Newmont refutes team's report

JAKARTA: PT Newmont Minahasa Raya refuted on Thursday the verified report of a government-sanctioned joint team on the alleged contamination of Buyat Bay with the company's tailings.

Newmont's vice president of operations in Indonesia Robert Gallagher said the report, which claimed the bay was heavily polluted, was full of misinterpretations and unrealistic assumptions.

"The interpretations and assumptions are so biased that even when the team found that the water and fish of the bay contained lower than permitted levels of heavy metals, their report still concluded that there was pollution," he argued. --JP