Sickened from U.S. mining venture
ALAN SIPRESS The Washington Post | Posted: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 12:00 am
BUYAT BEACH, Indonesia - Rafli Paputunang emerged from the shadows inside the wooden shack and, by the faint glow of a kerosene lamp, exposed a lump the size of a tennis ball behind his left knee. Another fisherman, Respi Bawole, came forward, pointing to a pair of smaller tumors in his jaw and cheek.
One after another, residents of this impoverished beachfront village stepped up to display similar growths. A mother lifted the arm of her young daughter to reveal a lump under it. A man pulled back his T-shirt to expose a tumor on his shoulder.
For the residents of Buyat Beach, the cause of their affliction seems as obvious as the three-story industrial station rising at the entrance to their village, a structure of pipes and girders that, until last month, pumped an average 1,700 tons of mining waste a day beyond the pounding surf.
The villagers blame Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp., the world's largest gold-mining company, for poisoning their idyllic tropical bay with arsenic and mercury.
"Before Newmont came, we never had these problems," said Paputunang, 34.
But a study conducted by Indonesia's environment ministry has determined that Newmont did not pollute the waters were near its gold mine in North Sulawesi province. The findings, released Monday, are at odds with the conclusions of an Indonesian police investigation. Police asked prosecutors this month to bring criminal charges against six Newmont executives, including two Americans, for contaminating the bay. The six executives, including Richard Ness, director of the local subsidiary, Newmont Minahasa Raya, face up to 10 years in prison. Five of the men remain in police custody.
The environment ministry study, prepared by experts both from private institutions and other government departments, reported that water quality in Buyat Bay meets all environmental standards, including limits for mercury, arsenic and other metals. The water quality was found comparable with that elsewhere off the coast of the province. The analysis also found that the levels of mercury and inorganic arsenic in fish from the bay met international standards.
Environment Minister Nabiel Makarim said government officials had decided to conduct the study two months ago because of conflicting reports about whether Newmont contaminated the bay. He declined to address the police allegations that Newmont had illegally contaminated the bay but said, "You can conclude if there's no pollution, no one is polluting."
These findings are also consistent with a separate study completed last month for the World Health Organization (WHO), which also exonerated Newmont, the world's largest gold mining company. Newmont stopped mining in North Sulawesi three years ago when it exhausted the site and finished processing ore in August. Newmont officials had rejected the police allegations, saying that regular testing since mining began in 1996 shows that mercury and arsenic levels in Buyat Bay are far below the limits set by Indonesian regulations.
"This report represents complete vindication for Newmont and confirms that Newmont has told the truth, has mined responsibly and has properly managed the environment of Buyat Bay," Tom Enos, Newmont's vice president for international operations, said in a written statement referring to the ministry's findings. "We strongly believe the information contained in the report, verified by six government and private accredited laboratories, should put to rest the controversy regarding Buyat Bay."
Though doctors said some of the village's 300 residents are unquestionably ill, the cause remains at least as murky as the waters. The court case, according to police, is based on their own studies.
According to police Lt. Col. Kurianto: "From the results of our investigation, which consisted of taking and analyzing samples in a number of places such as in Buyat River, Buyat Beach, Ratatotok Beach and at Newmont, and also talking to witnesses as well as getting expert analysis of experts, we came to the conclusion that Newmont has polluted Buyat Beach. This company has broken our environmental law."
Sandra Rotty, a physician at the local health clinic who said she has examined every villager in Buyat Bay since coming to the clinic in 1999, said their health problems resulted from poverty, poor sanitation and ignorance about hygiene.
"This pattern of symptoms of disease is common throughout coastal communities, not only Buyat Beach," she said.
Before Newmont began culling gold from the earth, this was an isolated region of fishing villages set along coves fringed by forest and coconut groves. The district's main link to the rest of Indonesia remains a 70-mile ribbon of narrow road that snakes through mountain jungle to the provincial capital, Manado.
From a lush hillside overlooking the bay, Newmont gouged three pits. Rock was pulverized at an onsite plant, which extracted about 30 pounds of gold a day and treated the rest to remove toxins.
The remaining waste materials, or tailings, were mixed with water to form a liquid the color of chocolate milk and piped out into the Molucca Sea, where they were deposited 90 yards below the surface, forming a vast, underwater hill.
In the United States, such ocean dumping is barred under the Clean Water Act. Mining companies, including Newmont, use other waste disposal methods for those operations.
But in North Sulawesi, Newmont decided that underwater disposal was preferable because storage sites built on land could be damaged by the region's frequent earthquakes and heavy rain, allowing the waste to flow into the surrounding environment, according to Yustinus Widodo, the Newmont mine's acting director of external relations.
The waste disposal pipe runs right past Buyat Beach village, a collection of shacks arrayed along a single road near the water's edge.
Former fisherman Mansour Lombonaung, 50, said Newmont had barely started dumping the tailings in 1996 when fish began dying by the hundreds. He said the fish kills continued for two years until some species disappeared entirely from Buyat Bay. Villagers said dwindling stocks coupled with bad publicity made it harder and harder to sell fish.
"We wanted to know if the reason was the tailings. If so, Newmont would have to relocate the village," Lombonaung said, adding that Newmont did not address residents' complaints.
Newmont officials attributed the fish kills to some fishermen's use of explosives or poison.
Five years ago, villagers began to complain of ailments, including severe headaches, itchy skin, numbness, leg cramps and tumors. Lombonaung said 168 residents had become sick from eating fish poisoned by Newmont waste; activists working with the community put the number at closer to 50.
The mystery illness gained national attention after the death in July of a 5-month-old girl named Andini. Her mother, Masna Stirman, 36, said Andini was born after a difficult pregnancy with rough, blistered skin and pus-filled bumps all over her body. The girl's uncle, Anwar Stirman, said the baby had the face of a 50-year-old.
One of the last doctors to see Andini, Jane Pangemanan, a public health lecturer at Sam Ratulangi University in Manado, said she believed Andini died from skin cancer caused by arsenic in her parents' blood. Pangemanan blamed Newmont.
But Rotty, the local physician, had examined Andini three times and said the ailment was a common skin disease related to malnutrition and poor sanitation. Rotty said she had prescribed medicine that had helped cure the problem. The baby ultimately died after pneumonia was diagnosed, she added.
The disagreement over Andini exemplifies the broader dispute over the bay's health. Three months ago, Indonesian police sampled the waters off the coast as well as sediment and fish, reporting that their laboratory found mercury and arsenic levels far exceeding government limits.
Johnly Giyoh, a project supervisor at the North Sulawesi mine, said Newmont employees accompanying police took simultaneous samples, which showed mercury and arsenic levels comparable to those recorded by Newmont since 1996. The readings, taken every three months at eight locations, indicated that average mercury levels were about one-twentieth the government limit and arsenic less than one-quarter, according to company figures.
"We feel like we are setting new high environmental and social standards," said Robert Humberson, the company executive in charge of compliance with Indonesian regulations.
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Special correspondent Noor Huda Ismail contributed to this report.