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September 29, 2006

Ivory Coast wants Estonian tanker held

PAULINE BAX, ASSOCIATED PRESS, SEPTEMBER 26, 2006

The Probo Koala, blockaded by Greenpeace

NEW YORK — Authorities in Ivory Coast asked Estonia to hold a tanker that left hundreds of tons of toxic waste in the West African nation's main city, as another death was attributed to the foul-smelling substance on Tuesday.

A judge heading the commission investigating the chemical waste scandal sent a written request to Estonia to detain the ship and "put it at our disposal for the investigation," a justice ministry official said.

Activists from the environmental group Greenpeace prevented the oil tanker Probo Koala from leaving the port of Paldiski, Estonia, on Monday, demanding that authorities impound the ship.

The health ministry said an eighth victim died because of the waste, which was shipped to the commercial capital of Abidjan last month by a Netherlands-based commodities trader and dumped in ditches, alongside roads, and on the main garbage dump by a local contractor.

Hospitals in Abidjan have provided free consultations to 80,000 people, many of them complaining of nausea, headaches and breathing difficulties caused by the fumes. The number of people seeking treatment has started to level off, a health ministry official said.

U.N. experts said last week the waste contained a chemical called hydrogen sulfide, which gives off a pungent smell of rotten eggs and in high doses can kill.

The Dutch company, Trafigura Beheer BV, says the ship's cargo consisted of regular "washings" with little or no toxicity.

Trafigura's director Claude Dauphin and another executive were jailed in Ivory Coast last week and charged with poisoning and breaking toxic waste laws, after they went to the country to distribute medicines and assist authorities with an investigation.

A number of local officials have also been arrested, along with the Nigerian owner of the contracting company that dumped the waste.

A clean-up operation led by a French waste removal company went into its second week as the smell dissipated at most sites around the city.

Posted by bhola at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)

American verdict in Baghdad: what Saddam Hussein’s trial isn’t exposing

Santa Barbara Independent, September 28, 2006

By Kevin McKiernan, maker of the documentary Good Kurds, Bad Kurds and author of the new book The Kurds: A People in Search of Their Homeland. He has covered the war in Iraq in both Kurdish and Arab areas for ABC News.

“Saddam Hussein deserves the ultimate punishment.”

Is there something to learn from Saddam Hussein’s atrocities — such as the thousands of Kurds, including children, who were asphyxiated by poison gas — or should we simply erase a monstrous thug and move on? That’s the $64 question as Hussein’s soap opera case lumbers along in an Iraqi courtroom amid concern about the appointment of tribunal judges by U.S. occupation forces, the disregard for the rule of law alleged by Human Rights Watch, and the nearly $128 million American taxpayers have spent so far to secure a conviction. Instead, Saddam’s threats to boycott the trial and other theatrical outbursts have competed for headlines with public pronouncements of guilt by Iraq’s current president Jalal Talabani (“Saddam deserves a death sentence 20 times a day”), obscuring a record of wider responsibility for the “Kurdish Holocaust.”

It seems axiomatic that a trial for war crimes should be a tool of investigation, not just a vehicle for vengeance or a means to justify an invasion. After all, the triumph of the Nuremberg trials was not the execution of Nazi war criminals, but rather the exposure of the Third Reich and its accomplices — so that the world might listen when Jews and other victims solemnly vowed, “Never again.” Today, the Nuremberg legacy endures in children who visit the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles or are taught in school about the horrors of the gas chambers. Unfortunately, the issue of international support for the Nazis in World War II, some of it from American companies like Standard Oil, General Motors, and Chase Bank — all sanctioned by the U.S. government after the attack on Pearl Harbor — is seldom part of the lesson.

Beyond criticisms about the independence of the judiciary is the question of trying Saddam and his henchmen in an environment where more than 3,000 civilians were killed just last month, including another member of Hussein’s defense team — the fifth such assassination since the proceedings began. An overriding issue, however, is whether the trial will expose key American and European officials who played a role in arming the Iraqi regime with industrial insecticides and a variety of other deadly components that the West knew were being used against the Kurds.

Imagine looking down on thousands of little creatures — and then spraying them with a giant can of Raid. That is essentially what Saddam Hussein’s air force did in 1988 when pilots gassed the Kurdish town of Halabja with a cloud of deadly toxins, including large quantities of the nerve gas found in household insecticides. The Halabja massacre is now Exhibit A for the prosecution, and the Kurds who survived Hussein’s reign of terror have front row seats in the Baghdad courtroom. Human rights monitors estimate that more than 100,000 Kurds were killed or “disappeared” in Iraqi Kurdistan in the 1980s, the period when Hussein’s regime received billions of dollars in aid from the West. Halabja is the best known of more than 200 sites in northern Iraq where chemicals were sprayed.

Over the years, Halabja survivors have shared with me the grisly last moments of their friends and relatives. In the initial moments of exposure, I am told, some victims spurted blood from their ears. Some vomited, and others fell down laughing and writhing as they choked to death. The environment suffered as well. A Kurdish doctor I know estimates that 40 percent of Kurdish lands were contaminated. He and others fear that the “cocktails” of mustard, VX, and sarin gas may have caused long-term damage to the soil and water table.

During my frequent trips to the area since 1991, residents have repeatedly asked me why family members still suffer from cancers, cleft palates, stillbirths, miscarriages, and birth defects. On one Halabja visit, my translator told me that his uncle died in 1996 after being bitten by a “poison snake” which had feasted on uncollected corpses lying on the streets following the 1988 attack. Such stories make up the grotesque folklore of Halabja and other contaminated areas of Kurdistan. No one knows the truth — because no Western government or health agency has wanted to spend the money to conduct comprehensive soil and water tests. Just as there has been no deep investigation of Hussein’s international helpers, little is known about long-term health hazards to Kurds who still live in these areas. In both cases, the lack of information increases the risk that similar catastrophes may be repeated.

The broad outlines of Hussein’s U.S. support that are known include:
• the courting of the Iraqi regime by the Reagan-Bush administration in the early 1980s as a foil against the Islamic Republic of Iran;
• President Reagan’s handwritten letter to Saddam Hussein soliciting better relations;
• multiple visits by the then special White House envoy Donald Rumsfeld, who also represented efforts by the Bechtel Corporation to build a lucrative oil pipeline across Iraq;
• the administration’s decision to remove the regime of Saddam Hussein — who was known in those days as the Butcher of Baghdad — from the list of international sponsors of terror, to make it eligible to receive U.S. technology;
• the sworn affidavit of Howard Teicher, who worked at Reagan’s National Security Council, that the United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort against Iran by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits to purchase weapons;
• the transfer to Baghdad of anthrax, botulinum, and other substances from U.S. government labs in Maryland;
• and the fact that Hussein’s technicians fitted some U.S.-made helicopters with nozzles and used them to spray gas on Kurdish villages.

It is clear that Iraq’s use of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was known at the highest levels in Washington. A State Department official has stated that he informed former Secretary of State George Shultz that Iraq was making “almost daily use” of chemical weapons against Iranian troops, and evidence exists that the CIA provided satellite photos to Iraqi generals, enabling them to pinpoint the positions of Iranians for chemical attacks. In other words, Saddam was using WMDs with U.S. oversight.

The Kurds were fighting for their rights in Iraq, but in Saddam’s war with Iran, the Kurds found themselves on Tehran’s side. For the United States, defeating Iran trumped nearly every other concern. Even after chemical weapons were used on the Kurds in 1988, the Reagan-Bush administration actively blocked trade sanctions against Iraq, and the Commerce Department continued to approve military exports to the brutal regime. The message to Saddam Hussein couldn’t have been clearer: You can gas the Kurds and get away with it.

The war crimes trials in Baghdad still offer Saddam’s victims — and American taxpayers — the opportunity to expose political wrongdoing and to prevent more Halabjas. There seems little doubt that the ex-dictator and his associates will one day face a hangman or firing squad — assuming they live long enough. But if U.S. influence allows prosecutors to sidestep the vital issue of the “aiders and abettors,” the 5,000 Kurds sprayed to death in Halabja and the tens of thousands of other victims — many of them still struggling with blindness, cancers, and birth defects — will be cheated of their right to know the real story of this and other Iraqi war crimes. Without that wider inquiry, the trials may well be seen as a form of victor’s justice.

Posted by bhola at 12:28 AM | Comments (0)

September 27, 2006

Toxic tanker's complex trail from Amsterdam to Abidjan

Rohan Minogue, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, September 26, 2006

Amsterdam - The rust-streaked Probo Koala was no stranger to European ports, taking on and offloading petroleum products. But when the tanker had highly toxic waste to discharge, Europe proved too expensive and the cheaper and less regulated shores of West Africa beckoned.

Seven died and more than 40,000 sought medical help in Abidjan after waste linked to the tanker found its way onto landfill dumps around the Ivory Coast port. The government fell earlier this month as a result of the scandal.

Lucas Reijnders, a professor of environmental studies commissioned by a leading Dutch newspaper to analyse the waste, expressed astonishment at the chemical cocktail he found.

The hydrogen sulphide content of more than 6 milligrams per litre was particularly surprising, Reijnders told the NRC Handelsblad.

'I have never seen such a high concentration in crude oil products. It is exceptionally dangerous. It attacks the nervous system and readily leads to death because the sense of smell is paralyzed,' Reijnders said.

The owners of the load, the Dutch-registered company Trafigura Beheer, denied that there was a high concentration of hydrogen sulphide, which smells powerfully of rotten eggs, in the waste.

Based on its own tests and samples analysed by the French company hired to clean up the mess, there was none of the chemical or only very little, it said.

'It is still unclear exactly what caused the tragedy in Abidjan,' the company said in a statement on its website www.trafigura.com, calling the media debate on the waste 'ill-informed.'

Trafigura also strenuously denied that the Panamanian-registered vessel, built in South Korea in 1989, had been used over May and June this year as a primitive 'floating refinery' to turn cheap naphtha, a light gasoline-like fraction of crude oil, into expensive petrol.

This has been alleged by another Dutch newspaper, the Volkskrant, following a reconstruction of the trail left by the tanker this year.

What is beyond dispute is that Trafigura offered some 400 tons of what it termed 'slops' aboard the Probo Koala to the company Amsterdam Port Services for disposal on July 3.

Also undisputed is that it viewed the 500,000 euros (625,000 dollars) tendered by APS and the processing company ATM as too high.

The Amsterdam port and environmental authorities had begun taking an interest in what the vessel was carrying as a result of the stench emitted when 250 tons were pumped to a transfer barge.

Nevertheless the waste was pumped back into the Probo Koala and it left Amsterdam on July 5, headed for Estonia, where it took on a load of oil.

On the morning of August 19 the tanker entered Abidjan, where Trafigura, acting through its subsidiary Puma Energy, contacted two waste disposal companies.

Ivorienne de Technique d'Energie (ITE) promptly rejected the tender, but Societe Tommy was less choosy, offering to dispose of the waste for 18,500 dollars, according to the Handelsblad.

The same day residents of the Akouedo part of Abidjan reacted with outrage to the powerful stench of rotten eggs emitted by the slurry being dumped by tanker trucks at a landfill site. They surrounded the last of the trucks, forcing the driver to flee.

But it was too late for seven residents of the area who succumbed to the toxic fumes. On September 4 the Ivory Coast government admitted that the slurry was dangerous, and two days later it fell.

After analysing samples taken by the Ivory Coast environmental agency Ciapol, Reijnders was emphatic that he was dealing with chemical waste, and not slops resulting from cleaning out oil tanks, as asserted by Trafigura.

