Newmont Mining Corporation, the world's largest gold producer has been pumping tons of toxic mercury vapors into the air in Indonesia as well as dumping tons of it in a fishing bay.
A bay that until recently had provided fresh fish for the region.
Newmont is a Fortune 500 company based in Denver and is presenting this criminal action as a mishap and that the mercury they pumped in the air, dumped in the sea and poured over the earth could not be the source of chemical poisonings, birth defects and sicknesses that have swept the area.
Indonesian officials say they intend to prosecute the company for pollution, as well as accusations by former employees that Newmont willfully flouted environmental safeguards around the globe.
Newmont has repeatedly claimed that it regards American environmental standards as its measure overseas –but they certainly haven’t been running their operations overseas the way American companies run them here in the United States.
Two top executives denied that the company operations or the mercury harmed local people.
In 2001 Lawrence T. Kurlander, then a senior vice president and chief administrative officer, admonished his senior colleagues that Newmont had "told the world" it upheld American environmental rules abroad, when in fact it did not.
The company has behaved irresponsibly in Peru and Uzbekistan, as well as Indonesia.
Villagers at Buyat Bay, near the Newmont mine on the northern island of Sulawesi, have dizziness, difficult breathing, tumors and skin diseases, which they say began soon after Newmont started mining in 1996.
These are the symptoms of primary mercury poisoning and methylmercury – a byproduct of Newmont’s mining operations - formed when mercury is burned or starts to decompose in the soil or underwater after being dumped. Methylmercury will not show up in urine tests for plain mercury and so the company continues to insist that elevated levels of methylmercury –are no proof that they made it or that it showed up in the environment after they dumped their mercury.
About 33 tons of mercury that Indonesian officials say should have been collected and sent to a legal dump for toxic waste were dumped illegally over four years. About 17 tons were sent into the air and 16 more tons released into the bay.
David H. Francisco, executive vice president for operations, said of the totals. "Is there an impact, is it harmful, is it within the accepted limits we have as an industry, that governments have established? Yeah, I think there was an impact. On the other hand, no, it didn't negatively impact on the bay and the people."
In another instance of Newmont’s irresponsible and third rate mining techniques a subcontractor spilled some 330 pounds of mercury in 2000 along a road near a mine in Peru. Hundreds of villagers were made sick.
That incident involved 330 pounds of mercury – sickened an entire village and still the company insisted that the dizziness, difficult breathing, tumors, skin diseases and blindness were not caused by their company but happened spontaneously.
Newmont is a new standard for disreputable companies operating from home offices in the United States. It is because of companies like Newmont that the United States is viewed with distrust and hatred around the world.
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