space Press Releases, News Stories

by TONY PERRY, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

A proposal to import 8,500 tons of mercury-contaminated toxic waste from Cambodia for dumping at a landfill in the Imperial Valley has hit a snag after encountering angry opposition from environmental groups and community activists.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing its initial approval of the plan after being given documents by environmentalists suggesting that the hazardous waste is more dangerous than a South Carolina waste disposal firm had stated.

The toxic waste, dumped illegally in Cambodia by a Taiwanese firm, led to mass hysteria last year after the mysterious death of a villager who had come into contact with the material.

Safety-Kleen Corp. of Columbia, S.C., is seeking state and federal permission to treat and bury the material at its hazardous waste dump site outside the farming hamlet of Westmorland, which is about five miles south of the Salton Sea.

On Monday, the EPA announced that it had approved the Safety-Kleen proposal, thought to be the largest foreign importation of toxic material in state history. By Wednesday, the agency had retreated and said it will review its decision.

"We're still reviewing the technical information," EPA spokeswoman Paula Bruin said Thursday.

Under the Safety-Kleen plan, the waste, a byproduct from making PVC (polyvinyl chloride) pipe, would arrive by ship next month at the Port of Los Angeles and be trucked inland.

But environmental groups say the sludge-like material, packed in metal drums, is far more toxic than the company led the EPA to believe. They also argue that dumping outside Westmorland, a low-income, heavily Latino community, constitutes "environmental racism" and violates a 1994 directive by President Clinton that orders federal officials to consider the impact on surrounding low-income communities when making decisions concerning the handling of toxics.

"We don't want to be dumped on," said Rosie Nava-Bermudez, an Imperial Valley health worker.

If the EPA, after reviewing the toxicity level, gives its approval to Safety-Kleen, the issue would then go to at least two state agencies for review. A coalition called California Communities Against Toxics has sent a plea to Gov. Gray Davis.

Environmentalists fear that the shipment could be the opening wedge toward making California the dumping spot of choice for "renegade" Asian manufacturers. There are three hazardous waste dumps in California: the one outside Westmorland and dumps at Kettleman City near Fresno and Buttonwillow near Bakersfield.

"We do not want to become the pay toilet for the Pacific Rim," said Jane Williams of California Communities Against Toxics.

The material was dumped illegally last year in an open field outside the Cambodian resort city of Sihanoukville after being brought to Cambodia for disposal by Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics Corp., one of the world's leading petrochemical companies.

Local villagers, unaware of the poisonous nature of the material, carted off armloads of the crushed concrete for use as fertilizer. Plastic containers were ripped up for floor mats and other domestic uses. When a teenager died after sleeping on one such mat, rumors swept the villages that the concrete and plastic containers were deadly. Mass hysteria led to traffic jams and the deaths of four people.

The Army had to be called in to restore order. Three Cambodian customs officers were charged with accepting bribes to let the material into the country. The international scandal led Cambodia to fine Formosa Plastics and force it to promise to remove the material by the end of April and find a suitable dumping site.

Asia's legal dumping sites have been outstripped by the region's rapid industrialization. California law presupposes that foreign companies may seek to export toxic waste for disposal at the three "class A" dumps in California and sets up strict guidelines for the permit process.

So far, such exports have been small in quantity and mostly from manufacturers in Mexico, officials said. "The U.S. has the safest, strictest, more environmentally sound facilities," said Bruin.

Jim Puckett, a Seattle-based official with the Basel Action Network, which monitors an international convention governing traffic in toxic waste, said allowing Formosa Plastics to send the waste to California would encourage Asian companies to delay coming to grips with the region's toxic waste problem and need for disposal sites.

"EPA is opening the floodgates to turn Westmorland and the other two dumps in California into international toxic waste sites," he said.

Safety-Kleen, in its application to import the waste, said it contains 0.012 parts per million of mercury. The state allows the Westmorland dump to take material of up to 0.2 ppm of mercury. But in a conference call with regional and national officials of the U.S. EPA, the environmentalists said that tests done by environmental officials in Hong Kong showed a mercury level of 0.8 ppm.

An opposition rally is planned in downtown Westmorland, population 1,700. The Imperial County Board of Supervisors plans to discuss the issue Tuesday.

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