'The high-pH (indicating alkalinity) and the presence of organo-chlorides...back up my conclusion,' he said. 'You don't find this in slops.'

'The stuff is really corrosive. It goes right through the skin,' he said, suggesting that waste oil could have been added.

Dutch members of parliament say the waste should never have been allowed to leave, and Reijnders agrees. 'Anyone with a nose and who knows anything about chemistry should have known that,' he said.

Three separate inquiries are underway in the Netherlands, and the authorities are refusing to comment until the results are known.

Ivory Coast prosecutors are looking into the possibility of an illicit deal involving the companies and port officials.

When the Probo Koala turned up at the Estonian port of Paldiski on September 15, it was given a clean bill of health.

'The safety inspectorate have visited the ship: it seems a completely legal operation and the ship is not planning to leave any waste,' Allan Gromov of the Estonian Environment Ministry said.

He described the crew as 'pretty nervous' and said they felt 'very bad about becoming pariahs.'

On Monday Greenpeace brought its vessel Arctic Sunrise up alongside the tanker in Paldiski, spraying the slogan 'Toxic Trade Kills' on the tanker and preventing it from leaving.

Posted by bhola at 09:31 AM | Comments (0)

'Africa is the world's septic tank'

Christophe Parayre, Business in Africa Online, September 26, 2006

Dakar - "We talk of globalisation, of the global village, but here in Africa, we are under the impression of being that village's septic tank," said Senegalese ecologist Haidar al-Ali.

A series of pollution scandals, ranging from the discharge of toxic waste in Ivory Coast to radioactive tanks in Somalia, show that Africa's poverty, corruption, and non-existent or malfunctioning democracies make it the world's preferred dumping ground.

According to the French environment protection group, Robin des Bois, the waste sent to Africa - such as old tyres, cars and broken computers containing toxic parts - was "very difficult, if not impossible, to recycle."

"To Asia goes everything that can be salvaged and that is of high added value, such as copper wire and metal scraps," said the group's director Charlotte Nithart.

In Abidjan, Ivory Coast's economic capital, seven people died, 24 were hospitalised and there were 37 000 calls for medical help after an Ivorian firm, Tommy, dumped toxic waste at 11 public sites across the city in August.

The company had been hired to properly dispose of 500 tonnes of a highly-toxic mixture of oil residue and caustic soda used to rinse out a Greek-owned ship's tanks.

In the last days of 2004, the tsunami started by an earthquake in Asia hit the coast of Somalia where it damaged toxic water containers on the northern coast of this country, plunged into anarchy by 15 years of civil war.

Health problems were reported by the local population including "acute respiratory infections, dry heavy coughing and mouth bleeding, abdominal haemorrhages, unusual skin chemical reactions, and sudden death after inhaling toxic materials," according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Starting from the early 1980s and continuing into the civil war, the hazardous waste dumped along Somalia's coast includes radioactive uranium waste, lead, cadmium, mercury, industrial, hospital, chemical, leather treatment and other toxic waste, UNEP wrote in a country report.

In 1996, the European parliament officially asked the governments of the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain to repatriate toxic waste exported to South Africa by Thor Chemicals Ltd.

The parliament noted that hundreds of tonnes of toxic mercury waste had caused damage to the environment and caused severe health problems amongst local people.

In the West African nation of Cameroon, about 5 600l of chlorine were dumped in 2005 in a village near Douala, the economic capital. Authorities tried to dilute the chlorine at sea, but the operation turned disastrous when the mixture exploded, killing a soldier and injuring about 10 people.

Africa was a favourite place to ‘treat’ or simply dump hazardous waste because treating such waste in industrialised countries was very expensive.

Robin des Bois said it costs between €300 to €500 to treat a cubic metre of hazardous waste. In Africa it was six to 15 times cheaper because there was no real treatment and no proper storage.

The Basel Convention, set up in 1989 to prevent dumping of toxic waste in countries without proper facilities for handling it, has helped regulate the flow.

But illegal traffic in toxic waste continues, Robin des Bois's Nithart said, "because businessmen try to get around the regulations in order to save money".

For the Senegalese ecologist "the waste is often accepted by corrupt people or factions who want money to buy weapons".

To really put an end to this traffic, the affected countries "need sentries, people willing to get involved in protecting our environment," he added. Nithart said lack of controls in Africa were part of the problem.

"If, in African ports, there were stricter controls to check that these wastes did not arrive, if the loops were closed in the health and environmental controls, then the Probo Koala (the Greek ship in the Ivory Coast) would not have arrived in Abidjan."

But she also put the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of European authorities.

"A European country like the Netherlands, with an infrastructure, a port authority, specialists in waste disposal, customs and everything else, still let the Probo Koala go," she said.

"It's not when hazardous waste arrives that Europeans should try and control it, but when it leaves," Nithart said.

Posted by bhola at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)

Hazardous waste dump found in Quezon

Delfin Mallari Jr., Inquirer, Manila, September 26, 2006

LUCENA CITY -- A dumping site for hazardous chemical wastes has been discovered in a coconut plantation in Candelaria, Quezon, an official of the nationwide environmentalist group Tanggol Kalikasan (TK, Defend Nature) said Tuesday.

Juliet Aparicio, TK program officer, said more than 90 plastic and steel drums containing different kinds of chemicals such as sulfuric acid, paint, among many other factory wastes, were found in the vicinity of the dumping in Candelaria’s Mangilag Norte village.

"Some of the containers have labels that read ‘hazardous waste.’ Masyadong mabaho ang amoy (The smell is really bad),” Aparicio said in a mobile phone interview.

The dumping site that has five man-made pits measuring two by three meters and at least three meters deep was discovered inside a coconut plantation in Sitio 3 of the village, some two kilometers away from the Maharlika Highway.

"The three pits were already filled with different kinds of chemical waste and were now covered. The two other pits were beginning to be dumped with newly arrived chemicals. The chemicals were just being poured into the dumping ground and then covered when full," she said.

Some of the drums had labels bearing the name Light Industry and Science Park located in Cabuyao, Laguna.

Aparicio said village chairman Efren Florendo denied knowledge that what was being dumped in area were chemical wastes.

TK received the information from Caloy Reyes, the Candelaria municipal environment and natural resources officer.

"Some of residents in the area could no longer bear the stench coming from the chemicals so they brought the matter to the attention of the local government," she added.

Aparicio reported residents as saying that the dumping of the chemical wastes started a week ago.

Posted by bhola at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)

White House appoints industry-backed extremist as regulatory czar

OMBWATCH, JULY 31, 2006

Corporate special interests are about to have the best friend they could have wished for installed in the White House office that oversees regulatory policy. The White House announced today its intention to nominate Susan Dudley, an anti-regulatory extremist from the industry-funded Mercatus Center, to an obscure but powerful office, where she would have the power to gut the federal government's very ability to protect the public.

All the safeguards we take for granted - everything from the air we breathe to the water we drink - are now at risk. The position she is nominated for, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House Office of Management and Budget, is the administration's "regulatory czar." It is a single office with enormous power over regulations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, and much more.

All of these agencies have seen their policies weakened and their ability to develop new safety and health standards diminished during the Bush administration. Nominating Dudley to this office is a signal that the White House is not interested in reversing course; clearly, the Bush administration is signaling all-out war on the public's protections.

From her perch at the industry-funded think tank Mercatus Center, Dudley has been steadily attacking the standards that protect us all, with arguments that boggle the mind.

She has attacked the Toxic Release Inventory, the program that protects the public's right to know about the toxic substances released into our own backyards. In Dudley's opinion, the war on terror is an excuse to leave the public in the dark about the hazards we are breathing and drinking.

She has criticized standards that protect workers from breathing in silica dust, to keep them from dying an excruciating, suffocating death as their lungs crystallize. In Dudley's opinion, we cannot regulate until we know just how deadly all the different types of silica are.

Her writing is intellectually inconsistent. On the one hand, she urges that we should not have improved standards for air bags (standards which have been proven to save lives), arguing that we should instead give consumers more information about air bag options and the choice to buy a car without them. One the other hand, she argues that the public cannot be trusted to handle information rationally, and that we should therefore be kept in the dark about the potential consequences to all of us from accidents in chemical plants. The only consistency is a relentless hostility against regulations to protect the public from the harms caused by corporate special interests.

We know from Dudley's own writings that she wants the very White House office she will be given to set impossible requirements before any new protective standards can be developed. Dudley's approach would require a public health or safety crisis to become irreversible before an agency could act, even in cases when scientific evidence justifies intervening sooner. As she notes in comments on the fish kill rule (the rule to govern industrial plants that suck up water from the environment to cool their systems, but end up killing billions of fish every year), it's not enough that EPA can show that the population of fish is significantly depleting. Rather, Dudley believes we have to wait until the fish population is depleted enough to raise the price of fish. By this logic, an agency would have to wait for the death of an ecosystem, the epidemic of a foodborne illness, or the emergence of a rare cancer associated with a known carcinogen before it would be allowed to step in and regulate.

We expect our federal government to work for us, to protect the public from the dangers that are too big for any individual to tackle alone. The big problems, like global warming, the safety of the food chain, and so many more: we need federal regulatory policy to produce the standards that will keep us healthy and safe. Dudley is a threat to the federal role in protecting the public.

Contact: Anna Oman, aoman@ombwatch.org, 202-234-8494

Posted by bhola at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)

Chemical Insecurity

OMBWATCH, September 26, 2006

Last night, the Homeland Security Appropriations Conference Committee struck a deal to attach chemical security language to the FY 2007 DHS spending bill. The language, agreed upon by Rep. Peter King (R-NY) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) last week, is a retreat from stronger, bipartisan bills pending in both houses and, according to environmental groups, "turns a blind eye to removing thousands of people from harm's way with off-the-shelf technologies." News of the agreement quickly met with strong criticism from members of Congress and public interest groups.

On Sept. 22, House Democrats on both the Energy and Commerce and Homeland Security committees sent a letter to House leaders and appropriators, urging them to reject the King-Collins proposal, which they called "inadequate chemical security measures promoted by the chemical industry." According to Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), an author of the letter, "[k]ey homeland security protections against chemical disasters are being swept aside in favor of a rider drafted in consultation with industry."

Recently, the House Homeland Security Committee approved a strong bipartisan chemical security bill (H.R. 5695) that includes provisions that would require high-risk facilities to implement safer technologies when feasible, and ensure that states are not pre-empted from adopting stronger chemical security protections. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee had also passed chemical security legislation, (S. 2145), which was weaker than the bipartisan House bill, but far stronger than the King-Collins agreement.

Public interest and environmental organizations, including OMB Watch, have also called for chemical security legislation to make information available to the public so that communities can understand and minimize the risks they face. This call for disclosure has faced strong opposition from the chemical industry. The King-Collins agreement appears to have taken a cue from industry, ensuring "vulnerability assessments, site security plan, and other security related information shall be given protections from public disclosure" and thus ensuring the agreement will provide little, if any, public accountability.

In a Sept. 22 statement, Greenpeace outlined ten reasons why the King-Collins chemical security proposal fails to protect communities. Among them were the fact that the plan specifically exempts approximately 3,000 drinking water and waste water facilities, keeps DHS from requiring safer technologies, and fails to preserve state and local government's authority to set stronger security standards than the federal government (such as those currently in place in New Jersey).

The process by which the King-Collins proposal side-stepped open negotiations has received criticism equal to that leveled at the agreement's content. A Sept. 25 New York Times editorial noted, "The Senate and the House spent many months carefully developing bipartisan chemical plant security bills." But instead of building on these efforts and seeing them through, The Times complains, "whatever gets done about chemical plant security will apparently be decided behind closed doors."

