Toxics in Samana?

[Keith R]

Originally Posted by mountainfrog

I have yet to hear about one single government member of this country who would accept any responsibility for anything.
Whoever gave his signature to permit this import of (toxic) waste violated the law.
No official will be brought to book, the secretary will not resign, the stuff will not be shipped back to where it came from, neither the amount of bribe money nor its recipients will ever been known.
These corrupt people sell everything, from natural resources to the lives of people.
Froggy,
Samaná

According to the report in Diario Libre, Permit # 00075 was signed by René Ledesma (of the Subsecretariat for Environmental Management) on 15 Jan. 2004, giving authorization to the shipments to firm known as Multigestiones Valencia.

Regards,
Keith

[Keith R]

I particularly urge Tochel to be more careful with his statements, many of which are being reported as fact when he is largely quoting Dominican news dailies. Anything reported in the DR press, in my experience with that press since 1995 (including a stint having to provide synopses of that press in the process of doing the DR1 Daily News), has to be taken with a grain of salt. Things reported by Dominican newspapers as fact one day are often withdrawn or substantially changed or admitted to be rumor the next. I wish that wasn't true, but it is.

Tochel is also confusing people by discussing AES's SO2 atmospheric emissions in PR in the same paragraph as discussing the ash dump in Samana. Not connected.

Unless Tochel can convince me otherwise, the mention of the IFC is not relevant to this particular case. The IFC does not invest in Puerto Rico, hence cannot have a stake in the plant that sent this ash.

As for what this stuff really is, I suspect the term "rock ash" being thrown around in the DR press and by the Environment Secretariat is really what is known in the US as "fly ash," a principal residue from coal combustion power plants. EPA used to regulate fly ash as hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the US's principal hazardous waste law. It stopped doing so in 1993, a decision I and many others have wondered about the wisdom of. At the time EPA did so on the basis that (1) risk factors depended on local conditions, and most states provided good enough protection where necessary; (2) human populations were not directly exposed to the groundwater sources known to have been contaminated by fly ash. I don't think either condition gives us any solace regarding the potential risks for the DR, especially in a place like Samana.

If indeed it is fly ash, there are a number of things of potential concern to the environment and to health of the local populace. Past studies have suggested that significant amounts of potentially harmful trace elements from fly ash fallout, including elevated levels of lead, cadmium, copper, zinc, mercury and manganese, accumulate in the soil and may eventually contaminate underground water supplies.

As for the charge that this stuff contains significant traces of dioxin, I think at this stage that is pure speculation, unless someone has had it analyzed by a reputable lab. Fly ash does not always contain dioxin in significant quantities -- unless it comes from a waste-to-energy incinerator, especially older models. Is the AES plant in PR that this came from an incinerator?

But I am like HB -- if it is so harmless, why on earth did AES not try to landfill it in PR instead of paying to ship it abroad?

Given current Dominican law, as I read it, and the DR's commitment under the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes, fly ash is permitted to be exported/imported when it can be shown that it does not contain certain hazardous substances (mercury, lead, cadmium, etc.) in quantities sufficient to elevate risks of toxicity, ecotoxicity, explosiveness, flammability, etc.). Now, question is, what proof did AES and/or Multigestiones submit to the Environment Ministry that these shipments poses no such risks, and if they did not submit test results from a reputable lab, why then did the Ministry approve the permit?

I have often wondered if a country such as the DR, which does not really have the testing & inspection resources to fully check into waste imports, should simply forego them altogether, perhaps sign onto the so-called "Basel Ban" (which essentially bans waste imports).

Your Environment Forum Moderator

[tochel]

we will analyze the material by our self!

i have family near arroyo barril.
how, you could not find the place?? the whole area is speaking abount nothing else than this!

but you're right. we have to wait the exact results!

I hope all was a mistake and AES will remove all from samana!!

[suarezn]

It is obvious that this is unwanted material and it is unwanted in PR for a reason. Why else would a compnay go through all the trouble and expense to ship it to another poorer country to dispose of it? The question now is who will be punished for this and is this material going to be removed, shipped back or properly disposed of? Who's going to pay for it? The pressure needs to be kept on the media to not forget about this...Let's not let them ruin the most beautiful region in the DR for a few bucks...

[deelt]

Great post Keith R. This is exactly what I needed to know.
I agree with you on the dioxin. One point that I feel you missed is that
if the intention is to use the fly ash in either reclamation efforts (mixed with soil) or in construction then this is especially a problem. I am by no means a hydrogeologist, but my understanding of this is that soild permeability is the key issue we have to worry about. If the soil is highly permeable then we will have the issue of contaminated groundwater on our hands. Also, it is hard to say how this contaminated ash will react with the soil. Soil chemistry I think is often times unpredictable. The findings from China show that the if land is used for planting anything it tends to have high levels of these contaminants. China hs huge amounts of coal that is used for power generation, so they have had to deal with this issues in a large scale. Thus, far unsuccessfully in my opinion with the exception of isolated cases. Again, great post.

Originally Posted by Keith R

I particularly urge Tochel to be more careful with his statements, many of which are being reported as fact when he is largely quoting Dominican news dailies. Anything reported in the DR press, in my experience with that press since 1995 (including a stint having to provide synopses of that press in the process of doing the DR1 Daily News), has to be taken with a grain of salt. Things reported by Dominican newspapers as fact one day are often withdrawn or substantially changed or admitted to be rumor the next. I wish that wasn't true, but it is.

