Walhi demands a temporary closure of NMR

The Indonesian Forum for Environment or popularly called Walhi, an independent environmental watchdog, demanded the government to temporarily shut down the operation of gold mining firm PT Newmont Minahasa Raya (NMR) in North Sulawesi, the local Manado Post daily reported.

The paper quoted Walhi November 2 press statement as saying that the reasons for the temporary closure included the fact that NMR operation is still being studied by an independent team in connection with the disposal of the company's tailings to the Buyat Bay.

The non-governmental organization (NGO) also said that the people living near the Buyat Bay were currently suffering because of the pollution resulted from the tailing waste material disposed by NMR. It said that the pollution had caused illness to the people and the disappearance of fishing area.

The Manado Post said that Walhi issued the statement following news reports quoting Environmental Minister Sonny Keraf as saying that NMR had polluted the Buyat Bay according to the latest report of Bapedal, the government environmental supervisory agency. Sonny is also chief of the agency.

Sonny was speaking during a recent hearing session with the House of Representatives.

NMR government and community relations managerTri Hardjono was quoted by the paper as saying that the company had yet to check the record of the hearing session.

"The media report is not completely true," Tri said.

Meanwhile, the Jakarta-based Republika daily quoted Sonny as saying in the hearing session that based on the result of laboratory test, the waters of the Buyat Bay was positive to contain mercury at a dangerous level.

But Sonny did not say that the mercury pollution was caused by NMR's operation.

Several NGOs have accused NMR of polluting the Buyat Bay with mercury.

But NMR has repeatedly said that it did not used mercury in processing its gold ore but cyanide. The company said that the mercury pollution was caused by the massive illegal gold mining in the area, which used mercury.

NMR, however, said that the ore it extracted contained natural mercury. But it stressed that no elemental mercury was ever released to the ocean in the process because the mercury went into detoxification process first.

The company said that of the 2,000 tons of tailing dumped into the Buyat Bay every day, it only contained between 1 to 4 kilograms of mercury.

"Attempts to lay the blame on NMR on the mercury contamination of the fish is baseless," NMR technical director Edward Pressman said in a recent interview with Petromindo.com. (*)