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By Mike Dunne, Philadelphia Advocate

The ash has been on a 14-year odyssey that began in Philadelphia in 1986. The ash spent most of those years on the beach and on a hillside in Haiti. The ship that dropped the ashes in Haiti spent 27 months at sea looking to get rid of the other 10,000 tons of ash, which apparently was eventually dumped in the Indian Ocean.

About 2,000 tons of ash are now on the east coast of Florida, off-loaded from a ship onto five barges. Florida and Louisiana environmental officials believe the ashes are headed to a Chemical Waste Management hazardous waste landfill in Carlyss, south and west of Lake Charles. But Waste Management officials said Monday no decision has been made on where the ashes will be landfilled. They did not return calls and were unavailable for comment on Tuesday.

The Florida analytical results showed the ash did not classify as hazardous waste based on levels of arsenic, lead, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead and several other chemical contaminants. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency already characterized the ashes as nonhazardous.

Waste Management provided Florida officials with test results showing the ash did not classify as toxic wastes.

However, the waste was not checked for furans and dioxins, which are extremely toxic and are often associated with burning chlorine-based wastes, such as used polyvinyl chloride. Environmental activist Ann Leonard of Essential Action, who has followed the waste for years, says she is concerned about dioxins and furans in the ash. Greenpeace analyzed the ash in 1995 and said the ash contained "toxic heavy metals, including hazardous levels of lead and cadmium... . The ash also carries significant levels of the most potent toxic chemicals known--dioxins and furans."

But Ann Meador of Florida's Department of Environmental Protection said officials in her office shared a belief that because of the length of time the ashes have been exposed, that dioxins and furans would no longer be present.

"We did not expect" the waste to be hazardous, but state environmental officials wanted to make sure it was not, she said. Generally speaking, the ash contained heavy metals in fewer than 1 part per million, well below regulatory limits such as 5 parts per million of arsenic and 100 parts per million of barium. Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Dale Givens said he is not concerned about testing for dioxins and furans, either. The ash is going to a hazardous waste facility, so even if it is hazardous, it is being disposed of properly, he said.

Disposal in a hazardous waste landfill is generally much more expensive than disposal in a non-hazardous waste landfill. Givens said Waste Management, which is working with the U.S. State Department, may be willing take on the extra expense to reduce any future liability or concern about the controversial ash.

On Monday, Bill Plunkett of Waste Management's headquarters said his company, has not decided where to place the ash. He said as many as one dozen Waste Management sites in the South and Southeast were under consideration. He was unavailable for comment Tuesday. Haiti tried for more than 10 years to get the United States to remove the ash. This disposal effort began when the New York City Waste Trade Commission required Eastern Environmental Services to deal with the ashes dumped in Haiti as a condition of granting it a license to operate in New York City in 1997. Eastern is the successor company to the disposal firm hired by Philadelphia to get rid of the ashes in 1986. Waste Management bought Eastern Environmental in December 1998. In December 1999, Waste Management filed a lawsuit in Delaware against Eastern Environmental's former owners and two of Waste Management's former officers. The lawsuit alleges Eastern's profits were overstated when Waste Management purchased Eastern.