We have several "fossil fuel" power plants in the USA that generate tons of fly ash. Most is used as an additive to concrete and asphalt, some is mixed with sand for spreading on highways during snow season.
If it is mixed with other materials, in low quantities, there is very little long-term environmental threat, short-term problems are with high ammonia content. The chemical plant cliché, “dilution is the solution to pollution”, many times holds true. Unfortunately, if left unprotected from rainfall and the resulting run off, bulk quantities can be problematic.
I am not familiar with the Samana area, does it have “cemento” plants like Santa Domingo? If not, I cannot fathom why this material was dumped there.
As for the dioxin, I wonder if the
PR is using their power plant boiler systems as a waste incinerator as was done in India. The systems for coal-fired plants use an atomized spray of diesel fuel to ignite the coal. In India, they were mixing quantities of PCB with the diesel in order to dispose of it. The problem is that PCB does not breakdown at the temperatures found in coal-fired boiler systems and there were no static precipitators on the stacks.
I hope this is just fly ash and that the bulk storage problem is resolved.
Glow