Takaras village in Central Kalimantan is an ecological disaster waiting to happen, with illegal miners reportedly dumping an estimated 160 kilograms of mercury into a local river every month.
Mercury, which is used to facilitate the extraction of gold ore, can cause crippling nerve disorders, brain damage, birth defects and death.
Pregnant women who work with mercury or eat fish contaminated with high levels of mercury place their fetuses at risk of impaired brain development. The women are also at risk of giving birth to babies with potentially life-threatening physical deformities.
Moses Nicodemus, head of the Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedalda) in the Central Kalimantan capital Palangkaraya, last week told the Media Indonesia daily that Takaras village could become another Minamata.
Minamata is a small Japanese coastal town, where a plastics company in 1952 began discharging mercury waste into the bay, which was the center of the town's principal industry – fishing.
Effects of the pollution were first seen when vast amounts of fish began to die. Later the mercury affected birds, pigs, cats and then humans. Minamata's cats were particularly susceptible to mercury poisoning, which transformed them from lazy pets into demented, screeching, agitated creatures. Hence locals began referring to the problem as "the disease of the dancing cats".
The sickness was later termed "Minamata Disease" once locals started showing symptoms of methyl mercury poisoning, such as blurred vision, hearing loss, limb tremors, memory deterioration, headaches, irritability and difficulty sleeping.
But it wasn't until 1968 that the Japanese government blamed the Chisso chemical corporation for dumping mercury waste into the bay. At least 900 people suffered agonizing deaths as a result of the poisoning, while thousands more were afflicted by the symptoms and many babies were born with terrible deformities.
Nicodemus said illegal miners in Takaras are using about 160 kilograms of mercury each month to recover gold. Although the miners may sometimes try to conserve and reuse the mercury to save money, it eventually ends up in the Takaras River, which is a tributary of Central Kalimantan's immense Kahayan River.
According to Nicodemus, the waste mercury has turned the Takaras River's water from brown to black and contaminated its fish. "In fact, the fish in the river, especially the catfish, are becoming so contaminated they are no longer fit for consumption," he was quoted as saying by Media Indonesia on Wednesday.
Nicodemus said the pollution problem is getting worse. He warned that Central Kalimantan could become a second Minamata within 10 years unless concerted efforts are taken to combat the mercury pollution. But he acknowledged that tackling the problem will not be easy, as illegal gold mining is the sole source of income for many families in Takaras.
"If we seize them in order to stop the mining operations there, I'm afraid the people may become violent, and the situation there will become unfavorable and crime will rise." He therefore said the problem would have to be jointly resolved by all related parties.
Central Kalimantan isn't the only place where an ecological time-bomb is waiting to explode. The use of mercury is just as bad, if not worse, in North Sumatra province, which is home to an estimated 22,000 illegal gold miners.
Much of the illegal mining takes place on Australian mining company Aurora Gold's Talawaan concession and an estimated 100-200 tons of mercury enters the environment around the Talawaan River catchment area annually.
Hazardous concentrations of mercury have been recorded in the area's soil, groundwater, surface water and river sediments. Dangerous levels have also been recorded in plankton, mollusks, fish, ducks and plant-life.
The level of mercury found in illegal miners' urine is 270 times the World Health Organization's acceptable limit. Likewise, samples from the Talawaan River – used for domestic purposes and commercial fish-ponds – indicate mercury levels 70 times above the internationally acceptable limit for drinking water.
So how can the damage be stopped? The best way to prevent looming mercury poisoning tragedies in Indonesia would be to stop the sale of industrial mercury – after all, it's not the kind of thing you can pick up at the local supermarket or cornershop.
In fact, one company is largely responsible for the whole mess: State-owned trading company PT Dharma Niaga, which is the sole official distributor of mercury in Indonesia.
Dharma Niaga is supposed to control the availability of mercury to prevent environmental and health risks. Environmentalists say the company is clearly not doing its job properly.
Despite the inherent dangers of illegal mining, local government officials and security authorities have generally been unwilling to crack down on the problem or prevent the misuse of mercury.
Much of Indonesia's illegal mining is reputedly organized and backed by military officers and politicians who seem to value profit far more than the lives of poor villagers.
It's not clear exactly how much mercury Dharma Niaga sells annually, or even where the mercury comes from. The company's website merely says that it imports "chemicals".
According to a 1995 Mines and Energy Ministry document on Indonesia's main mineral reserves and resources, the country then had 5,306,300 tons of mercury classified as a "resource". An Industry and Trade Ministry document from the same year included "mercury processing" on a list of business sectors that are off-limits to any form of investment.
Global consumption of mercury has fallen by 50% since 1980, but a handful of countries still process the toxic heavy metal to supply nations where demand remains strong.
According to the Global Mercury Assessment report by the United Nations Environment Program, the world's top producers of mercury include Spain, China, Kyrgyzstan and Algeria.
The world's main importers of mercury include Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, French Guyana, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Ghana and Zimbabwe.