The House-Senate Conference Committee is expected to vote later this week on the Homeland Security appropriations bill. In the meantime, chemical security supporters continue to adamantly call on appropriators to oppose industry-supported loopholes (like the King-Collins agreement) that negate the purpose of meaningful chemical security legislation -- such as H.R. 5695 - namely, to secure the tens of thousands of hazardous U.S. facilities and to protect communities nationwide.

Posted by bhola at 09:15 AM | Comments (0)

Why I had to flee my country

Steven Russell, Suffolk & Essex Online, September 26, 2006

CHOMAN Hardi is no stranger to hardship. She was born in Iraqi-controlled Kurdistan in 1974 - the year negotiations broke down with the Baath government. The Kurds had long been fighting for autonomy, but when the revolution was crushed many people fled to neighbouring Iran.

Among them was Choman's family, their baby just over one month old. They ended up in Kerej, a small town outside Tehran.

“I grew up in a refugee Kurdish neighbourhood filled with stories about homeland and the hopes of return,” she recalls. “This is where I spent my first five years.”

In 1979 the Iraqi government issued an amnesty and after much hesitation her father decided to return. Choman remembers crossing back to her homeland; the journey captured in her poem At the Border.

“I was five years old and expected the other place behind the border to be much more beautiful. This is what my family had assured me. I realised I had been deceived. That day I probably learnt the first important lesson in my life: that the stories immigrants tell about their homelands are myths and beautiful lies. Suleimanya was not better than Kerej and the landscape was not that different.”

A year later, war broke out between Iraq and Iran.

“My childhood, like many of my generation, is full of the sound of sirens and planes and guns. Our days were dominated by the Iraq-Iran war and our nights by Iraq's war against the Kurdish peshmarga (fighters for independence).

“In those years all of our textbooks started with glorious pictures of Saddam Hussein, grinning at us. A large portrait was also hung above our blackboard. Some days, after heavy breakouts of shooting the night before, we would go to school and there would be more triumphant posters of Saddam on the walls. My father told me that they were hiding the bullet holes.”

Nevertheless, Choman was a cheerful girl, if shy. She was furious when her parents outlawed music lessons, or any involvement in sports or art exhibitions. Years later she realised they'd had good reason.

“Any student who stood out in these fields was gradually sucked into the (Baath) party. I was once chosen as the model student and my father made me turn this prestigious position down. As a child I was angry with my father, refusing to believe that things were as bad as he made out. But soon life itself proved him right.

“When I was nine years old my brother took part in the students' demonstrations and was arrested and tortured in 1983. He was only 17. In 1984 my other brother was arrested during a curfew because there was 'an anti-government slogan' on our wall. He was a university student at the time and had come home for the weekend. In 1986 both my brothers joined the Kurdish revolution despite my mother's cries and begging. In this way the same circle started again.”

Action against the Kurds intensified throughout the 1980s. Then in February, 1988, during the last months of the Iraq-Iran war, the government started its ultimate destruction of the villages, known as the Anfal campaign.

“The Anfal offensive took place in eight stages, destroying over 2,000 villages and mass-graving about 100,000 civilians. The inhabitants were repeatedly bombarded by chemical weapons over seven months.”

Once again the Kurdish revolution was crushed. Choman's brothers fled to Iran.

“This campaign targeted the villages but in March, 1988, Halabja, which was a town, was also chemically bombarded. The bombardment terrified all Kurds. The government was seen to be capable of wiping out all of Kurdistan in the absence of outside intervention.”

Saddam Hussein and six other defendants are currently being tried for these 1988 offensives.

“We lived in the city and were never targeted in this way. But the Anfal campaign, Halabja, and the peace treaty between Iraq and Iran convinced my father to leave. We joined my brothers in Iran, crossing through dozens of destroyed villages, guided by smugglers.”

Choman was 14 when the family ended up in Seqiz, a small Kurdish town known for its harsh winters.

“Under the Islamic republic we had to cover up and wear the hijab, and I had to re-learn Persian to continue my schooling. I had two classmates who were in the same position as me. In school, the girls were fascinated by us and wanted to find out what we were like. Some were curious to know what it felt like to have bare arms and legs on the street. The more religious ones even thought we were lucky that we had been saved from our previous sinful lives.

“Most of our teachers were very supportive but the history teacher refused to speak in Kurdish in the class, which meant that for a few months we were depressed throughout her lessons. I hated my life for about a year but then I discovered literature in Persian and everything started to look up again.

“Most of all I missed the relatively freer environment we enjoyed as girls. I had always looked forward to growing up and being a woman, wearing colourful dresses, make-up and bare-toe shoes. Living in Iran deprived me of all these things. I was turned into a black crow on the streets.”

Iraq invaded Kuwait and was suddenly re-defined by the West as “dangerous”. The first gulf war followed.

“The short-lived Shi'ite and Kurdish uprisings of 1991 brought hope to many families like us, who were eagerly waiting to return. But Iraq was left with enough army and the use of helicopters to crush both sides. More than 100,000 Shi'ites were massacred in the south and about two million Kurds fled to Iran and Turkey.

“Our house in Seqiz soon resembled a refugee camp when dozens of relatives and friends came to stay in our two-bedroom flat. This is when my father, encouraged by my sister in London and my brother in America, decided to leave the region altogether. We went to Turkey in 1991 and I eventually made it to the UK in 1993.”

Most of her family later went back to Iraqi Kurdistan.

“My two brothers returned there in 1991, after the creation of the safe haven for the Kurds, and my parents, who lived in London for 11 years, returned after the war in 2003.

“My older sister, who lived in London for 23 years, returned to Kurdistan in 1999. She has established a woman's organisation and feels content for being part of the rebuilding process.

“I have been back and forth a number of times in the last three years. I spent much of last year visiting the remote villages and interviewing the women survivors of Anfal for my research.” After studying at Oxford and University College, London, Choman's PhD thesis with the University of Kent focused on the effects of displacement on Kurdish women in the UK.

Choman is now based at the University of Uppsala, in Sweden, where she's analysing her findings.

“Some of the women survived the detention camps where their brothers, husbands and fathers were taken away to their death. Lack of sanitation, hunger and the spread of epidemics led to the death of many people in the camps, especially the children.

“For most of the Anfal women, grief has never ended. A woman whose child asked for cucumber till he starved to death told me that every time she smells cucumber in the spring she gets a headache. A man told me that the cleaner in his workplace, who is an Anfal survivor, burst into tears when he offered her a hot loaf of bread one morning. Her child had begged for bread till he died; she could not eat a warm piece of bread without remembering him.”

The plight of her homeland and its people drives her poetry - highly effective in the way beauty and horror often sit at each other's shoulders. The harsh years endured by her own family could not kill its creative spirit; poetry was always part of the household.

“My father had a brilliant memory and knew many poems by heart. My brothers and sisters in turn wrote in some form or another. I was in primary school when I wrote my first story after being challenged by my brothers, who said I could not. My heart raced as I wrote and I realised that I enjoyed inventing characters who could experience all the things I wanted to experience.”

Her father, Ahmad, was a well known and much loved poet in his 20s. “But as time went on, as he lived through turmoil, he became acutely aware that he needed to do something. He says that during the hardships he felt that more serious measures were required; that poetry seemed passive.”

He became more involved in politics, establishing a secret political party in the 1950s known as Kajik.

In the 1980s Choman's father completed some of the poems he had written in the '40s and '50s, and published them in the second edition of his poetry book. Many became classic songs and one of his political poems became a national hymn.

Choman was 20 when she started following in his footsteps. “I had loved poetry but believed I could not write it. It was love that made me into a poet. I was also particularly influenced by Persian poets of the 1960s.”

She hopes her writings “capture a time and a place which may otherwise remain in the dark; that they provide insight into another perspective - another realm of experience that may seem too distant and strange”.

Meanwhile, Choman feels it's naïve to believe the work of Saddam Hussein can be easily undone.

“He spent 30 years strengthening factionalism by using Arabs against Kurds, Sunnis against Shi'ites and vice verse. The situation is also exploited by Islamic fundamentalists from within and without the country.

“I don't expect the situation to get better soon but I do hope that one day people will be exhausted and they will realise that they cannot wipe each other out. Democracy is not something we are born with; it is something we have to learn.”

Despite everything she's lived through, and experienced second-hand, Choman's an optimist.

“I have to be if I am going to do anything about the injustices in the world around me. I have to believe that what I do matters: that it is important to carry on even though many times, especially during the Anfal interviews, I felt totally hopeless while faced with so much grief and so many shattered lives.

“There are, of course, hours and sometimes days when I feel that I am fooling myself; that nothing will get better however much we, as individuals, try. But most of the time I try to work hard reading and writing, to lend my voice to those who don't have a voice.

“I think the process of growing up involves becoming aware of our similarities and vulnerabilities. All the awful things we hear about and see could happen to any of us. This is why it is important to keep talking to each other, to keep working, and to build an understanding.

“I hope that my poetry is also in this spirit, opening the door to another world shaped by war and violence.”

Choman Hardi's 2004 poetry collection Life for Us is published by Bloodaxe Books at £7.95. ISBN 1 85224 644 8. www.bloodaxebooks.com

CHOMAN Hardi appears at the 18th Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, which runs from November 3-5.

More of Choman's views and reflections:

What's her view of Iran and Iraq?

“Iraq and Iran are essentially very different countries. Iraq only came into existence when the Ottoman Empire was chopped up in the 1920s, whereas Iran has existed in the form of the Persian Empire for many centuries. This may be reflected in the psychology of the ruling class in both countries.

“The ruling Arabs of Iraq have always been aware of the fragility of the so-called 'Iraqi nation'. They have been conscious that historically the three sections in Iraq have never gelled well together. Therefore the ruling elite were always nervous, insecure that the country may fall apart and that they may lose their power.

“We know that dominant groups are always worried about losing their position. They thus try to suppress the other groups and weaken them to remain in power. The ruling elite in Iraq tried to control the country and maintain its unity by utter violence and totalitarianism. This violence is very much based in fear and insecurity. It is the act of a desperate group which keeps things together by force. The moment the pressure is lifted everything falls apart.

“I believe both the Anfal genocide of 1988 and the current violence in Iraq are partly determined by the history of the country's establishment. Another factor that plays a part in the current turmoil is the coming to power of the sunni-Arab-nationalist Baath Party which exploited the ethnic and religious rivalries and used them as an excuse to justify the use of violence to stay in power. The creation of a one-million-strong army, the construction of enemies within (Kurds and Shi'ite) and without (Iran, Kuwait, USA) also played an important role.”

What's her view of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the way the US and UK, principally, have treated Iraq since then?

“Most of my life has coincided with Saddam Hussein's rule and has been shaped by his policies. For someone with my history and experiences, the overthrow of Saddam is very much welcome. In fact, I believe, anyone who cares about their fellow humans should be happy about the overthrow of dictators in the world.

“Saddam Hussein should have been indicted for genocide in 1988. In fact, despite repeated cries from the international press and Human Rights organisations about the extensive use of chemical weapons and devastation of the countryside and its inhabitants, the international community failed to act.

“Both the UK and the US had evidence of what Iraq was doing at the time (read Physicians for Human Rights, 1989; Human Rights Watch, 1993; McDowall, 2005) but they did not want to lead such investigations or share the evidence they had. Instead they asked the UN to investigate 'the allegations', but Iraq refused to co-operate, stating it was 'an internal matter' and at the end the matter was dropped.

