesian name, the name "Bakrie" is a family name, and the person should be referred to by the family name "Bakrie".Aburizal Bakrie is an Indonesian entrepreneur and politician.- Family business :...
. On February 16, 2006, the Indonesian government announced it would settle the civil suit for US$30 million to be paid over the next 10 years. The agreement also includes increased scientific monitoring and enhanced community development programs for the North Sulawesi province. Newmont, with a market value
Market value
Market value is the price at which an asset would trade in a competitive auction setting. Market value is often used interchangeably with open market value, fair value or fair market value, although these terms have distinct definitions in different standards, and may differ in some...
of US$25 billion, is expected to make US$5 billion in revenues for 2006.
Though the civil suit was dismissed, there is still pending a criminal suit against Newmont's top U.S. executive in Indonesia, Richard Ness, on charges stemming from the same allegations. His trial began in August 2005— if convicted, Ness faces up to 10 years in prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
. Prosecutors have recommended financial penalties of US$110,000 for Newmont and US$55,000 for Ness.
On April 24, 2007, Richard Ness was cleared of all charges relating to the alleged pollution in Buyat Bay. Furthermore, the Indonesian court held that Buyat Bay was not polluted and that Newmont's local subsidiary was in compliance with all environmental regulations and permits for the entirety of its operation from 1996 to 2004.
Media depiction
A documentary film entitled Bye Bye Buyat was made in 2006 and it won the Indonesia's top film award, Indonesian Film FestivalIndonesian Film Festival
Festival Film Indonesia or known as FFI is an annual film festival organised by Indonesian Film Festival Committee...
in the same year. Newmont Mining Corp. objected to the documentary saying that the film interferes with the controversial Richard Ness pollution trial.
See also
- Environmental issues in IndonesiaEnvironmental issues in IndonesiaEnvironmental issues in Indonesia are associated with the country's high population and rapid industrialisation, and they are often given a lower priority due to high poverty levels and weak, under-resourced governance...
- Industrial disastersIndustrial disastersThis article lists notable industrial disasters, which are disasters caused by industrial companies, either by accident, negligence or incompetence. They are a form of industrial accident where great damage, injury or loss of life are caused....