Indonesia Delays Newmont Pollution Hearing to October
Date: 25-Sep-06
Country: INDONESIA
The prosecution was scheduled to make its sentence demand against PT Newmont Minahasa Raya (NMR) and its president director, Richard Ness, on Friday.
The firm has been accused of dumping poisonous mine waste tailings in Sulawesi's Buyat bay near its now inactive gold mine, making villagers sick.
The company has denied any wrongdoing and said the government had approved its water disposal process.
"Since this is a new case about the environment, we need to be meticulous in constructing the charges, which could take a long time," Purwanta, one of the prosecutors, told reporters in the provincial capital Manado, about 2,200 km (1,375 miles) northeast of Jakarta.
A team led by Indonesia's Environment Ministry in 2004 found arsenic and mercury content in tailings dumped by Newmont in Buyat Bay had contaminated sediment and entered the food chain.
In July, the company retested fresh water samples because previous tests by the World Health Organisation (WHO), government agencies, independent groups and the police had shown various readings on pollution.
Tests by the WHO and Japan's institute for Minamata Disease showed mercury levels in individuals, water and fish samples were not unusual. But police tests showed Newmont's disposed water exceeded limits on heavy metals.
The prosecution has rejected the new water samples, saying the water quality could differ from samples taken by police in 2004.
If found guilty, Ness could be jailed for up to 10 years and the firm could be fined.
Newmont opened the North Sulawesi gold mine in 1996, stopped mining five years later and closed the site after the last ore was processed in August 2004.