“The failure of the UN to implement the Genocide Convention has repeatedly caused disasters in the world and we are currently watching it happen again in Darfur. Respecting the integrity of states also rules out interfering when a state is destroying its own civilians for whatever reason.

“These are some of the factors that have crippled the UN and render it useless much of the time. The UK and US are guilty of silence, of not doing anything to stop Saddam Hussein. In fact, I believe, the Kuwait invasion only happened because Saddam thought he can get away with murder, as he had done till then. Failing to prosecute states that commit genocide only encourages them to carry on and encourages other rogue states to do the same.

“In 1939 Hitler is known to have said 'Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?' The failure to sanction the Armenian genocide only encouraged Hitler to plan his own genocide of the Jews.

“The international community must learn that such silences and non-action have important consequences on the ground.

“Another terrible consequence is the failure to make amendments for the victims. The chemical attack survivors are dying slowly from cancer and deformities but, since Anfal and Halabja were never recognised as genocide or at least crimes against humanity, no help is available to this ill and fading community.

“Other consequences of non-action may be the build-up of resentment and anger towards the West and the rise in the number of refugees that these same governments complain about. But Britain has failed the Kurds from the beginning.

“In the early twenties, when the promise of nationhood was watered down to civil and cultural rights within Iraq, Britain was to ensure the implementation of these rights before Iraq was accepted as a new state in the League of Nations. Britain's eagerness to get the Iraqi state established meant that they closed their eyes to the failure of the Iraqi government to meet these requirements.

“The US has also failed the Kurds repeatedly. Kissinger's role in crushing the Kurdish revolution in 1974 was probably the first large-scale betrayal. It was followed by closing their eyes to genocide and mass murder. Later, it amounted to encouraging people to rise against Iraq in 1991 and then abandoning them when Iraq brutally suppressed the Shi'ites and the Kurds. The UK and US have failed the Iraqi people in general.

“I am saying all of this to make my position clear. I know very well that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with helping the Iraqi people. But I am also painfully aware that the tyrant could not have been toppled from within. Three decades of brutal rule meant the destruction of any viable opposition within the country and the displacement and impoverishment of the rest. There was no ground for change from within.

“I believe that Saddam Hussein could only have been removed by outside intervention, though I was hoping this would be an organised and well-planned operation which would take account of all the things that could go wrong. This was a big failure on behalf of the US and the UK.

“It seems to me that much harm could have been avoided if the security of the country was taken seriously from the first day. Dismantling the army and police forces, in conjunction with there not being enough coalition troops, created a gap which was exploited by Saddam's men and Islamic fundamentalists. The way the Nazis were defeated was by complete destruction, which is not an option in modern warfare. This meant the lurking around of a large group of Saddam loyalists.

“It also seems that after decades of engagement or non-engagement with Iraq there was little understanding of the diversity of the people and their needs. I was angry with the Hollywood style of politicians' and the planners' discourse of the war. But I was also angry with the anti-war protesters who suddenly seemed to care about Iraqi people. Iraqi people had been suffering for years. Genocide, mass murder, sanctions and daily terror had crippled ordinary life.

“We knew the war was going to happen whether we liked it or not. I would have liked to have seen some people campaigning to pressurise the US and UK to get it right and be prepared for what may come. I also find it ironic that no-one seems to be protesting and organizing to pressurise the international community into helping people in Darfur.

“It seems to me that as long the West keeps its hands clean and doesn't get involved, people don't feel strongly enough about helping others who are suffering in their own distant countries. What the media chooses to highlight, what activists decide to campaign for and what people are being mobilized to do is very telling. There are many blind spots of truth and justice which I believe are partly determined by the media. Who will be given a voice and who will suffer in silence is decided by them.

“Repeatedly, I read articles by journalists who have not got the facts right because they don't have time to research their topics properly. Very few people take the time to actually understand the complications and delicacy of certain situations. Naturally we want things to be simple, black or white, true or false, good or bad. But in real life things are much more complicated. Nations have histories which puts their current situation into context, ignoring that means not knowing the whole truth.

“To answer your question I want to say that the US and the UK have made many mistakes in Iraq but that is not the only reason for the current chaos. I want to draw you back to what I said earlier; what Saddam Hussein did in Iraq and the history of this nation has much to do with what is going on now. I get angry when people call the insurgents 'resistance'. If they were only targeting the US soldiers, one could say that they want them out. But when they are killing Iraqi civilians on a daily basis I don't want to call them anything but murderers.”

Posted by bhola at 01:44 AM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2006

Scientists set sights on 'green' chemistry

Stephen Leahy, Rome, September 25, 2006

(IPS) - A green chemical revolution is underway that promises to be environmentally sustainable and profitable while reducing the risks of industrial disasters like the Bhopal, India gas leak in 1984.

"Green chemistry" has already turned maize into biodegradable plastics, developed non-toxic solvents and dramatically reduced the toxic byproducts from the manufacture of popular pharmaceuticals like ibuprofen. It is vital to the production of Toyota's new electric cars, made in part from kenaf, an annual grass plant.

"Green chemistry is about developing new products and processes which actually fit the 'triple' bottom line of environmental, economic and social sustainability," said Robin Rogers, a researcher and director of the University of Alabama's Centre for Green Manufacturing.

Chemical processes are involved in nearly all manufactured products. Over the past decade, some chemists have been rethinking how to make these products without using toxic materials or producing toxic wastes.

Green chemistry is not "green-washing" of old technologies, it is a fundamental part of new technologies that work better, cost less, use less energy, and will be less polluting throughout the life cycle from raw material to ultimate disposition, Rogers told IPS.

"I consider this a 'Green Technology Revolution' to equate the imagery of the Industrial Revolution," he said.

Rogers and colleagues recently developed a new way to dissolve and use cellulose -- found in the cell walls of plants -- that will help drive the replacement of expensive and toxic petroleum-based plastics with plant materials.

Those countries, including developing countries, that implement green chemistry will be globally competitive and increase their market share because the technology is cheaper and better, he says.

"The Chinese National Natural Science Foundation is funding over 100 green chemistry projects," Rogers noted.

Green chemistry is an international issue because pollution and toxic releases can have an impact globally, says Kenneth Seddon, a professor of chemistry at Queens University in Belfast, Ireland.

China's 2005 benzene spill contaminated the water supply of millions of people there, and then drifted toward Russia's far east along the Songhua River, Seddon said in an interview.

In 2004, the DuPont company agreed to pay up to 600 million dollars for environmental damage caused by production of Teflon and Gore-Tex. General Electric will spend years and tens of millions of dollars to clean up PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) it discharged into the Hudson River.

India's Bhopal disaster killed at least 15,000 people and injured 150,000 to 600,000 more, following the accidental release in 1984 of 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) from a chemical plant owned by the U.S. chemical company Union Carbide. Union Carbide, now owned by Dow Chemical Company, agreed to pay 470 million dollars in damages, although it took years for most victims to receive compensation.

Avoiding pollution is one reason for developing countries to pursue green chemistry. Another is the fact that such countries will never be able to afford increasingly expensive petrochemicals, said Martyn Poliakoff of the University of Nottingham in Britain.

Poliakoff is working with chemists in Ethiopia to try and turn the "white flowers of Africa" -- the ubiquitous white plastic bags that litter the landscape -- into food for cows.

Along with the Procter & Gamble company, they hope to soon make plastic bags derived from local sugarcane.

"Ethiopia wouldn't have to import oil to make petroleum-based plastics, and the cows could eat the bags when they are thrown away," Poliakoff told IPS.

Green chemistry often brings lower costs, including reducing or eliminating the costs of disposing of toxic wastes, and reduces environmental impacts, all of which will make companies more competitive, says Seddon.

"Industry likes the concept but governments and academic research have yet to grasp the full potential," he added.

Fines, financial penalties and stiffer regulations have driven the chemical industry's interest, but they have been slow to adopt the new technology, says Philip Jessop, a research chemist at Queens University in Canada.

One reason is the cost of re-tooling existing manufacturing processes and, until recently, the absence of successful full-scale examples by companies, Jessop said in an interview.

"Now companies can see that they can save a lot of money," he said.

To produce one of its most popular drugs, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer revised a complex four-step process that produced toxic wastes into a one-step process using ethanol, saving millions of dollars, he said.

Other big pharma companies have made similar changes in their manufacturing processes, saved millions of dollars and now regularly win environmental awards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Green chemistry is no more complex than traditional chemistry but it takes a different approach, one that considers the toxicity of materials and their byproducts when developing a new chemical process, Jessop says.

Jessop and his colleagues at Queens University recently revealed a new environmentally friendly and inexpensive process to separate water from crude oil. This has the potential to reduce the toxicity of current refining methods as well as reducing water use in Canada's tar sands oil production, he said.

DuPont's Teflon production pollution problem was also solved by rethinking how the molecules making up Teflon are put together. It now uses carbon dioxide as a surfactant rather than the toxic Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA).

There is a global network of green chemistry advocates who have developed "The 12 Principles of Green Chemistry", with the first principle stating that "it is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean up waste after it has been created".

Since nearly all chemicals currently come from petrochemical sources, future chemists need not only to be trained in the 12 principles but also in how to understand the very different chemistry of plants and other living things, said Jessop.

Standard chemistry textbooks books devote little attention to green chemistry, and there are still misconceptions that it is either more expensive or ineffective, he added.

"And we need to move quickly on teaching green chemistry in developing countries," Jessop stressed.

Rogers agreed, saying that it is important to help prevent developing countries from "making the environmental mistakes of the past by adopting newer, cleaner technologies".

Green chemistry is trying to make the planet cleaner and safer and more profitable concludes Seddon.

"Green chemistry is the conscience of chemistry, it is the way forward."

(*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS and IFEJ - International Federation of Environmental Journalists.)

Posted by bhola at 06:08 AM | Comments (0)

September 25, 2006

N-tragedy affects generations says expert

SANJOG MISHRA, HINDUSTAN TIMES, SEPTEMBER 24, 2006

“A NUCLEAR tragedy leaves its impact on several generations,” said Prof. Geza L. Lukacs of the University of Debrecen Medical and Health Science Center in Hungary.

Prof Lukacs, who was in BHU to participate in an International Integrated Meet of Cancer Societies, said reports of people affected by the Hiroshima, Nagasaki (both in Japan) and Chernobyl (Ukraine) tragedies were still pouring in.

Prof Lukas, who operated on victims of the Chernobyl nuclear tragedy as late as in 2004 and 05, said there was a 60-fold increase in cancer patients in a 30-km radius of Chernobyl. He added that the isotopic radiation of the tragedy spread across the world. He said most of the patients were suffering from cancer of thyroid, leukemia and lymphoma. He said increasing dependence on nuclear power plants was a threat to humanity.

Live surgery at Coimbatore to be viewed in BHU: Participants of annual meet of the Association of Surgeons of India (ASI) scheduled to be held from December 25 to 30 this year in BHU, will have an opportunity to view a live surgery under way in Coimbatore.

Minimal access surgery expert and ASI president Prof C. Palanivelu said he would perform a surgery in Coimbatore, which would be telecast live at Swatantrata Bhawan in BHU on December 25.

Prof. Palanivelu, winner of the Dr BC Roy National Award for 2006, claimed he had performed a surgery in August this year which was telecast live in Leeds University in the UK. He said he would address queries of participants through video-conferencing.

