Tests show mercury levels OK near mine
Wednesday, October 6 2004 - 12:11 AM WIB
Umar Fahmi, Indonesia's minister of communicable disease, said the level of mercury in the hair of people living near the Minahasa Raya mine was 2.65 micrograms per gram, or about one-twentieth of the 50 micrograms per gram level the WHO considers dangerous.
"We're hopeful this (WHO report) will bring the investigation to completion soon," Newmont spokesman Doug Hock said Monday. "We're also hopeful our employees will be released from detention."
The Indonesian government has detained five executives of the Denver-based mining company in a Jakarta jail since Sept. 22 because of a police investigation into allegations it dumped mercury and arsenic-laced mine waste into the sea off the island of Sulawesi.
The company has repeatedly denied the charges.
The Indonesian government hasn't given Newmont any indication it will release the executives, Hock said. Indonesian law allows the government to hold people in jail for 20 days without charging them.
U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Ralph L. Boyce has called for the release of the Newmont executives because they are cooperating with the investigation.
In Tuesday morning trading, Newmont shares edged up 57 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $45.21 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Mineski Sakamoto, an expert from Japan's National Institute for Minamata Disease, and WHO environmental expert Jan Speets conducted research in the Buyat Pante and Ratatotok villages on Sulawesi in mid-August, the Jakarta Post newspaper said.
They took water samples and tested fish, in addition to taking blood, hair and fingernail samples from residents from the two villages, the Post said. The samples were tested in Japan.
Minamata Disease is characterized by severe neurological degeneration caused by the ingestion of mercury-contaminated fish. (*)