Friday, April 18, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Report says Newmont impaired probe

Company denies it refused to answer agents

Newmont Mining's Lone Tree Mine near Winnemucca appears in this May 2000 photo. Newmont allegedly interfered with a probe into whistleblower complaints about pollution at Lone Tree, Nevada Division of Environmental Protection officials said recently. Photo by Associated Press

RENO --The world's largest gold producer, Newmont Mining Corp., interfered with a state investigation into whistleblower complaints about pollution at one of its Nevada mines, an investigative report shows.

By refusing to answer to state agents until the attorney general's office intervened, Newmont officials impaired an investigation by the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection into allegations that the company repeatedly discharged dangerous pollution at the open pit Lone Tree mine near Winnemucca, state officials wrote.

Investigators couldn't substantiate the bulk of two former employees' complaints, but the integrity of those findings may have been undermined by Newmont's initial stonewalling, a copy of the investigative report obtained by The Associated Press suggests.

"Although ultimately, NDEP did interview all of the people we were interested in, the investigation was delayed by two months and ... consequently lost the element of surprise, which is often times critical in an investigation," the report said.

Newmont officials on Thursday denied interfering with the investigation. They defended their environmental practices and said they were protecting their employees' rights in resisting the state's initial attempts to interview witnesses.

"We have cooperated with them and will continue to cooperate with them or any other agency," said Mary Korpi, director of external affairs for Newmont in Nevada.

"Immediately, at the time of the first meeting, they had complete access to relevant documentation and our mine facilities. But by Nevada statutes, there is nothing in there to include procedures for employee interviews," she said from Carlin.

The Division of Environmental Protection began an investigation last fall after two former employees complained that the company was breaking laws and polluting the area around the mine. Among other things, the whistleblowers complained about arsenic releases from a cooling pond, lack of sediment controls as required by federal law, the chemical makeup of a pit lake, monitoring of air pollution and failure to rid acidic drainage from tailings around the mine.

Investigators from the Environmental Protection Division contacted Newmont on Sept. 18 and company officials initially agreed to make six employees available for interviews the next day.

But after one interview, Newmont officials ended the questioning, saying they "did not have a good understanding of the issues and they were concerned about the individual liability of their employees," the report said.

"However, what is most disappointing ... is that the senior management level officials felt their actions to halt the first round of interviews were justified. Newmont did not seem to grasp the significance of the situation they created."

The Nevada attorney general's office notified Newmont in October that the Denver-based company was "interfering with NDEP's ability to investigate allegations related to the Lone Tree Mine."

Nine Newmont employees later were questioned in November and "for the most part, those interviews did not corroborate the allegations," the report said.

One of the whistleblowers said Wednesday that she thinks the witnesses at Newmont were influenced by the company before talking to investigators.

"The employees by the time they had finally been interviewed by NDEP had been intimidated," the whistleblower said, speaking on condition her name not be published. She said she lost her job in April 2002 but declined to discuss the circumstances.

"The report said it impeded the investigation, and it did," she told AP. "The employees out there were highly intimidated by the entire sequence of events."

Newmont officials insisted they made no attempt to influence their employees, the report said.

The whistleblower, who said she has 15 years work experience in environmental sciences, said she and another worker initially contacted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "because we expected the kind of response from NDEP that we got.

"It was pretty much a whitewash," she said.

The report said the state already was aware of a number of the situations the whistleblowers complained about.

"The report doesn't say there are not issues. There are real issues, but they are being dealt with," said Leo Drozdoff, chief of the division's Bureau of Water Pollution Control, which led the investigation.

The whistleblower said the "conditions that were outlined in that report have been in existence since June 1999.

"But if they are being addressed, they are being addressed very slowly," she said.

She said EPA said it wouldn't get involved until the state had completed its review and she added was optimistic the federal agency now would investigate.

Leaders of an environmental watchdog group said the report constitutes new grounds to challenge a state water permit recently issued to the Lone Tree Mine, and they were considering a lawsuit.

"This report makes it abundantly clear that there are ongoing problems with Newmont and with its operations at the Lone Tree Mine," said Nicole Rinke, a lawyer for the Great Basin Mine Watch, which earlier failed to block the permit.