Qualla: Buyat Bay

Buyat Bay: Introduction

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The fishermen of Buyat Bay noticed the fish first. For generations, the small villages lining this bay on the southeast coast of Sulawesi's Minahasa Peninsula had drawn their livelihood from its waters, casting nets into the Maluku Sea and bringing home the day's catch. Then, in 2004, the complaints began -- unusual skin conditions, strange lumps, ailments that the villagers had never seen before. What they did not know, but suspected, was that for eight years the bay where they fished and the seabed beneath their boats had been receiving a steady flow of crushed rock laced with arsenic and mercury from a gold mine upstream.

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Buyat Bay: Gold Underground, Poison Below

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Since 1996, PT Newmont Minahasa Raya -- an 80%-owned subsidiary of the American mining giant Newmont Mining Corporation -- had operated the Mesel Gold Mine inland from Buyat Bay. The tailings, finely ground rock from which gold had been extracted, were piped 900 meters out to sea...

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Buyat Bay: Numbers That Speak for Themselves

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Seabed sediment samples from Buyat Bay told a devastating story. Arsenic levels reached 666 mg/kg -- more than thirteen times the ASEAN Marine Water Quality standard of 50 mg/kg. Mercury averaged over 1,000 micrograms per kilogram, against a standard of 400. Compared to control s...

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Buyat Bay: Trial, Acquittal, and a Documentary

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Indonesian government brought charges against Richard Ness, a senior Newmont executive, for the alleged pollution. The case dragged through the courts until April 24, 2007, when Ness was cleared of all charges. The Indonesian court ruled that Buyat Bay was not polluted and th...

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Buyat Bay: What the Bay Remembers

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Mesel Gold Mine ceased operations in August 2004, but the question of what was left behind lingers over Buyat Bay like the haze of a tropical afternoon. The court's verdict said the bay was clean. The sediment samples said otherwise. The fishermen who remain know what their c...

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