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by CHIU Yu-Tzu, Taipei Times

KAOHSIUNG PORT, Taiwan, 23 July, 1999 -- A planned shipment of mercury-contaminated barrels, which had previously carried waste belonging to the Formosa Plastics Corp., was prevented yesterday from being sent from Kaohsiung Harbor to the US, apparently due to pressure environmental activists.

Kaohsiung Port harbormaster Huang Kuo-ying confirmed yesterday that a ship named Astoria Bridge, owned by Japanese shipping company Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Ltd. Known as the "K Line," was supposed to ship 10 cargo containers of compacted barrels to the US yesterday morning. It was to leave from the No. 70 wharf, and was scheduled to arrive in Tacoma, Washington state, on August 5.

But Shi Kuo-Hsin an executive at Yang Ming Line (YML) which represents K lines in Taiwan, said it had received notification from K-Lines yesterday morning that dock workers at Tacoma Harbor had asked K-Lines not to load the barrels in Taiwan because "their toxicity levels might be questionable."

A US environmental group spearheading the effort to stop the shipment confirmed to the Taipei Times what had happened.

"We alerted the longshoremans' trade union here, which has in turn alerted the shipping company that owns the Astoria Bridge. K Lines has asked its counterparts in Taiwan not to load the waste," said Jim Puckett, secretary of the Seattle based Basel Action Network (BAN). The barrels originally contained thousands of tons of mercury tainted waste from a Formosa Plastics manufacturing facility in southern Taiwan. It hit the headlines last December after being dumped in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, where tests on the material showing high levels of mercury caused panic in the area, sparking riots in which 3 people died.

The discovery also led to the arrest and trial of two Cambodian customs officials, as well as the issuing of warrants for the arrest of two Taiwan businessmen working for the waste disposal company that had brought the waste into Cambodia.

Under pressure from both the Cambodian government and international environmental groups, the waste was returned to Taiwan by FPG in April this year.

More than 4,000 tons of the waste has since then been stored at the No. 63 wharf at Kaohsiung.

The K-Lines local agent was obviously concerned. YML's Shi said: "We wouldn't mind at all if Formosa asks another shipping company to take it. Its too controversial."

Shi said the 10 cargo containers would be returned to the No. 63 wharf, where the barrels had been stored together with the waste.

"The problem rests with Formosa Plastics," said Shi. "It's their business to deal with complaints in the US and Taiwan."

Formosa Plastics spokesman Lin Sheng-kuan said yesterday the company would prefer to adopt a low-key response to yesterday's news. He refused to comment on a possible date for resuming the shipment.

Lin said the company's contracted waste handler in the U.S. has full responsibility for dealing with the matter, including negotiating with the US Environmental Protection Agency, environmental activists and local residents.

He stressed, however, that Formosa's attempts to seek alternative dump sites in Europe, possibly in Germany and the Netherlands, were continuing.

According to sources in the US, environmentalists have kept a close eye on the movement of the waste since the controversy began in Cambodia.

"It is our strong belief that FPG must take responsibility for this waste and deal with it on their own corporate site," Puckett said.

"Under US law it is impossible to know whether the barrels are hazardous unless the characterization of their contents is understood. In this case it is not," he said.