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CAMBODIA SAYS GOOD RIDDANCE AS TAIWAN TOXIC WASTE GOES TO US

Associated Press

SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia, 31 March 1999 -- Cambodia said goodbye and good riddance Wednesday to nearly 3,000 tons of toxic waste from Taiwan that sparked a deadly hysteria, but more controversy lies ahead as the mercury-laced sludge heads to the U.S. for disposal. Trucks carrying waste-filled containers shuttled back and forth from the dump site and nearby Sihanoukville seaport as the Taiwanese petrochemical firm responsible for the waste, Formosa Plastics Corp., treated villagers to a flashy ceremony with reassuring speeches and live rock music.

"There was no music when the waste came," 67-year-old villager Sam Sim said of the Dec. 5 dumping a few hundred meters from her home. "We didn't even know about it. But I am glad they are taking it away because it is poisonous." Om Yentieng, an aide to Prime Minister Hun Sen charged with handling the waste scandal, said the Eagle Prosperity freight ship would set sail from Cambodia tomorrow once all 357 containers were loaded.

The waste is scheduled for disposal in a California landfill, but public outcry in the U.S. state and questions over its mercury content forced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to review its initial approval of the shipment, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

Formosa Plastics manager Sen Jiing Lin insisted at the ceremony that a recent test of the waste by CDM International, Inc., a California-based company hired to oversee the cleanup, found its mercury content was below the EPA's safe-storage limit of 0.025 parts per million.

Several independent tests produced a wide range of toxicity levels, suggesting that its mercury content is not uniform. Thai military experts took nine samples of the waste which ranged from 39 ppm to 3,790 ppm of mercury - all highly toxic levels. A test by Hong Kong's EPA found a level of 0.80 ppm, according to environmentalists trying to halt the shipment to California.

In a statement read at the ceremony, Formosa President C.T. Lee apologized to Cambodia for the dumping, blaming the fiasco on an unidentified third party and the Cambodian importer that brought the waste through customs.

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