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AFTER 13-YEAR CAMPAIGN U.S. TAKES BACK DUMPED TOXIC WASTE

by Ives Marie Chanel and Fritznel Octave, IPS

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, 28 April 2000 -- Local and international environmentalists have won their 13-year-old struggle to force the Haitian and US governments to return to the United States 4,000 metric tonnes of toxic ashes illegally dumped in the Caribbean country.

A source close to President Rene Garcia Preval's office has told IPS that the entire shipment of toxic waste left the country for the United States on Apr. 5 on a ship provided by the US company Waste Management Inc. The waste was to be offloaded at a temporary, undisclosed site in New York State on Apr. 22 while a final dumping ground was being sought.

Haitian authorities, as well as environmental groups, did not previously release information on the planned removal for fear of stalling the negotiations.

The waste was incinerated in the US city of Philadelphia. The ashes were then labelled '' agricultural fertiliser'' and shipped to Haiti in 1987 to a fictitious company called ''Les Eleveurs de l'Ouest'' (Western Breeders). The cargo vessel Khian Sea, which transported the deadly cargo, dumped it on an abandoned dock owned by a former mining company in LaPierre, 177 kilometres north of Port-au-Prince.

According to Greenpeace International's laboratory, which released information on the content of the contaminated industrial waste in early 1995, the ashes contained heavy metals, such as lead, and toxic chemicals like benzene, which posed a threat to both aquatic and human life.

The government source told IPS that the removal of the ashes and contaminated earth is a victory both for the dignity of the Haitian people and for all the countries of the South.

''The waste removal operation, which ended on Earth Day (Apr. 22), after a protracted struggle by the Haitian government and national and international organisations, represents a victory for environmental justice and for Earth Day'', declared an official in the technical division of the Haitian Ministry of the Environment who asked that his name not be used.

Daniel Brisard and Namphy Joseph, who are, respectively, Director General of the Haitian Ministry of the Environment and Departmental Director for the Environment in the Artibonite region, monitored the waste removal and made sure that it posed no risk to surrounding areas.

The work was done by Haitian and US technicians under the supervision of the United States Department of Agriculture.

An international legal consulting team co-ordinated the removal, under the leadership of Ira Kurzban, a lawyer for the Haitian government based in the United States.

Haitian officials contacted by IPS said they were happy that the toxic waste had finally left the country.

The process of returning the deadly cargo to its country of origin began soon after it was dumped in Haiti. A vast mobilisation campaign on several fronts has been in operation for almost 13 years trying to send the garbage back to the United States. At the international level, organisations such as the environmental group Greenpeace and Essential Action played a decisive role in exerting pressure on the US government to agree to repatriate the waste.

An large number of local organisations, such as the Haitian Collective for the Environment and Alternative Development (COHPEDA) kept the pressure on local officials.

Measures taken by the government were strengthened by a public commitment made by President Preval to have the waste removed shortly after he was inaugurated in February 1996.

Philadelphia has steadfastly refused to allow the waste back into the city, saying responsibility for the problem was solely the province of the waste removal company.

Local grass-roots and environmental groups staged a series of local protests between Apr. 30, 1998 and Jul. 6, 1999 to increase pressure on both the US and Haitian governments to have the ashes sent back to the United States. Finally on May 10, 1999, Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis announced that US officials had accepted repatriation of the trash.

A 450,000-dollar contract was finally signed August 21, 1998 between the Haitian government and the US firm, Caribbean Dredging Excavation, for removal. The government provided the company with a 50,000 dollar advance. The balance came from the US government, through the New York Waste Trade Commission, which negotiated the temporary US dump site to which the ashes would be returned.

Work began on removal in September 1999 and was supposed to have been finished by the end of the following month.

However, the operation was suspended prior to completion because a final agreement regarding the dump site could not be reached.

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