Posted by bhola at 02:56 AM | Comments (0)

September 24, 2006

Clean-up of toxic waste in Cote d'Ivoire to take weeks: WHO

MU XUEQUAN, XINHUA ONLINE, SEPTEMBER 24, 2006

GENEVA, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- The toxic waste dumping incident in Cote d'Ivoire has caused a severe public health crisis, and clean-up work will take about six weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

Since the incident happened on Aug. 19, over 44,000 people in the country have sought medical care and at least seven deaths have been reported, Dr. Maria Neira, the WHO's director of public health and environment, told reporters in Geneva.

The incident has overwhelmed the health system of Cote d'Ivoire and has shown that the country does not have the capacity to deal with such an emergency, she said.

A WHO international team is currently in Abidjan, where the dumping incident took place, to support the Cote d'Ivoire government in dealing with the environmental and health emergency caused by the chemical waste.

The WHO has sent personal protection equipment and toxicological information to the Cote d'Ivoire government. It is also collaborating with other UN agencies and international organizations in Abidjan that are dealing with the emergency.

According to Neira, one of the WHO's priorities is to put in place an epidemiological surveillance system to track any uncommon health related problems.

She also noted that the WHO supports every investigation into the incident. It is important to know whether relevant conventions dealing with chemicals have been violated, she said.

During the night of Aug. 19, a ship unloaded around 500 tons of petrochemical waste into a number of trucks, which then dumped the waste in at least 15 sites around the city of Abidjan, the commercial capital of Cote d'Ivoire.

This waste contained a mixture of petroleum distillates, hydrogen sulphide, mercaptans, phenolic compounds and sodium hydroxide, the WHO said.

Two French managers from a Dutch company have been questioned for the dumping incident, media reports said.

Posted by bhola at 07:25 PM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2006

Disposal site eyed by Dow for Tittabawassee waste is sneaky and irresponsible

Kathie Marchlewski, Midland Daily News, September 20, 2006

Michelle Hurd Riddick, center, speaks outside of the Saginaw County Governmental Center on Tuesday during a press conference regarding what a Lone Tree Council press release called a “dredged materials storage facility” being constructed in Zilwaukee and Frankenlust townships. With Riddick are, from left, Betty Damore, who lives in the Tittabawassee River floodplain, Terry Miller, Chairman of the Lone Tree Council, Ellen Burns, a Zilwaukee Township resident, and Pat Bradt, Zilwaukee Township Clerk. “It’s totally irresponsible of Dow Chemical to want to put their dredgings into that inadequate site,” Damore said.

After spending days at the Environmental Protection Agency's Region V headquarters in Chicago digging for information, members of the Lone Tree Council, a grass-roots group that first discovered the state and federal government knew about local dioxin contamination and didn't share that information with the public, say they have made another discovery.

The Saginaw Riverside dredged materials disposal facility -- which they have been fighting because of its inability to hold contaminated soil and to keep the public safe from contaminated dust, and its potential to recontaminate the river -- also might be used someday to hold Tittabawassee River sediment.

They say this move is dangerous and sneaky.

"Toxic sludge should be disposed of in a licensed hazardous waste facility," said Lone Tree Council founder Terry Miller. "Transferring it from the river bottom to the flood plain wouldn't be a cleanup at all, but simply a rearranging of toxic sediment in a different part of the watershed. The idea that Dow is considering this, and that government regulators aren't rejecting it out of hand, is outrageous."

Midland's Dow Chemical Co. is likely the source of the contamination and is working with the state and federal governments to resolve the matter. In unrelated work, the Army Corps of Engineers and Saginaw County officials have been working for more than five years to dredge the Saginaw for navigational purposes.

And so the two issues have become related.

Saginaw County Commission Chair Cheryl Hadsall declined to comment on the matter because of pending lawsuits. One has been filed by Frankenlust Township leaders and one by Zilwaukee officials who claim that Saginaw County officials have overstepped boundaries by going ahead with plans for the basin. Another federal case filed by the Lone Tree Council requests an environmental impact statement before a disposal facility is filled.

As far as Hadsall is concerned, the discussion over Tittabawassee soils is merely a rumor and the only soil going into the disposal basin is Saginaw River soil removed for navigational purposes.

And while the EPA told the Corps in 2004 that the proposed Zilwaukee dumping area "is not an appropriate location for the disposal of sediments contaminated with high concentrations of dioxins," some say that could change. Dow, for one, has been looking into design features of the basin to see if its uses could be expanded.

Dow spokesman John Musser confirmed the company's interest in the design and said that hasn't been a secret.

Musser said Dow has paid between $300,000 and $400,000 to the group in support of the project, which was at risk of losing federal grant money if the company didn't come up with a share. "We were asked to help with that, and we did," Musser said.

James A. Koski, Saginaw County public works commissioner, said this morning the county hasn't received any money directly from Dow, though Dow acknowledges supplying money to the River Alliance, a group with business interests in keeping the river navigable.

Musser said Dow has been upfront about its interest in the facility as a potential resting place for Tittabawassee River soils -- if it is decided someday that some dredging will be done there.

"We've been supportive," Musser said. "We've made that public statement. We would like to use that site."

It would be up to Saginaw County, owner of the facility, to approve disposal there.

Koski said the site isn't being built for that. He acknowledges the dialogue with Dow, but said the Lone Tree Council's suggestion that there have been secret negotiations is incorrect. "Negotiation is the wrong word," Koski said. "It was an inquiry as to what the site could be used for."

He said that without starting at square one with a redesign, public input and permitting, there wouldn't be room, or state or federal approval, for Tittabawassee soil disposal.

"The site we're working on is a Saginaw River dredging site," he said. "That's our goal."

While Saginaw County has accepted liability for maintenance of the site as a partner in the project, he said that because of the knowledge of contamination, it is seeking insurance to cover potential contamination-related expenses. The River Alliance, he said, will cover the cost of insurance.

Posted by bhola at 10:07 AM | Comments (0)

How first-world garbage makes Africans sick, and what Washington can do to clean up its act

Jeremy Kahn, Slate Magazine, September 22, 2006

Toxic waste dump site Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Over the last few weeks, a major environmental, medical, and political crisis has unfolded in the West African nation of Ivory Coast. On Aug. 19, a Panamanian-flagged ship owned by a Greek firm and chartered by a leading Dutch commodities broker docked in Abidjan, the country's commercial capital. The ship unloaded between 400 tons and 600 tons of toxic petrochemical waste, which was summarily dumped in open-air sites around the city and poured into the sewer system. Within days, people began to show up in hospitals complaining of symptoms ranging from nosebleeds, diarrhea, and nausea to eye irritation and breathing difficulties. So far, 50,000 people have sought medical attention, seven people have died, and dozens more have been hospitalized after being poisoned by the fumes.

The toxic waste has spread to the large lagoon that divides this city of 5 million—once known as "the Paris of West Africa"—and may have contaminated drinking water and surrounding farm land as well. The war-racked country's Cabinet ministers resigned en masse over what was seen as the government's slow response to the crisis and its alleged complicity in the dumping. This has set back already fragile efforts to restore peace and democracy to Ivory Coast four years after a civil war left the nation divided and economically crippled. Meanwhile, people clamoring for medical attention have overwhelmed Abidjan's hospitals, many of which have run out of critical supplies. International aid organizations have rushed teams to the country to help provide humanitarian assistance and to clean up the waste, a process that is expected to take at least six weeks. The World Health Organization has said the acute medical crisis is over but has warned of possible long-term health effects from the waste dumping.

If all this is news to you, don't worry. You're certainly not alone. While the toxic-waste scandal has garnered headlines around the world, in the United States the story has been largely relegated to tiny squibs in the "World Briefs" sections of newspapers—if it has been covered at all. None of the country's leading newspapers—the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, or USA Today—has run staff-written stories from the scene of the disaster. The story has not been covered by any of the major TV networks. CNN's Anderson Cooper has not rushed off to Abidjan to feel the victims' pain and demand justice on their behalf, as he has with other recent disasters. His cable-news competitors have also missed the story.

Admittedly, it might be hard to generate interest in yet another African tragedy, especially when the number of victims pales in comparison to the toll that poverty, disease, famine, and war routinely inflict on much of that continent. And there have been plenty of other pressing international stories to cover. But people in the United States ought to be paying attention to what is happening in Ivory Coast, if only because it illuminates a little-recognized connection between people here and people in Africa and other parts of the developing world: Too often, it is our garbage that ends up making them sick.

Investigators are still trying to identify the source of the petrochemical waste that was dumped in Abidjan. The chances are that it will be traced to Europe. But each year, the United States exports hundreds of thousands of tons of hazardous waste to other countries—and it is possible that much more is exported illicitly. (Spot inspections at European ports in 2005 found that 47 percent of all waste being exported was being done so illegally.) The United States also exports between 50 percent and 80 percent of its so-called e-waste—used computers, televisions, cell phones, and other electronics. Most of these discarded electronic items—amounting to millions of tons per year—end up in developing countries in Asia and Africa, where they are supposed to be refurbished or recycled. Instead, more often than not, they are simply dumped or burned, releasing potentially dangerous amounts of lead, cadmium, mercury, and other dangerous elements into the air or the ground. Pollution from e-waste originating in the United States and other rich nations has been linked to unsafe conditions in cities in China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Nigeria.

The United States has consistently refused to do more to police the international trade in toxic waste. Following a number of scandals in the 1980s, including a case in which thousands of tons of ash from a Philadelphia waste incinerator were dumped on Haiti's beaches, international negotiations resulted in a 1989 treaty governing the shipment of hazardous waste. The treaty—known as the Basel Convention—is relatively toothless, only banning the shipment of waste to one place, Antarctica, and simply requiring that nations consent to having hazardous waste delivered to their shores. Washington signed this treaty, but—with strong opposition from the waste-disposal industry—the U.S. Senate never ratified it, and three consecutive administrations have shown little interest in pushing the issue. Of the 168 signatories, the United States is one of only three nations to fail to ratify it. (The others are Afghanistan and, ironically, Haiti.)

The United States has also refused to sign a 1995 amendment to the treaty that bans outright the export of all hazardous waste from the world's industrialized nations to poorer countries—whether for disposal or recycling. This provision was adopted after it was discovered that businesses were frequently skirting the original Basel Convention's rules by falsely classifying hazardous waste as being bound for recycling. Although then-Vice President Al Gore voiced support for a ban on the shipment of all hazardous waste outside North America, the Clinton administration opposed the amendment, as has the Bush administration.

The ban allows countries to go after people and companies that dump hazardous waste in the developing world. Some environmental groups also hope that by denying the industrialized world a ready place to offload its mountains of dangerous waste, the ban will encourage these countries to devote more energy to their own waste-recycling efforts—and perhaps even reduce their output of toxic materials.

That said, there are reasons to think that the ban may go too far. Some businesses in the developing world perform legitimate and environmentally responsible recycling, and these companies provide important jobs and income. But the United States doesn't have to sign on to the ban to do more to prevent poor nations in Africa and Asia from continuing to serve as dumping grounds for toxic waste.

For starters, it could send an important message by ratifying the original Basel Convention. This would allow Washington to play a more constructive role in international negotiations over the movement of hazardous waste. For instance, it could help develop a system in which developing nations that proved they had the capacity to safely handle hazardous waste could profit from this activity—thus providing an incentive for other poor nations to clean up their act.

More important, the United States could do more to support environmentally responsible recycling and waste disposal in the developing world, particularly e-waste. Right now, the United States Agency for International Development, which supports waste-disposal programs abroad, may in some cases be contributing to the problem. Environmental groups have criticized USAID for promoting the use of chemical incinerators in the developing world that have been known to produce large quantities of dioxin and other carcinogenic pollutants when used in the United States.

