INSIGHT: Mercury scare hits North Sulawesi

The people of the gold rich province of North Sulawesi, who for long ignored the repeated warnings by many parties of the mercury poisoning caused by the rampant illegal mining activities in the region, have finally realized the seriousness of the problem.

Last week, local daily Manado Post published a series of articles highlighting the alarming level of mercury contamination caused by mining operations in the province.

Head of the province's industry and trade office Marietta C. Kuntag warned last week that foreign buyers and consumer might boycott fish products from the province if they had been aware of the serious contamination of the province waters by mercury waste.

"If foreign consumers boycott our fish exports, it will be fatal (for North Sulawesi)," Kuntag was quoted by a local web-based news agency as saying

Fishing industry is one of the main foreign exchange earners of the province.

As a matter of fact, Australian-mining firm Aurora Gold, which has obtained some gold concessions in the province but thus far failed to start production due to the presence of illegal miners in their mining contract areas, have long complained about the situation, and warned the local authorities of the environmental disaster that would occur due to the mercury waste produced by the illegal miners.

Richard P. Lindsay, Aurora's resident manager in North Sulawesi, told Petromindo.Com mid-August that the province would face an environmental disaster comparable to the so-called Minamata tragedy in Japan several decades ago.

Minamata is a fishing area in Japan, where Japanese chemical company Chisso Corporation dumped the waste from its acetaldehyde plant from 1925 and 1960. Thousands of the local residents were killed or lived miserable lives due to the mercury elements contained in the company's waste.

Lindsay said Aurora had repeatedly warned the local authorities of the mercury poisoning caused by the illegal mining activities but the authorities took no actions to stop the illegal mining activities, partly because of the deep involvement of many local governmental officials and police officers and military members in the business.

Gold area

Data at the province's energy and mineral resources office indicate that as of April this year, gold mining operators in the province, including foreign investors, local investors, cooperatives and folk miners, control a total area of 637,590 hectares.

Foreign investors control 85.48 percent or 548,043 hectares of the gold mining areas.

The foreign investors, who are also called the holders of contract of work (COW), are PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, which has a 13,904 hectare (ha) concession, PT Meares Soputan Mining (8,959 ha) PT Newcrest Nusa Sulawesi (20,210 ha), PT Tambang Tondano Nusa Jaya (297,200 ha), PT Newmont Mongondow Mining (121,700 ha), PT Bima Wildcat Minahasa (31,500 ha), and PT Gorontalo Minerals (51,570 ha).

Of the seven COW holders, only Newmont Minahasa Raya has come into production, while Meares is still in construction phase and others are still doing exploration, according to the data.

Local investors, who are also called the holders of the mining license (KP), control a combined area of 89,784 hectares.

They are PT Sinar T Mulia (8,500 ha), PT Sentosa Tambang Rakyat (7,212 ha), PT Tanjung Palele Mining (5,023 ha in the Bolmong area, 6737 ha in the Gorontalo area), KP Penugasan Kanwil DPE Sulut (3,800 ha), PT Rasmanik Tonala Mineral (1,000 ha), PT Buana Tambang Mulia (11,160 ha), PT Intan Megah (8,544 ha), PT Biliohuto Mongondow Mining (15,340 ha), and PT Bumi Jaya Trilestari (9,958 ha) and PT Biliohuto Mining (12,510 ha).

Of the eleven KP holders, only Rasmanik Torala has come into production, while Tanjung Palele Mining is still in general survey phase, KP Penugasan Kanwil DPE is waiting for permit from the directorate general of general mining at the ministry of energy and mineral resources. The others are still doing exploration.

There are currently four cooperatives looking for gold on a combined 549 hectares of land in the province. The cooperatives, which are also called the holders of small-scale mining license (PSK) are KUD Nomontang, which controls a 250-ha area, KUD Perintis (100 ha), KUD Lancar Rejeki (99.84 ha) and KUD Dharma Tani (100 ha).

The government has allocated a total area of 2,214 ha for folk miners, including 500 ha in Aloson and 1,300 ha in Ranoyapo, both in the Minahasa regency; and 339,36 ha in Mintu and 75 ha in Tobongan, both in the Bolmong regency. The area is locally called Wilayah Pertambangan Rakyat (WPR) or folk mining area.

