14 January 2004 – Environmental groups in Mexico called Tuesday for tougher controls on shipments of chemicals across its borders from the abandoned Metachem Products site near Delaware City.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should test each rail car sent from Delaware for dioxin and polychlorinated biphenyls, two persistent organic pollutants targeted for strict control by some international agreements, said Fernando Bejarano, Mexico's coordinator for an international group that works to eliminate the most hazardous forms of toxic waste.

"The shipments should be stopped. The EPA should show that each shipment and tank is free of dioxin and PCBs," said Bejarano, a former toxics campaign coordinator for Greenpeace Mexico. "They should make results public prior to sending material. The risk of contamination is irresponsible, and they're transferring the risk to save money."

Reports in a Mexico City-based newspaper about the transfers and contamination problems at Metachem led to a Mexican government visit to the plant on Monday, according to Juan Carlos Cuevas, director of the Clorobencenos S.A. factory that received the chemicals. The company plans to reuse the chemicals in the manufacture of deodorant cakes for urinals and ingredients for herbicides and pesticides.

"Yesterday was an interesting day," Cuevas said. "The reports said the tank cars were filled with dangerous goods. It's not true. We're going to process it. We're getting only a valuable product. We're the biggest manufacturer of deodorant blocks in Mexico."

EPA officials last week confirmed the transfer of four rail cars containing chemicals from the toxic cleanup site to Mexico, and said Tuesday testing had shown the materials safe for industrial use.Officials are considering transferring 16 more rail cars to the same factory in El Carmen in Tlaxcala State, east of Mexico City in east-central Mexico.

"This effort would, among other things, reduce risk by moving chemicals off site, reduce costs associated with disposal, reduce the time frame of the action and reduce the amount of new chemical manufactured" by other factories, said Michael Towle, an EPA coordinator at Metachem.

Towle led a delegation that included a Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control representative to the Clorobencenos plant in mid-December. Although Delaware officials participated in an assessment of the factory, Towle said, he made the final decision on the shipment.

Nearly 40 million pounds of chemicals remain at Metachem, awaiting reuse or disposal. In some cases, the chemicals are heavily laced with toxic byproducts. Taxpayer cleanup and disposal costs could last years and top $100 million, federal officials have said. A new cleanup investigation plan submitted to the EPA last week calls for an expanded study of pollution risks to a drinking water supply in New Castle County as well as long-term hazards from dioxin.

Towle said the shipments to Mexico were found to be free of PCBs, a long-lived compound linked to cancer and other disorders. Dioxin tests were considered unnecessary based on past samples and studies of the company's process, Towle said. Full details about the testing method were unavailable late Tuesday. Dioxins are chlorine-containing chemical byproducts that in some cases can cause cancer, liver problems, developmental and reproductive disorders and other ailments.

Greenpeace Mexico, a branch of the international environmental activist organization, also has questioned the shipments. Richard Gutierrez, toxics policy analyst for the Basel Advocacy Network, which monitors international movement of toxic wastes, said his Washington state-based group plans its own examination of the issue.

Metachem's products, chlorinated benzenes, are in declining use for deodorant blocks and ingredients in pesticide and herbicide manufacturing because of concern over cancer and other health risks and potential environmental hazards. The factory's previous owner, Standard Chlorine of Delaware Inc., produced ingredients used elsewhere to make Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant. Standard later recycled wastes from European pesticide factories and solvents once used to clean PCBs from transformers, company officials and public records have shown.

Metachem declared bankruptcy and abandoned the factory to the government in May 2002, walking away from $65 million in debts, 43 million pounds of hazardous chemicals and a 46-acre property that had been listed among the nation's most polluted sites since 1986.