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excerpts:
The summary, issued by the Indonesian Ministry of Health, shows no correlation between Newmont's mine waste and health problems reported by people living on Buyat Bay near Newmont's Minahasa mine.
"The average concentration of all heavy metals being examined was still under the tolerable level," states the summary, which was translated into English by Newmont.
An environmental group said the sampling size disclosed in the summary was too small - just 14 of 222 respondents live on the bay - to be meaningful. ...
Newmont has successfully fended off some of its critics in Indonesia. Villagers dropped a $543 million lawsuit against the company in December. In February, an Indonesian doctor who accused Newmont of causing mercury contagioning in the village retracted her allegations.
The summary released Friday by the Indonesian health ministry is difficult to interpret because of the small sampling size, said Payal Sampat of Washington-based Earthworks, a mining environmental activist group.
A University of Colorado toxicology professor hired by Newmont, Gary Krieger, agreed that the small sampling makes analysis difficult.
"That's a legitimate issue," he said. "The sample sizes are not what you might have wanted them to be."
