As the world’s biggest gold producer, Newmont Mining Corp. isn’t a sympathetic figure in some minds. Still, the Denver-based company deserves to be treated fairly – a quality that seems disturbingly absent in Indonesia’s handling of a mine waste dispute.
Last year, Indonesian police arrested six Newmont employees and for a time jailed five of them for unspecified environmental crimes. While the employees technically can leave the country, they’re still required to report to authorities weekly – so in effect remain in a kind of detention without trial, not knowing the charges against them.
Meanwhile, a different Indonesian government agency says it’s willing to settle a lawsuit over the waste dispute. Another, private lawsuit was dropped late last year.
If Indonesian prosecutors have evidence of a crime, they should charge the employees or dismiss the case. President Bush’s advisers should call for a fair and open handling of the matter when Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visits Washington next week.
Criminal laws vary greatly from country to country, and in Indonesia the accused can’t count on the same rights they’d enjoy in the United States.
Scientists, by contrast, are supposed to adhere to international standards. Researchers, whether in Indonesia or Colorado, should be able to look at the data on Newmont’s mine wastes and decide if there’s a problem.
Newmont’s Minahasa mine, which operated from 1996 to 2004, deposited mercury and other wastes under the waters of Buyat Bay. Newmont says the method was acceptable in the seismically active area. Critics allege, though, that the heavy metals harmed the health of nearby villagers.
There now have been at least four independent studies on the dispute, one by the World Health Organization, one by an Australian non-profit group and two by Indonesian government agencies. While some raised concerns, none found any conclusive correlation between alleged health problems in villagers living near Buyat Bay and Newmont’s mercury-laced wastes.
The full contents of the latest study, overseen by Indonesia’s ministry of health, haven’t been officially released. But the summary unveiled last week said there’s no clear link between villagers’ health woes and Newmont’s wastes. The sample size was small (of 222 residents near Buyat Bay, just 14 are from the village allegedly affected by the wastes), so it’s unclear whether one should put much confidence in the results. That’s just another reason, though, that Indonesia should release the study.
Another draft report, written last November by Indonesia’s ministry of environment, also found no clear link between villagers’ health complaints and the wastes. Annoyingly, that report also was never officially released. Perhaps that’s because, like good science should do, the study looked for other possible causes of villagers’ health woes, including poverty, poor drinking water quality, and illegal mines in the area.
The findings don’t necessarily let Newmont off the hook. The presence of mercury in the environment should always worry public health agencies. The metal can combine with other elements and form biologically active compounds. Some of these compounds can enter the food chain, so people who eat a lot of fish can build up dangerous levels of the toxic metal in their blood, leading to brain and internal organ damage, especially in children.
The environment ministry’s 2004 study said the mine wastes did pollute Buyat Bay’s sediments and some deep-sea organisms. It also warned there may be a risk that sea currents or tsunamis could spread the toxins. The study said some Buyat Bay villagers eat more fish than most people and thus could face a higher risk of mercury poisoning.
Newmont says Indonesia’s government approved its waste disposal plan. Still, it’s unlikely that a mine in the United States would similarly be allowed to dump millions of tons of heavy metals on the sea floor near populated areas. Newmont thus fell short of its own goal of following the same environmental standards abroad that would apply in this country.
However, the allegations that Newmont’s Indonesia waste disposal practices amounted to criminal acts simply are not supported by any scientific data. In absence of evidence that the company caused health problems or violated its government permit, the Indonesian criminal case against Newmont’s employees appears to be motivated by politics, not public health.
Newmont says it will monitor the wastes for the next two years – and has offered to keep doing so for 20 years. Rather than drag out an unsupportable criminal case, Indonesia should require Newmont to conduct long-term monitoring of the wastes and do a thorough clean-up of the heavy metals if future studies show it to be necessary.