Tochel is also confusing people by discussing AES's SO2 atmospheric emissions in PR in the same paragraph as discussing the ash dump in Samana. Not connected.

Unless Tochel can convince me otherwise, the mention of the IFC is not relevant to this particular case. The IFC does not invest in Puerto Rico, hence cannot have a stake in the plant that sent this ash.

As for what this stuff really is, I suspect the term "rock ash" being thrown around in the DR press and by the Environment Secretariat is really what is known in the US as "fly ash," a principal residue from coal combustion power plants. EPA used to regulate fly ash as hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the US's principal hazardous waste law. It stopped doing so in 1993, a decision I and many others have wondered about the wisdom of. At the time EPA did so on the basis that (1) risk factors depended on local conditions, and most states provided good enough protection where necessary; (2) human populations were not directly exposed to the groundwater sources known to have been contaminated by fly ash. I don't think either condition gives us any solace regarding the potential risks for the DR, especially in a place like Samana.

If indeed it is fly ash, there are a number of things of potential concern to the environment and to health of the local populace. Past studies have suggested that significant amounts of potentially harmful trace elements from fly ash fallout, including elevated levels of lead, cadmium, copper, zinc, mercury and manganese, accumulate in the soil and may eventually contaminate underground water supplies.

As for the charge that this stuff contains significant traces of dioxin, I think at this stage that is pure speculation, unless someone has had it analyzed by a reputable lab. Fly ash does not always contain dioxin in significant quantities -- unless it comes from a waste-to-energy incinerator, especially older models. Is the AES plant in PR that this came from an incinerator?

But I am like HB -- if it is so harmless, why on earth did AES not try to landfill it in PR instead of paying to ship it abroad?

Given current Dominican law, as I read it, and the DR's commitment under the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes, fly ash is permitted to be exported/imported when it can be shown that it does not contain certain hazardous substances (mercury, lead, cadmium, etc.) in quantities sufficient to elevate risks of toxicity, ecotoxicity, explosiveness, flammability, etc.). Now, question is, what proof did AES and/or Multigestiones submit to the Environment Ministry that these shipments poses no such risks, and if they did not submit test results from a reputable lab, why then did the Ministry approve the permit?

I have often wondered if a country such as the DR, which does not really have the testing & inspection resources to fully check into waste imports, should simply forego them altogether, perhaps sign onto the so-called "Basel Ban" (which essentially bans waste imports).

Your Environment Forum Moderator

[tochel]

i hope the police is protecting the stuff in a serious matter!

what when tricky dealers moving the stuff und sell it in other areas as construction material for houses?
normal people can not know how dangerous this "cemento" is!!!!!!

[tochel]

samana is the area with the most rain!
the dioxin will move into the groundwather and as result, trough fishes or other animals or plants, months or years later into the human body.

the results is like greenpeace destribes!
the danger comes slowly, and this is the real danger!

my english is bad. im german speaking, so i will not explain the danger of the material in detail.
use google! search content about the fights of the puertorican people against this company...
then add 1+1 and you know why this stuff is in samana!

[tochel]

see:
http://www.presidencia.gov.do/Notici...603/fotos2.htm

[Jay Pedro]

Keith and Tochel,
Thank you for sounding the alarm. Reading the Greenpeace document I did not find fossil fuel fired power plants on the list of culprits for Dioxin emissions.
What makes me nervous is that this sludge comes from a hydro-electric power plant in Guayama, PR, according to "El Caribe". In the same breath they mention that the plant (also?) works with coal. Fly ash would be collected in the precipitators and filters, sludge would come from wastewater treatment. Electric transformers use PCBs, similar to Dioxin. Is this a clandestine way to dispose of the contents of old transformers, by mixing it in with the other stuff. According to the articles (thanks for posting the web pages) not 50 tons but 50,000 tons has been shipped to Samana since January, and it's heaped in a visible black mountain, surrounded by housing or dwellings of athousand families. The constant emanations of dust from the unloading of the trucks is what makes this stuff so toxic for the neighborhood.

The articles give the impression that a lot of important people are up in arms about this, including the environmental investigator of the University of Santo Domingo (oldest in the Americas) and Mr. Luis Carvajal of the Dominican Academy of Sciences as well as the politicians from Samana.

Dr. Rene Ledesma, who signed the permit for the shipments is now being maligned, but he could very well not have not have known, that something more toxic than rock ash, for which the permit was given, was being shipped.
He is the person, who helped our North Coast Committee for Compliance with the Environmental Laws to keep three power plants from being built in Puerto Plata, by inviting us to environmental impact hearings and wrote to thank us for doing a civic service to our communities. I have him and his boss, Frank Moya Pons in the highest regard.

What can be done now is to stop any further shipments, until at least 50 samples from the Samana pile have been analized by at least three foreign laboratories. The sampling should be done under supervision of at least two notaries, who would also undertake the FEDEXing of the samples to the labs.
Maybe the Samana Forum members could organize this. For collection of funds a committee of uncorruptibles should be organized, also to supervise and mastermind the necessary steps such as public relations campaigns. This should be in Santo Domingo. Maybe Keith can pesuade Dolores to head this, as she could possibly find the right caliber of persons for this purpose.
Jay

[Hillbilly]

Until this stuff is really analyzed by a good lab, nothing concrete is going to happen.

We may or may not have a long wait.

HB