Richard Ness : Trial Log : Court Hearing #29 on 23 June 2006
Court Hearing #29 on 23 June 2006 - 23 Jun 2006
by Eric
Dr. Inneke Rumengan
As defendant one and two I accept this fact and expert witnesses testimony in there entirety.
This expert witnesses testimony confirmed that as part of the analytical team, the marine community of benthic organisms, fish and coral reefs were all health and functioning within standard limits. This information has been presented both nationally and internationally and the conclusions from the scientific community are always the same as "facts can not be changed".
The witness testimony highlighted some very important points, which include that the WHO guidelines are the mean average and not an upper limit - that it is the inorganic form of arsenic that is the element of concern. She confirmed that to do proper analysis, if total arsenic in fish tissue is measured, then a factor must be included in calculating the arsenic before comparing it to an inorganic standard.
This witnesses confirmed prior testimony that the KLH technical team, including it's chairwomen, was in possession of KLH Report on Environmental Quality Assessment of Buyat and Totok Bay Dated 14 October 2004.
As member of the KLH "peer review team", the witness confirmed that good scientific analysis was sadly lacking in the "2004 KLH technical team report" with many obvious errors and omissions and that was the reason that true scientist, some government agencies, and institutions issued dissenting opinions against it's sudo-science.
Dr. Keith Bentley
Note: Keith was former WHO - UN toxicologist who specialized in chemical safety and was in the past, the head of chemical safety for WHO for the China/India and Pacific region. Keith's specialty is toxicology of heavy metals. A couple of comments that were note worthy on his testimony.
1) he does not know of one clinical case in the history of the world of medicine and science of Arsenic contamination from fish.. ( fish has primarily organic arsenic while the toxic form is inorganic compounds)
2) when asked regarding the symptoms of Minamata Disease, he had to apologize to the judge for using a black and white photo to show the symptoms, and stated he knows of no case of Minamata Disease since the development of color photography.
3) he stated that the Ministry of Environment "Technical Team Report" was the most technically flawed scientific work product he has ever read in the last 30 years of his work experience being a toxicologist.
As defendant one and two I accept this fact and expert witnesses testimony in there entirety.
Of particular relevance to this witnesses testimony was the fact that after review of all the technical data from various studies of Buyat Bay area, this expert has not seen any indications of Mercury or Arsenic contamination of the communities surrounding the mine, nor has he even heard of people being contaminated from arsenic in fish anywhere in the world.
The other significant item in this Experts testimony relates to the scientific integrity of the 2004 KLH Technical Team report dated 8 November 2004. At best, it may well be an embarrassment to the Government as the report contains data manipulation, misapplication of scientific formulas, erroneous and ridiculous assumptions such as Buyat people eating 10 meals a day, consuming ½ kg of fish per meal which equates to the consumption of 5 kg of fish per day or over one ton of fish per year per person
The tragedy this witness highlighted was the fact that this outlandish and manipulative report was used as the basis to create fear and confusion in the community; the report may have been at least to some extent responsible for some peoples unnecessarily relocation from Buyat Bay, and partially the reason we are all sitting here today.