Measurement of total mercury concentration in the water source pool of public drink water installations around Manado City, north Sulawesi, Indonesia

Artisanal gold mining activities in Talawaan Watershed of Indonesia use a large amount of mercury to form an amalgam with the gold particles. Those activities are obviously playing an important role in emitting mercury to aquatic and terrestrial environment around gold mining areas. The mine activities effectively start in 1998, but information on mercury impact to the community drink water sources is very limited. In the present study, all water sources of public drink water installations around Manado City were examined in November 2000 and in May 2001. As a result, total mercury content in all water samples of year 2000 were in the range 0.05-0.13μg/l. In fact, those level were quite low compare to the health standard level for water (1μg/l) established by the World Health Organization and adopted by Indonesian Government. In year 2001 or about six months after the first survey, a very different picture was observed at two drink water installations. While the total mercury contents at the other installations fluctuate around the background level, the two installations which located closer to the mining area shown a considerably increment (5 and 18 times). In spite of their values that still lower than the health standard level, those increasing trends should be considered as a glance of future potential mercury impact to the health of Manado City community. This results delight the urgently needs of better and regular quality control test on mercury level of the drink water installations especially to the sites in Talawaan Watershed