Finally, Washington could support innovative solutions to the problems posed by hazardous waste, such as forcing computer and electronics manufacturers to incorporate the cost of recycling into the price they charge consumers (essentially a recycling tax), similar to the fees some states charge for recycling cans and bottles. Currently, some manufacturers and retailers encourage consumers to ship obsolete products back to them for recycling, but the consumer usually must pay at least $30 for the service, as well as shipping costs.

Until Washington is willing to take a leadership role on the international trade in hazardous waste, it's likely that many more people in the developing world, like those in Ivory Coast, will end up sickened by our exported garbage. And some day, you might even read about it in the news.

Posted by bhola at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2006

Athlone under threat from nuclear fallout

Maria Daly, Athlone Advertiser, September 20, 2006

People living in Athlone could face compulsary resettlement if a Chernobyl-like nuclear explosion was to happen in the Welsh nuclear power plant of Wylfa.

The new fallout maps were created for a conference by the Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities Forum (NFLA). The conference will take place in the D Hotel, Drogheda, on Saturday September 30. The conference will be hosted by Cllr Michael O’Dowd and will cover such issues as the health consequences for Ireland of a major nuclear accident. Speakers on the day will include Pete Roche who is a nuclear policy consultant, Dylan Morgan of People Against Wylfa B, and Rite Holmes who is a member of the Hunterston Site Stakeholder Group.

The British government are currently looking at the possiblility of building a nuclear power plant at either Wylfa in Wales, Hunterston in Scotland, or Sellafield in England. If there was a nuclear fallout in any of the proposed sites and south easterly winds were prevailing, Athlone and the Midlands would be under serious threat of contamination.

The NFLA has released a map which shows the fallout area that would follow an accident at the nuclear reactor in Wylfa if easterly winds carried fallout across to Ireland. Large areas of central and southern Ireland would become so contaminated that there would be cause for evacuation. The NFLA has based its maps on the fallout from the Chernobyl reactor accident which happened some 20 years ago.

The NFLA has released a document called ‘Our Energy Challenge,’ a Response to the UK Department of Trade and Industry Energy review, in which it says; “The impact of accidents involving nuclear reactors can cross international frontiers and affect the legitimate interests of neighbouring states which do not themselves have nuclear programmes, possibly causing serious long term damage to the environment and threatening the health and safety of their populations.”

The maps show three main zones which would be created after a Chernobyl-type accident. The fallout zones are classed as: compulsory resettlement, assisted resettlement, and areas under strict radiological control. The Midlands are classed as compulsory resettlement areas and assisted resettlement areas, meaning that more than half the population might have to be resettled if an accident occurred at the Wylfa nuclear power plant which is located on the island of Anglesey off the coast of Wales.

The NFLA believes that “the shared use of the Irish Sea and the history of discharges into it give the people of Ireland a legitimate interest in any future nuclear developments on the north west coast of the UK.” In the document the NFLA says that the UK government need to realise that if they decide to build new nuclear power stations they must consider the risks they would pose to the people of Ireland. “Ireland would face risks in the event of an accident involving a nuclear power station in the UK and has had to face the consequences of radioactive contamination in the Irish Sea resulting from the activities of the UK nuclear power stations.”

Posted by bhola at 08:54 PM | Comments (0)

Tokyo's Wako University staging exhibition on Minamata disease

The Japan Times, September 19, 2006

KEIJI HIRANO

Wako University is holding an exhibition through Sept. 24 on Minamata disease at its campus in Machida, western Tokyo, aiming to show how the mercury-poisoning disease has affected Japan's postwar society.

The exhibition is being held to mark the 50th anniversary of official recognition of one of Japan's most serious pollution-related illnesses.

It is cosponsored by the nonprofit organization Minamata-Forum and includes a series of lectures and symposiums by Minamata disease patients, scholars and social activists. Photo and films will also be exhibited.

In one of the photo shows, some 470 pictures and profiles of deceased patients are displayed so visitors can see how ordinary people like themselves were hit by the disease.

The Tokyo-based NPO, established to hand down the lessons of the disease to future generations, has held the Minamata exhibition 17 times nationwide during the past 10 years, attracting some 110,000 people in total.

This the first time the event has been held by a university.

"As an educational and research institute, a university cannot ignore Minamata disease, which also involves political and economic factors," Satoru Saishu, a Wako professor who heads the organizers, said at the opening ceremony.

Minamata disease, caused by mercury-laced waste water released from Chisso Corp.'s synthetic resin factory in Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, was officially recognized on May 1, 1956.

Complete settlement of the Minamata issue still has far to go even 50 years after the official recognition, with more than 4,000 sufferers waiting for official recognition as Minamata disease patients. More than 1,100 noncertified patients are involved in a lawsuit against the central government, Kumamoto Prefecture and Chisso.

In a message sent to the opening ceremony, Minamata Mayor Katsuaki Miyamoto said, "We still have difficult problems over Minamata disease, including the aging of the patients and the future of congenital Minamata disease patients. I expect people, particularly young ones, to be inspired by the exhibition to think about what they should do so a tragedy like Minamata is never repeated."

Tomie Omura, a 73-year-old Minamata disease patient living in Kawasaki, agreed.

"We felt relieved when World War II was over, but then we were hit by Minamata disease," Omura said. "I used to think about how to die as soon as possible. . . . I hope people will not repeat this."

At a 50th anniversary memorial service in Minamata on May 1, Environment Minister Yuriko Koike apologized for the government's failure to prevent the spread of the disease.

The exhibition at Wako University is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is 1,200 yen for adults and college students and 600 yen for high school students and younger.

Posted by bhola at 08:53 PM | Comments (0)

Oak Ridge plant to aid in redesign of nuke weapons parts

Associated Press, September 18, 2006

OAK RIDGE (AP) -- The Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge is supporting a new Department of Energy initiative.
It would redesign nuclear weapons parts so they could more easily be made and maintained in the future.

The "Reliable Replacement Warhead" program is a departure from the current "life-extension program" that keeps aging nuclear weapons in a state of certified readiness by replacing old parts with new components of original design.

Under the Reliable Replacement Warhead concept, replacement parts would be redesigned to make them easier to manufacture with fewer environmentally dangerous materials and higher design margins that could eliminate the need for future nuclear testing.

The plant's funding for the project so far is a modest $1.2 million, but the program is still in its infancy, with no hardware yet produced.

Posted by bhola at 08:51 PM | Comments (0)

"We've been sick since 1965"

Joe Bavier, News24.com, September 14, 2006

Abidjan - A child crouches at the summit of a mountain of garbage at the Akouedo landfill on the outskirts of Ivory Coast's commercial capital, scouring through the rubbish for something useful or saleable, an eerie silhouette on the horizon between sky and trash.

The more than 100-hectare garbage dump was one of about a dozen sites around the heavily-populated city, where tanker trucks were believed to have pumped out about 528-thousand litres of liquid chemical waste more than three weeks ago.

A 30-year-old Paul Sieh said: "When they first started dumping, many people stopped working in the landfill. They sensed something was going wrong here.

"But, those who are having problems with their rent now, they don't know what to do. They have to come and look for something to feed their families and take care of themselves. They don't care about their lives."

16,000 people need medical treatment

By the end of Wednesday, government health officials announced that nearly 16 000 people had sought medical treatment for symptoms believed to be linked to the illegal dumping of the toxic waste, offloaded from a ship chartered by the Dutch-based company, Trafigura Beheer BV.

At least six people had so far died of their illnesses. Last week, the government of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny resigned over the scandal.

But, for the residents of Akouedo village, whose boundaries were intertwined with those of the landfill, the events were just the latest in a long history of suffering village leaders said was killing them slowly, but surely.

The Akouedo site, the main landfill for Abidjan's population of around five million, opened 41 years ago. As Abidjan grew, so did the heaps of trash. Since civil war broke out in Ivory Coast four years ago, the city had ballooned in size to accommodate an untold number of internal refugees. It didn't take long for the effects to be felt in the village.

One villager said: "People die everyday here. Old people and children die from things like typhoid and yellow fever."

Akouedo 'has abnormally-high prevalence of illness'

According to the village's own census, from a population of about 5 000, Akouedo had only one resident over the age of 70, and only 30 had made it to their sixties.

The already abnormally-high prevalence of illness in Akouedo had even made it difficult for village leaders to come up with reliable figures for those affected by the toxic waste.

A village elder Mathieu Aguede said: "All of us are sick. We've been sick since 1965."

In recent years, the village had made repeated attempts to have the landfill closed. Residents had petitioned the government and held round-table talks with officials.

A site was even chosen for a new dump to replace Akouedo, but the move was blocked by residents of the proposed new dump location. Aguede said: "The state has sacrificed us."

However, others in the village saw things differently. Sieh said: "It's going to be hard. Many times they've started procedures to close this dump site down. But, someone always comes and talks to the village chiefs, bribes them with a little money. And the trucks keep coming."

On August 19, the villagers took matters into their own hands. As the last of the tanker trucks carrying the toxic waste attempted to enter the Akouedo landfill, it was surrounded by angry local residents. The driver fled.

But, the freshly-painted truck, owned by a new company many believed was set up expressly for the purpose of illegally disposing of the dangerous cargo, remained parked, near the entrance to the garbage dump, a symbol to Akouedo's desperate insurrection.

Barricades were quickly erected along the road leading to the site, and, for three weeks now, the incessant drone of trucks coming and going had stopped. The residents of Akouedo hoped the new-found silence was for good.

One village resident said: "We've set up our wall. No trucks can come in or out. This place will have to close now, definitively."

Posted by bhola at 08:36 PM | Comments (0)

Tests pinpoint Fulton PSC plant as source of widespread illnesses

Ben Nelms, The Citizen, Georgia, September 16, 2006

State and federal officials confirmed Friday that tests showed toxic chemical presence of hundreds of thousands of times the accepted upper safe exposure levels for humans in south Fulton County beginning in late spring and early summer.

“Based on results from environmental sampling, preliminary analysis of reported symptoms and the scientific data on the behavior of the chemicals involved, propyl mercaptan was released into the air at the PSC plant in late June and most likely caused symptoms reported in the community,” according to DPH Director Stuart Brown and EPD Director Carol Couch.

The strong onion-like odor noticed by thousands of people in a 40-square-mile “hot zone” around a waste pre-treatment plant south of Fairburn was present at the plant at levels far beyond recommended safe exposure levels, officials revealed.

Tests results released Friday showed the onion-like odor emanating from the Philip Services Corp. (PSC) waste treatment plant on Spence Road inside Fulton County during the summer contained 640,000 times the recommended human exposure level to the chemical odorant propyl mercaptan.

The chemical was a component of the “pesticide wash water” shipments that entered plant property in big sealed barrels on a tractor-trailer truck in late June and were returned to the shipper in Alabama as unacceptable.

The Sept. 15 report by Georgia Division of Public Health (DPH) and Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) showed enormous levels of the chemical odorant propyl mercaptan and organophosphate pesticide MOCAP in test samples taken Aug. 27 by the federal Environmental Protection Agency at the AMVAC chemical plant in Axis, Ala. AMVAC was the origin of the chemicals later refused at the PSC plant.

Exposure limits for propyl mercaptan are .5 parts per million (ppm) with a recommended ceiling of 15 minutes, according to National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

The quantity of propyl mercaptan documented in the EPD sampling tests revealed 320,000 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg), equal to 320,000 ppm, or 640,000 times the recommended exposure limit.