No data is available at the province's energy and mineral resources office on the area controlled by illegal miners.

Manado Post reported the result of the survey made by local expert Rizal Rompas from 1998 indicates many parts of the province had been contaminated by mercury waste from mining activities.

The survey revealed that mercury contents in some waters of the province has reached 4 parts per million (ppm), as against the safety level of 1 ppm set by the United States Food and Drug Administration.

Blame

According to the report sent by the province's energy and mineral office to the ministry of energy and mineral resources in April this year, an estimated 5.6 tons of mercury waste produced by all mining operators in the province annually, Manado Post reported.

The report blames illegal miners of producing 5.2 tons of the 5.6 tons of mercury waste.

The report says at least 7,577 people were involved in the illegal mining activities in the Bolmong, Minahasa, Gorontalo and Satai areas as of March this year, operating a total of 4,620 ore processing stations, locally called tromol.

Each tromol uses about 1 kilograms of mercury per day in processing the gold ore, about 5 percent of which is later discharged to the air, ground and nearby river.

Based on the assumption that only 80 percent of the 4,620 tromols operate every day, all illegal miners in the province discharge a total of 17.5 kilograms of mercury waste every day.

Based on the assumption that each tromol operates 25 days of a month, the total 4,620 tromol discharge a total of 437.5 kilograms of mercury waste per month or 5.2 tons per year to contaminate the local environment.

Manado Post quoted the report as saying that Newmont Minahasa Raya, which is the only COW holder already in production in the province, dumps one kilogram of mercury every day or 365 kilograms per year, if the companies operates throughout the year, to the nearby Buyat and Totok bays.

The report said that in fact Newmont uses cyanide rather than mercury in processing its gold ore, but that the ore extracted by the company contained mercury.

Edward Pressman, technical director of PT Newmont Pacific Nusantara, confirmed that the company did not use any mercury in processing its gold ore.

"All the mercury is natural mercury in the ore body in a mineral known as cinnabar (HgS). This is a relatively common mineral (reddish mineral in rock) and is found in any number of locations. It is relatively stable and not all that soluble at room temperature and in water," Pressman told Petromindo

He explained that during the ore treatment process employed by Newmont, all the ore was first ground to a powder and is then roasted. During the roasting process, the cinnabar oxidizes and mercury is volatized and reports with the roaster off gas. The gas is then cooled and goes through a mercury scrubber, which scrubs the mercury out of the gas and the product is called is called calomel (Hg2CI2).

The calomel is a white powder and is stored in then sent off site to the waste facility managed by PT PPLI Waste Management in Bogor, West Java.

As the process is one hundred percent efficient some of the mercury goes through the gold extraction circuit and into detoxification circuit. In the detoxification circuit, any mercury in solution is precipitated using a chemical called sodium sulphide. This forms a solid cinnabar compound, which is insoluble in seawater, Pressman further explained.

"No elemental mercury is ever released to the ocean in the process," Pressman said.

Pressman said the 2,000 tons of tailing dumped by Newmont into the Buyat bay every day contained only between 1 to 4 kilograms of mercury.

"So, it (the mercury) is one to four kilograms per 2,000,000 kilograms of tailings. Well below the standard drawn by Indonesia, Australia, Canada and the United States," Pressman said.

"So attempts to lay the blame on Newmont Minahasa Raya on the mercury contamination of the fish is baseless," Pressman said, referring to the warning by Kuntag.

Many environmental activists have often blamed Newmont for polluting the nearby waters with its tailing.

Pressman noted however that Newmont was not responsible for the pollution but the illegal miners operating near its mining site.

"There is no doubt that the source of the pollution is from the illegal mining activities that are very close to our site," Pressman said.

Joe Aritti, Aurora's chief operating officer in Indonesia, also voiced concerns over the continued criticism launched by the local environmental organizations against mining investors who he said were committed to environmental protection, while at the same times they turned blind eyes to the activities of illegal miners, who continued polluting environment with their uncontrolled mercury use.

"The thing that's most disappointing to me is ? (that) not a word has been said (of the impact of the mercury waste produced by the illegal miners) by non governmental organizations like Walhi (the Indonesian Forum for Environment) and Jatam (The Mining Network)," Aritti told Petromindo in a recent interview. (alex and bodega)