Introduction The August 2007 issue of Mother Jones magazine contains an article by freelance writer David Case about now-discredited allegations claiming Newmont Mining Corporation's Minahasa Raya mine polluted Buyat Bay. The article implies that the Indonesian court's unanimous and complete acquittal of Newmont and its President Director Richard Ness was due to influence and pressure from the company instead of the product of an exhaustive 21-month trial by a panel of five independent judges. Much of the scientific data examined by David Case was either ignored or suggested it was tainted. Scientific experts were not mentioned or quoted in the article. Instead, the story relied upon information from outside sources with well known anti-mining biases who have neither been to Buyat Bay nor examined the data. Furthermore, allegations which were proven false in the trial were unfortunately repeated in the article. In some cases the author infers intrigue, even when facts were well known and publicly available. Specific errors or omissions within the story include:   The Trial and Verdict   FLAW: Case's article cannot be considered a balanced look at the Buyat Bay case since it omits Newmont's complete acquittal of any and all pollution charges. FACT: On April 24, 2007, after a 21-month trial, a panel of five judges from the Manado District Court unanimously found Newmont not guilty of polluting Buyat Bay, of causing harm to human health or of operating the mine without proper permits. The verdict included a painstaking 279-page analysis of the witnesses, exhibits and scientific evidence presented. With meticulous detail, the judges outlined the law and how it guided each of their decisions. It is noteworthy that the verdict has yet to be criticized by anyone on points of the law or on the laws in which the decisions were rooted. The proof that Buyat Bay was unaffected by Newmont's mining operations, as captured in the judges' verdict, is overwhelming. Verdict   Human Health.   FLAW: The author makes light of respected, independent health studies or ignores them altogether in an effort to suggest that any health problems found in Buyat Bay residents should be linked to Newmont's mining operations. FACT: When allegations of disease and death were originally circulated in 2004, many medical experts came to study the area. The data collected was presented in peer-reviewed academic journals, academic conferences and government-sponsored reports. Every study conducted on human health in Buyat Bay has come to the same conclusion: that there were no unusual or mining-induced health problems in the community. WHO Study FLAW: The author suggests he discovered Buyat Bay Village and implies it was a community Mr. Ness did not want him to see. As such he leaves the impression there were medical issues in another nearby village being hidden by Ness and the company. FACT: Buyat Village is the closest established community to the coastal community. Because of its position, it has been the most closely studied of all the surrounding communities. Doctors from the local government and local teaching university have all concluded that the types and rates of diseases there are normal, with no unusual disease pattern. The health problems that do exist are, unfortunately, typical for a community in the region. Mercury.   FLAW: The Mother Jones article says "lab tests showed mercury levels in some villagers' bodies that were triple the level the U.S. government considers safe." FACT: This is incorrect. No evidence was offered to support this statement and every study that has been conducted contradicts this statement. Conclusive data shows community has low mercury levels. Some individual readings may be false or of illegal miners who work with mercury. Mercury and arsenic levels in Buyat Village inhabitants have been studied extensively. Studies by the World Health Organization and the Indonesian Ministry of Health found no residents with dangerous levels of heavy metals. Rigorous and repeated studies and lab tests have shown the village's population to have mercury levels which are considered normal anywhere in the world, and lower than those in many countries' coastal populations where fish is the primary diet. WHO Study   World Health Organization.   FLAW: The article attacks the United Nations' World Health Organization study stating some of their findings were inconclusive. And, despite having no medical credentials the author seems to disagree with WHO's conclusions. FACT: In 2004, shortly after the controversy began, the WHO team studied the environment and levels of mercury in the local population at the request of the Indonesian government. The team found mercury levels to be normal and lower than those found in many commercial fisheries. WHO's study found that mercury levels in the bay's fish do not indicate contamination from any source. WHO Study   FLAW: The author repeats the same error in his treatment of the subject of arsenic. FACT: The WHO study found arsenic concentrations in fish muscles to be normal. WHO Study   Medical Help.   FLAW: In describing the surgeries performed on Buyat Bay residents bused to the regional university medical center, the author presents the matter in a misleading way, suggesting that Newmont might have paid for the surgeries in an attempt to influence medical specialists who were to study the Buyat Bay community. FACT: The author was well aware that the regional university medical center sent repeated expeditions of medical officials to the area after the controversy began in 2004. Dozens of medical personnel examined the local population, trying to evaluate the health of local villagers. Part of that process was to perform free surgery to determine whether growths were cancerous, unusual or could be connected to mercury poisoning. Dr. Frans Tangel and his team performed the surgeries; the lumps were analyzed by pathologists and found to be benign and normal, both in type and number for the population. This information was made public and was available to the author who neglected to include these facts in his article.   Water Quality.   FLAW: Another of the many misleading statements in the article concerns Buyat Bay's water quality. The article claims, "Police investigators found mercury and arsenic in the Bay. (Newmont's own analysis of the same water samples found them to be clean.)" FACT: In 2004, an Indonesian police lab found what it considered dangerously high levels of mercury and arsenic in the water it tested. These police lab results have since been completely discredited both because they were wildly out of line with every other test done and because the police submitted a greater number of samples than had originally been taken when the police, Newmont and independent labs split common samples for testing. The police lab's personnel had no experience in conducting tests or performing analyses on such low concentrations of metals in ocean water. Its lab results were simply invalid. FACT: Other national and international laboratories who tested Buyat Bay ocean water found it to be normal and clean. These waters have been tested and retested many times over. There is no scientific controversy on this point: the waters in and around Buyat Bay are clean. Newmont had hired an internationally-recognized lab to test the Buyat Bay water samples, and its tests yielded the same results. Around the globe, ocean water has small amounts of mercury, arsenic and virtually every other natural element. The levels of mercury and arsenic in Buyat Bay waters are normal for ocean water and safe for all living things. CSIRO Report Part 1 – CSIRO Part 2   Questionable Sourcing, Questionable Journalism.   FLAW:Instead of citing the many competent and independent scientists who studied the Buyat Bay environment and the health of its community, the author sought and quoted sources with known anti-mining positions from the United States who have no first-hand knowledge of Buyat Bay. The activists quoted include Glen Miller of Great Basin Mine Watch as well as Jim Kuipers and David Chambers of the Center for Science and Public Participation. FACT: All three have established views opposing gold mining. There is no indication that any of the three have been to or studied Buyat Bay. The author ignored meticulously researched and peer-reviewed studies and reports from medical specialists who visited the area and examined the population. WHO, Minamata Institute, CSIRO FLAW: In another example of flawed sourcing, the article ends with a quote from Sandra Ainsworth, identified as a "former company employee who says she was fired after she blew the whistle on pollution at a Nevada mine." FACT: The courts ruled Ms. Ainsworth was not fired for whistle blowing. Her subsequent whistleblower lawsuit against Newmont was dismissed as being without merit by the United States District Court for the district of Nevada.   Postscript.   Untold context to the story is that Newmont engaged with David Case, on multiple occasions, for more than a year while he wrote his article for Rolling Stone magazine. After Rolling Stone rejected Case’s article he offered it to Mother Jones who published it. Newmont gave Case access to scientific data compiled by the company, data from outside independent laboratories, and access to technical and scientific experts with impeccable credentials who studied Buyat Bay. It is unfortunate that David Case chose to ignore most of the scientific data and independent experts that could have enlightened him on the true condition of Buyat Bay.