IntroductionPT Newmont Minahasa Raya (NMR) is a joint venture between Newmont Gold Company (United States), which owns 80 percent of the shares, and PT Tanjung Serapung (Indonesia) owning 20 percent. . PT. NMR is located in southeastern Minahasa, approximately 80 km south of Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi. PTNMR operated an open pit mine from 1996 and ceased operations in 2001 after the deposit was recovered. They started producing gold in 1996 and began disposing of all their tailings through the pipeline into Buyat Bay. In 2004, the Newmont Minahasa Raya gold mine began closing its operations in North Sulawesi, leaving the local communities of Buyat Bay and Ratatotok with lasting environmental damage. , economic decline, and numerous health problems.Environmental ProblemSince beginning development of their project in early 1993, NMR has attempted to convince local public communities that their standard practices and operations would be environmentally friendly and have been widely applied. in the mining world. An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was carried out by NMR to support its future project, but its effectiveness was questionable. However, the design phase and implementation of the project were carried out differently compared to the EIA. Dumping of tailings What worried local communities aroused concerns after the operation of NMR. As is commonly practiced in gold mining operations, the residue as hazardous materials left after the process of separating the valuable from the worthless fraction of an ore should have been disposed of under the sea, beneath the layer thermocline. But in fact, in the case of Newmont, up to 2,000 tonnes/day of tailings were transported by NMR to the bottom of Buyat Bay over 82 meters, a sufficient distance as many scientists have argued. Coastal discharge of tailings is a serious ecological concern because coastal waters are the biologically richest parts of the oceans and because many deep-sea species depend on coastal habitat for part of their life cycles...