While tests cannot confirm the exact amount of the chemicals encountered in neighborhoods in north Fayette and south Fulton, the symptoms reported by more than 750 residents in those areas conform to the inhalation symptoms listed on Material Safety Data Sheets.

Those symptoms include difficulty breathing, headache, nausea, diarrhea, kidney damage, lung congestion, irritation, vomiting, symptoms of drunkenness, lack of sense of smell, bluish skin color, convulsions and coma.

The level of MOCAP (known chemically as ethoprop) found in the sample was enormous, found to be 240,000 ppm. Unlike the MOCAP found in the sample, which Stuart and Couch said did not readily evaporate and would likely not have caused a serious health problem, propyl mercaptan does evaporate quickly in the environment.

The Sept. 15 letter noted that the laboratory analysis does not necessarily represent the exact chemical composition of the waste as it existed at the PSC facility because the railcar in Alabama may have contained residues from previous contents, the possibility of chemical reactions that might have occurred in the tank over the nine-week period after the pesticide water wash returned to the AMVAC facility and due to other materials being added to the waste in an attempt to deodorize the waste.

Still unaccounted for are the numerous reports by area residents that the same onion-like odor was present in their neighborhoods since Memorial Day.

Many residents reported the same symptoms during the period from late May through the June 29 date when the four shipments of MOCAP water wash arrived at PSC and were rejected.

Local, state and federal officials have been investigating the chemical release since the story was first revealed in The Citizen.

The PSC plant is state-licensed as a waste pre-treatment plant, which handles both solid and liquid wastes before disposing of the treated materials in landfills or into the Fulton County sewer system.

However, the state EPD has admitted that it can find no records for any shipments at the PSC plant covering the past 16 years, despite regulatory requirements that the agency receive yearly reports on exactly what kinds of wastes are being brought to the PSC plant.

Following is the official report from the Georgia Department of Public Health and the state Environmental Protection Division released Sept. 15:

Re: Update: Sampling Results

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) has completed laboratory analysis of two samples of waste taken from a railcar at the AMVAC chemical plant in Axis, Alabama.

Representatives of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took the railcar samples on Aug. 27, 2006.

According to AMVAC, the railcar contained four 5,000-gallon truckloads of pesticide wash water, which were returned by the PSC Recovery Systems pre-treatment wastewater facility in Fairburn, Ga.

The laboratory analysis does not necessarily represent the exact chemical composition of the waste as it existed at the PSC facility for several reasons:

• The railcar used to store the waste may have contained residues from its previous contents.

• Additional materials were added to the waste in an attempt to deodorize the waste.

• Chemical reactions may have taken place in the tank over time.

However, the EPD analysis does offer information regarding the chemical composition of the highly malodorous waste, which has been blamed for numerous health complaints in the area surrounding the PSC facility.

The waste in the railcar at the AMVAC facility in Alabama consists of two distinct layers, an upper layer that is an organic liquid (like oil) and a lower layer that is an aqueous liquid (like water). The depth of each layer was measured and subsequently sampled and analyzed. Laboratory results are summarized as follows:

Organic Layer (Quantity in railcar estimated to be 5,000-8,500 gallons)
• n-propyl mercaptan = 320,000 mg/kg
• ethoprop = 240,000 mg/kg
• dipropyl disulfide= 97,000 mg/kg
• toluene= 8,300 mg/kg
• TCLP chloroform= 4,900 mg/kg
• Flash point= 3.3 degrees C

Aqueous Layer (Quantity in railcar estimated to be 10,000 – 13,000 gallons)
• n-propyl mercaptan = 110 mg/kg
• ethoprop= 150 mg/kg
• chloroform= 3.6 mg/kg
• Flash point = 22 degrees C

Measurements of the aqueous (liquid) portion of the sample showed concentrations of ethoprop and propyl mercaptan that are consistent with previously reported findings, and a low concentration of chloroform.

Measurements of the organic layer showed high concentrations of ethoprop, propyl mercaptan, and dipropyl disulfide (a breakdown product of ethoprop), and also chloroform and toluene.

As noted above, these results may not represent the exact chemical composition of the waste as it existed at the PSC facility.

However, if a tank at the facility did contain chemicals at these concentrations, the potential health risk to people in the surrounding community would be related to evaporation of chemicals into the air, and not to the concentrations of chemicals in the organic or aqueous layers.

• Propyl mercaptan evaporates quickly at room temperature. Propyl mercaptan vapor can irritate skin, eyes, and mucus membranes; and the very unpleasant, onion-like odor associated with propyl mercaptan can cause symptoms including headache and nausea.

• Ethoprop does not readily evaporate and we have no evidence to suggest that the ethoprop would have gotten into the air.

Therefore, we believe that the ethoprop does not pose a serious health threat to area residents. Ethoprop breaks down on its own over time into propyl mercaptan.

• Dipropyl disulfide does not readily evaporate and therefore is unlikely to have presented a health risk in the community.

• Toluene evaporates at a moderate rate. Based on the sample measurements, it is unlikely that toluene vapor was present at a hazardous level in the community or anywhere outside the immediate area around the tanker truck or containment tanks.

• Chloroform was not detected in previous samples taken at the PSC facility on Aug. 15, 2006.

Its detection in the railcar sample may represent a residue from previous contents of the railcar tank, or a product of chemical reactions in the tank over time.

Based on results from environmental sampling, preliminary analysis of reported symptoms, and the scientific data on the behavior of the chemicals involved, propyl mercaptan was released into the air at the PSC plant in late June and most likely caused symptoms reported in the community.

Memorandum from: Stuart Brown, Director, Division of Public Health, DHR
Carol Couch, Director, Environmental Protection Division, DNR
To: Stakeholders
Date: Sept. 15, 2006

Posted by bhola at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)

Fulton waste plant stirs up stink: odors, ailments among complaints

Stacy Shelton, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 15, 2006

Clare Hindman's family thought she'd had a stroke. When she spoke at a community meeting in a church, a friend thought she'd been drinking.

On the Hindmans' kitchen calendar, where they keep track of birthdays, beach vacations and fishing trips, her husband, Earl, wrote "All of June Earl has a feeling of a burn on his right arm. Cannot stand to be touched. Clare's speech continues to be broken."

Earl and Clare Hindman, both 65, in south Fulton County maintain a calendar in which they note strong odors and health problems they attribute to a nearby plant that pretreats industrial waste.

The Hindmans, both 65, blame a neighbor in the south Fulton community of Fife. About a half-mile from their home is a plant that pretreats industrial waste before sending it to the county sewers and stores a revolving inventory of hazardous waste. For weeks this summer, an onion-like or rotten garlic smell saturated the community, strong enough to make people gag.

As of Sept. 1, more than 600 people in south Fulton and Fayette counties had complained to state public health officials of symptoms they attribute to the odor: headaches, nausea, burning eyes and sore throats. State epidemiologists are still reviewing surveys taken of people's health complaints. There's no timeline for completion, said Michele Hennessey with the state Division of Public Health, and for now there are no plans to conduct physical exams of residents.

"What, or even if, further study occurs will be dependent upon the information," Hennessey said.

Officials say the smell came from "wash water" that contained traces of a potent pesticide known as ethoprop and sold under the brand name of Mocap. The plant on Spence Road, owned by PSC Recovery Systems, processed about 190,000 gallons of the wash water in June before rejecting a particularly smelly tanker truckload.

The odor, which many residents say started in May, lingered into late August. Now they're complaining of a different smell, and this time they detect it from government officials who they say haven't done enough to protect them.

"If bioterrorists had released this stuff in the middle of Buckhead, it would have been covered up with federal agents in 24 hours," said Earl Hindman, a lifelong south Fulton resident who installs irrigation systems. "There would have been testing."

The Hindmans said Clare's neurologist doesn't believe there is a connection between her slowed speech and the onion odor that wafted through the community. But they're sure of it.

The wash water contained traces of both the highly toxic ethoprop and propyl mercaptan, which produces the smell and can make people nauseated, but is not poisonous. State and company officials say the residents' symptoms are consistent with normal reactions to a rancid odor and are not indicators of serious health effects.

Community members fear they were exposed to ethoprop, which can cause the same symptoms as propyl mercaptan but with far more serious health effects, including increased risks of cancer.

Irate residents, who include a retired chemist in Peachtree City, said the state should have done a more thorough air quality test to find out exactly what they breathed in, and should take blood samples now to find out if anyone has been poisoned by the pesticide.

"These are armed molecules ready to do damage to some nervous system or other, and they're spreading it around," said the chemist, Lois Speaker. She describes ethoprop, which the wash water contained in trace amounts, as chemically similar to nerve agents used as weapons.

State environmental and health officials have repeatedly said the plant, owned by Houston-based Philip Services Corp., does not pose a health threat to the surrounding community. The Atlanta-Fulton County Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry have also been part of the investigation.

AMVAC, the company that sent the wash water from its facility in Axis, Ala., to Fairburn about 300 miles away, also said there is no reason to expect a health risk occurred because "ethoprop simply does not volatilize or evaporate into the air in any measurable quantity."

The community isn't buying any of it. Besides their own health complaints, some residents who had dogs die this summer blame the chemicals. They want the plant shut down, and have been joined in that call by public officials, including Fulton County Commissioner Bill Edwards and the Fayette County Board of Commissioners. Fayette's resolution said, "Anything less than permanent closure would continue to constitute a permanent threat to the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of both counties."

On Aug. 15, the state Environmental Protection Division, which regulates industrial waste processors, found a trace amount of ethoprop in sludge material left in one of the plant's tanks. That was after plant workers had "done numerous cleaning efforts," said Morris Azose, PSC's vice president of environmental affairs.

EPD asked the plant to submit a work plan by an independent chemical engineer to further decontaminate the plant. It was due Wednesday, but PSC asked for more time. The state has given the company until Sept. 20 to turn in the report.

Most of the material processed at the PSC plant is restaurant grease, which the plant bundles in sawdust and sends to a landfill. .

EPD has responded to criticism that they have not policed the plant well by pointing to its temporary closure of the plant and a $100,000 fine levied against PSC in August for the odor and other violations. Although one of the larger fines EPD has ever handed down, it did little to assuage residents

The series of events has led Bob Crutchfield, president and CEO of Christian City, a 500-acre retirement community about four miles from the plant in Union City, to question the safety of his residents.

"I'm concerned about the adequacy of the investigation into the event," Crutchfield said. "I'm concerned about the level of operation [at the plant] that is ongoing and the scrutiny that it's receiving, and monitoring it's receiving, from environmental and health officials. I'm concerned that there's alleged to be inadequate records, which raises questions about the accuracy of the information we're receiving today."

Christian City surveyed residents and employees to find out who might have become sick from the odor. Ninety-four out of about 1,000 residents and employees complained of symptoms ranging from headaches to breathing problems and sore throats, Crutchfield said.

Azose, with PSC, said the community has nothing to fear. The facility handles waste materials in a safe and lawful manner, and the people running it either have degrees in chemical engineering or similar education.

"The fact that there may have been or likely were levels of ethoprop doesn't mean it was against regulatory guidelines," Azose said. "The concentrations present were well below all established health levels. ... The regulations that govern our business are very well-defined and based on known and well-established health data and that's how we operate our business."

Posted by bhola at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)

Vietnamese girl, victim of defoliant, in Japan for surgery

THANH NIEN DAILY, VIETNAM, SEPTEMBER 15, 2006

US planes spray the defoliant Agent Orange over southern Vietnam

A Vietnamese girl with a tumor on her face, believed to be caused by defoliant Agent Orange used by the US military during the Vietnam War, arrived in Japan Friday to undergo surgery next month to remove the tumor.

