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04-02-2004, 04:24 PM
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Gold
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Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 2,578
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Now it's been reported that some of this stuff has also been dumped in Montecristi. What is the final veredict on this? Is it toxic or not? Or are we going to continue with he said/she said...
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04-02-2004, 05:24 PM
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Gold
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 7,208
(45)
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It never ceases to amaze me how frequently alarms get rung on this board by people who know nothing about what they are reporting. It's like Chicken Little who ran through the street shouting that "the sky is falling" after being hit on the head by a falling leaf.
The one person I trust in Samana on environmental issues is Kim Beddall, founder of whale watching in Samana Bay. Believe me, if there is any perceived threat to the Samana area, and especially to the whales, Kim is going to make a big noise.
After reading this thread, I was sure she would be up in arms. But she isn't, and sees nothing wrong with the project. It is not going into the bay but is being taken to Arroyo Barril and taken by truck to Manzanillo.
According to Kim, it comes from a large manufacturer of cement blocks in Puerto Rico and is a useful material. The idea was to send the material to a sister company in Manzanillo, and the first barge load went directly there. But that proved too costly, so they got a permit to deposit it at Arroyo Barril and take it from there by truck. It is not a loose material that blows around in the wind, but is hard and compact
There is a demand for this material among contractors, including the company building the project on Cayo Levantado. They want to put it into the foundations.
I don't want to spoil anyone's fun, but I can report that the premier environmentalist in Samana is not alarmed about the deposit and temporary storage of this product at Arroyo Barril.
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04-02-2004, 05:51 PM
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Gold
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 760
(10)
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Ken,
I agree completely: if there was an environmental danger Kim would be howling so loud it would be heard around the world. And I also agree about crying wolf. We've all seen this too many times on this board and that is exactly why I was leery of this whole thing from the git go.
And vicdj, if you had bothered to completely read the thread, you would have found my post where I described the big mound of the stuff that I drove up on several days after I made the post you referred to. That eyewitness report was what I promised.
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04-02-2004, 11:40 PM
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"Believe it!"
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 3,149
(119)
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Ken & Andy,
I am glad that Kim thinks that there is nothing to worry about concerning this shipment. But I will sleep better when tests come back negative for heavy metals and toxics. Simply because it originated with a "sister cement company in PR" does not automatically make it innocuous material, and given the realities of the DR that you both know all too well, nor do the reassurances of the Enviroinment Ministry. A little application of the precautionary principle might not hurt here, especially given it is Samana. I particularly urge erring on the side of safety before I would allow anyone to make cement intended for use on Cayo Levantado, where exposure to corrosion and nearness of water sources are a factor.
I think that I have been a voice of caution on this thread about not jumping to conclusions too quickly (especially about relying on Dominican news reports), and hope you would agree. But I remain skeptical with questions. Many aspects of this whole tale do not add up.
Given the beauty, ecology & tourism importance of Samana, I would rather not jump to the conclusion it is entirely okay simply because it looks okay, the Ministry says it's okay and a local environmentalist (however sharp & good) believes the tale told by parties involved. It would not be the first time over the years of "innocuous" wastes being sent to a developing country for "recycling" or "use as an industrial input" that were duly approved by local authorities and local environmentaltists initially were not worried, only to find out later that the wastes involved were not innocuous at all and the local environment and public health paid the consequences.
Last but not least, there remains the question of whether or not this shipment was even legal, whether toxic or non-toxic. I have tried to point out the ambiguities I see on this point under existing Dominican law and its treaty obligations; I leave it to a lawyer to clarify the point for us.
Best Regards,
Keith
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04-03-2004, 04:25 AM
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Bronze
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 36
(10)
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Cadmium
Chronic exposure to cadmium, a toxic metal, causes a wide range of adverse effects in humans, including "cardiovascular [heart, arteries], endocrine [hormone], hepatic [liver], bone, hematological [blood], immunological [immune system], respiratory [lung], renal [kidney], reproductive and teratogenic [birth defect] effects." Furthermore, "There is strong evidence of an association between cadmium exposure and an increased risk of respiratory [lung] cancer.
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04-03-2004, 05:04 PM
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Bronze
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Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 92
(30)
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ignorants
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04-03-2004, 06:05 PM
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Gold
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 7,208
(45)
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Keith R., I certainly wasn't talking about you. In fact, you were the first to try to calm things down.
tochel is making the same mistake that is often made by people with a cause, no matter how worthy it is. They keep hammering listeners with such extreme statements they lose rather than gain support.
Lucky for Kim that her email isn't working. Last thing she needs is to be spammed by tochel and others.
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04-03-2004, 07:09 PM
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Gold
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Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 658
(10)
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HW or HM
Waste and Material are two different things depending on end use. Just because the ash is a waste of one process does not mean it can not be renamed materail if it is an ingrediant in another. If the end user is makign blocks with it then the exporter gets around US law.
So tha tis my legalistic view of the loopholes used. No knowlege of what is goign on in Samana just in my work we fall under different regulations depanding on how we classify HM.
John
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04-04-2004, 06:06 AM
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Gold
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Join Date: May 2003
Posts: 2,037
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Cough! COUGH! Cough! hisssssssssss Cough!
CoUgH!!!!!!!
Aaaarrrrrrrghhhhh! sneezeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
You said that the air what?
cough....
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