<![CDATA[ABSTRACT The contamination of wells is influenced by any factors, such as condition of geographic, hydrogeology, soil topography, season, ground water flow rate and construction of physics of wells. With the founding of prospect area for gold in Mandailing Natal especially at sub-district of Huta Bargot, the higher of gold mining by the local people without permission.Generally, the mining activities cause the damage of environment,, it cause the contamination or pollution in the mining location.The assessment was conducted to study the traditional gold mining process, to study the content of mercury (Hg) on the waste water, the wells water of local people and to study the content of Mercury in the water of wells based on the distance from the center of traditional gold mining. This research is a descriptive study. The sample was took from the local wells in Rural village of Saba Padang, sub-district of Huta Bargot Mandailing Natal and than tested in the laboratory.Based on the result of research it known that the assessment was conducted at 9 sample of water of wells with the content of Mercury is less than standard content and 1 sample of waste water that positively contain Mercury with the higher content on the waste water for 0.01736 mg/l and the lower content is 0.0001 mg/l. According to the regulation of Health Minister No. 82 of 2001 concerning to the processing of water quality and pollution control the permitted value is 0.001 mg/l.The content of Mercury (Hg) in human body has a bad impact for the health either in short or in a long term. Therefore, the local people as miners must pay attention to the distance of mining processing to the settlement area of people that not less than 200 m from the center of traditional gold mining so the local people is safe and the consumed water is not contaminated by Mercury (Hg).Keywords : Mercury, Distance, Well water.]]>