"I want to return to a normal condition. I dream of going to school," Do Thuy Duong, 17, said in a press conference at Kansai airport in Osaka Prefecture. "I'm happy I came to Japan to have surgery."

The right half of Duong's face is covered with the tumor, and the Vietnamese government has recognized her as a victim of the agent used by the US forces for about 10 years from 1961.

No hospitals in Vietnam can fix her face, and so she came to Japan, a group supporting her said.

The group said it has collected about 4 million yen (US$34,000) in donations.

The teen is scheduled to undergo the first surgery at the Kyoto University Hospital in early October, and will need to come to Japan for an operation once a year for the next 10 years, it said.

Posted by bhola at 06:39 PM | Comments (0)

Ivory Coast dump dwellers revolt amid toxic waste scandal

Joe Bavier, VOA News, Abidjan, September 14, 2006

The government has resigned. Top officials have been arrested. And around 16,000 people have sought treatment for symptoms believed linked to the illegal dumping of hundreds of tons of toxic waste in Ivory Coast's main city, Abidjan. But to the residents of the village of Akouedo, the scandal that has rocked the nation is just the latest episode in a long history of misery.

A sign reads 'forbidden zone' marking toxic waste dumped around the city of Abidjan, Ivory Coast

A grove of banana trees grows directly out of buried garbage, a hundred meters from the entrance to the village of Akouedo. Nearby, a child scrambles up the side of a mountain of trash, scouring the rubbish for anything usable or salable.

The garbage dump, covering more than 100 hectares, is one of a dozen sites around Ivory Coast's commercial capital, Abidjan, where tanker trucks are believed to have pumped out around 528,000 liters of liquid chemical waste more than three weeks ago.

Despite government warnings to stay at least 200 meters away from suspected dumping sites, Paul Sieh, a village resident, says the scavengers who make their living in the landfill did not stay away for long.

"When they first started dumping, many people stopped working [in the landfill]," he noted. "They sensed something was going wrong here. But those who are having problems with their rent now, they don't know what to do. They have to come and look for something to feed their families and take care of themselves. They don't care about their lives."

A man points to an open drain where toxic waste was dumped, in an industrial zone of Abidjan

On Wednesday, government health officials said nearly 16,000 people have sought medical treatment for symptoms believed to be linked to the illegal dumping of the toxic waste. Officials say it was offloaded from a ship, chartered by the Dutch-based company, Trafigura Beheer BV. Health officials say six people have died after exposure to the toxic waste.

The government of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny last week resigned over the scandal.

A team of French experts, clad head-to-toe in white protective suits, and wearing gas masks, explores the site, enveloped by an overwhelming stench that stings the eyes and attacks the sinuses.

"We have discovered about a dozen sites," said one expert. "We will have to analyze each one, and that could take some time. So far, we are finding sulfuric chemicals, but for the moment, we do not now how serious it is."

Akouedo village borders the landfill. Village leaders say there is a long history of suffering there.

The landfill near Akouedo opened 41 years ago. As Abidjan grew, so did the heaps of trash. It was not long before the effects were felt in the village.

Village leaders say among Akouedo's population of 5,000, there is only one resident over the age of 70, and only 30 have survived into their 60s.

The leaders say illnesses like typhoid, yellow fever and malaria are common.

"All of us are sick," said village elder Mathieu Aguede. "We have been sick since 1965. The state has sacrificed us."



A local inhabitant protects his face with a piece of cloth as he pulls cart of tomatoes that were harvested in place where poisonous chemicals were dumped on open-air garbage site near Abidjan

In recent years, the village has made repeated attempts to have the landfill closed. Residents have petitioned the government, and held round table talks with officials. A site was even chosen for a new dump to replace Akouedo, but was then was blocked by villagers there.

Others in Akouedo, like Paul Sieh, are not so willing to put the whole of the blame on the government.

"It's going to be hard," he said. "Many times, they have started procedures to close this dump site down. But, someone always comes and talks to the village chiefs, bribes them with a little money. And they can still allow them to [dump] here."

On August 19, the villagers took matters into their own hands. As the last of the tanker trucks carrying the toxic waste attempted to enter the Akouedo landfill, it was surrounded by angry local residents. Its driver fled.

But the freshly painted truck, owned by a recently created company remains parked near the entrance to the garbage dump, a symbol of Akouedo's desperate protest.

Barricades were quickly erected along the road leading to the site, and, for three weeks now, the normally incessant drone of trucks coming and going has stopped. The residents of Akouedo hope it is for good.

Posted by bhola at 06:19 PM | Comments (0)

Hanford cleanup failures vex feds

Los Angeles Times, September 14, 2006

RICHLAND, Wash. -- On a desert plateau seven miles from the Columbia River, a massive federal project to clean up a Cold War-era nuclear weapons plant is deeply troubled.

The effort to avoid an environmental calamity here, at the most polluted site in North America, is a priority of the Energy Department but has foundered because of engineering mistakes and runaway costs. Fifty-three million gallons of radioactive sludge, most of it the texture of ketchup, is stored in scores of underground tanks, some of which have leaked for years.

The Energy Department and contractor Bechtel Corp. are trying to build a sophisticated waste treatment complex -- a small-scale industrial city -- that would transform the sludge into radioactive glass. After spending $4 billion since 1989 and getting rid of three previous contractors, the program has yet to transform a gallon of sludge.

"We have had some world-class technical issues," acknowledged John Eschenberg, the federal manager for construction. "I have made mistakes. Bechtel has made mistakes. If I could relive the last three years, there are things I would do differently."

The project is a long-distance race to empty the leaky tanks and secure the radioactive waste before it becomes a greater menace to the Columbia River. The job is likely to take decades, and the price tag could approach $100 billion.

In January, the Energy Department stopped construction on the two most important parts of the project after it realized it had miscalculated the earthquake risks at the sprawling federal facility, known as the Hanford Site. In recent weeks, it put off any resumption of construction until after October 2007. At best, the plant would be finished in 2019.

What remains uncertain is whether the plant's remarkably complex technology will work as planned. Shortly after construction was halted, a team of experts delivered a sobering report that warned of a large number of other potential technical issues that could undermine the plant's operation. In addition, a long list of major safety problems has been discovered -- though these problems are fixable, construction managers say. They include the potential for explosive hydrogen gas to build up inside the plant's pipes; concerns that the steel frame had inadequate fireproofing; and the discovery of faulty welds in tanks designed to hold dangerous waste.

The cumulative effect of all the problems and challenges has been staggering.

Energy Department officials disclosed in May that the plant would probably cost $11.6 billion to build, double the estimate of only three years ago. An independent cost estimate due in coming weeks from the Army Corps of Engineers is expected to exceed $13 billion.

"You want to take somebody out and hang them," said Rep. David L. Hobson, R-Ohio, the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that pays for the project. "It is already outrageous what it is costing."

Meanwhile, officials in Washington state are furious about the continued delays. The state has a legal agreement with the Energy Department that promised the plant would be operating by 1999, meaning it is now 20 years behind schedule.

"We are extremely frustrated," said Suzanne Dahl, the top official at Hanford from Washington's Department of Ecology. "It is becoming impossible to accept more delays."

Construction of the waste treatment complex, consisting of two dozen massive buildings, is only 30 percent completed, and engineering work is about 70 percent completed, Eschenberg said. Building and designing the plant at the same time was necessary, he said, to get the cleanup done as quickly as possible. The decision to halt construction was a prudent step that will give engineers time to solve all the problems, he said.

James Rispoli, assistant Energy secretary for the nuclear waste cleanup program, acknowledges the program has had setbacks but says it is not facing any problems that would derail the project.

Although work has stopped on the pretreatment plant and high-level-waste plant, construction is continuing on 20 other facilities in the complex, Rispoli said. "We are keeping the forward momentum," he said.

Bechtel says it underestimated how much U.S. expertise in nuclear engineering has atrophied. Academic experts agree that the U.S. has lost much of its nuclear know-how. The history of problems at Hanford raises questions about how effectively the radioactive waste dumps left over from the Cold War can be cleaned up -- even with the best technology and with almost unlimited federal spending.

Rough estimates for building and operating the plant -- then decommissioning the facility when the job is done -- range from more than $50 billion to $100 billion.

There is also an urgency to the mission, given the risk that radioactive waste will someday reach the Columbia River, the largest river in the West. About 1 million gallons of the waste has already leaked into the ground at Hanford, though government experts are confident the rate of leakage has slowed or stopped.

Government hydrologists say they have no evidence that any leaked sludge has reached the water table 250 feet below ground, and they cannot calculate when -- or whether -- the radioactivity will reach the Columbia River.

Such assurances are rejected by some outside experts, including geotechnical engineer John Brodeur, who conducted a comprehensive study of the tanks in the late 1990s for the Energy Department.

"Some of the ground under the tanks is screaming hot," said Brodeur. "The groundwater is already contaminated."

By 2019, the plant is supposed to be ready to transform the waste into glass, a process called vitrification. New pipelines would carry the waste to a facility consisting of three huge radioactive waste treatment plants, a water treatment plant, a laboratory, a power distribution center and a maintenance shop.

The idea is to separate the highly radioactive materials into two waste streams: a small amount of high-level waste that will be vitrified and shipped to a future dump in Nevada; and a much larger volume of lower-level waste to be vitrified and buried at Hanford. Eventually, there would be 10,000 canisters of high-level vitrified waste and 100,000 canisters of low-activity waste.

"They are taking a real risk the thing won't work and they will have a $11.5 billion white elephant sitting in the desert," said Tom Carpenter, nuclear oversight program director at the Government Accountability Project, a Washington, D.C., watchdog group.

Amid growing congressional concerns about Hanford's technology, Bechtel assembled a team of the top nuclear experts in the nation.

In a March report, they cited a number of defects that would have to be fixed for the plant to work. They said one of the two chemical processes was "undemonstrated" and the other "will not provide acceptable performance." The whole pretreatment facility "will be difficult to reliably operate."

The team of outside experts also raised concerns with the vitrification processes. Once the waste streams are separated, they are sent to two different final treatment plants for vitrification. The melters in the low-level plant could wear out or fail prematurely, while the piping in the high-level plant could get plugged up, they said.

The report raised the prospect that the Hanford treatment plant might wear out before all the waste was treated, particularly if it could not operate reliably and avoid shutdowns.

Rispoli, the Energy Department environmental chief, believes the outside assessment shows that the plant will work. All the Energy Department has to do is solve the problems identified in the report.

Posted by bhola at 06:17 PM | Comments (0)

Military wants nerve gas waste dumped into Delaware river

Associated Press, September 14, 2006

DEEPWATER, N.J. -- The Defense Department said it could save up to $400 million by sending its chemical weapon waste to DuPont's Chambers Works plant for treatment.

The waste would come from stockpiles of mustard gas and nerve agents from Kentucky and Colorado chemical plants.

The DuPont facility has already treated waste from a mustard agent stockpile in Aberdeen, Md.

The company is also seeking approval to treat wastewater from a nerve agent neutralization project in Indiana.

Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said DuPont could treat the Indiana waste without threatening water quality, environmentalists remain concerned.

They want the state of Delaware to hold hearings on the proposal.

Posted by bhola at 06:14 PM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2006

Activists fear South Jersey could get more weapons waste

LAWRENCE HAJNA, COURIER-POST, SEPTEMBER 13, 2006

Opponents of the Army's plan to ship neutralized VX nerve agent from