US-based environmental watchdog Sierra Club has criticized the US Embassy in Jakarta for chiding Indonesian police over the detention of five executives of a subsidiary of Denver-based gold mining giant Newmont for questioning over alleged pollution.
Newmont has consistently denied any wrongdoing, pointing out that waste from its mine in Minahasa regency, North Sulawesi province, has been treated in accordance with Indonesian government regulations.
The company also denies using mercury in its operations, but points out the heavy metal is used by thousands of illegal miners who operate with relative impunity in the province.
Conservation and anti-mining groups claim the subsidiary, PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, has dumped deadly amounts of mercury and arsenic into Buyat Bay, causing at least 30 villagers to die from Minamata disease – a severe form of mercury poisoning, named after a Japanese bay where the illness was first documented in the 1950s.
Indonesian police agree that NMR has contaminated the bay with excessive levels of mercury and arsenic, but the company argues that a series of independently conducted tests show no such pollution.
Cynical analysts and industry sources say the pollution charges against NMR are typical of efforts by NGOs and state authorities to coerce a departing company into paying extortionate amounts of compensation.
Newmont's chief executive Wayne Murdy on Tuesday described the pollution allegations against the company as a "blatant lie".
"We are not polluting Buyat Bay. We meet very stringent [environmental] standards there," he was quoted as saying by Dow Jones. He was speaking to a group of mining analysts and executives at a lunch at the Denver Gold Forum.
Murdy implied the pollution allegations might have been made because NMR has stopped operations and that sources of income would no longer be available to locals.
He further said Newmont officials met with the editors of the New York Times on Tuesday in an effort to get the newspaper to publish a retraction of its September 8 story alleging that Indonesian villagers were suffering health problems because of the company's mining operations.
It remains to be seen whether Newmont will also protest against the Sierra Club's statement, which is reprinted in full below.