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FP REFUSES HOME TO WANDERING WASTE

BY Karin Meadows, The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News (Stuart,FL)

FORT PIERCE, USA, 2 May 2000 -- Ash's ill-fated trek began in 1985 -- The 2,000 tons of Philadelphia incinerator ash has been ostracized in port after port over the past 14 years. Crew members reported looking down gun barrels and being threatened with attacks from the Caribbean to Europe by environmentalists who claimed the shipload of sooty, city garbage was tainted with lead and mercury.

Now, the globe-trotting waste is sitting off Florida's east coast, and counties are refusing to transport the ash to their landfills. One Fort Pierce official doesn't even want the waste, described as "hazardous" in 1986 by Greenpeace, sitting in the water that borders the city.

"We can't let this happen. There has to be some authority" over whether a barge loaded with waste can pull up to the city's port, said City Commissioner Bob Benton.

The journey began in 1985 when Philadelphia was searching for a place to put ash from a Roxborough incinerator. More than 14,000 tons were loaded onto a bulk-cargo ship, the Khian Sea, which in late 1986 began its ill-fated voyage. On Monday, five barges loaded with the same tarpaulin-covered soot waited in Florida's Intracoastal Waterway - two in Fort Pierce, three in Stuart - as state environmental officials watched to make sure the ash wasn't hauled ashore.

Last week, a national waste management company hoped to transfer the ash to a landfill in Okeechobee County, but the county said no way. Martin County won't take the ash either.

Waste Management is trying to get rid of the 14-year-old incinerator waste for the New York City Trade Waste Commission and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which recently allowed a ship filled with the ash into port. The company will get a fee for a successful dumping, but declined to say how much. The waste has been treated by agricultural officials, according to Bill Plunkett of Waste Management in Houston, but not because officials thought it was still laced with the original hazardous chemicals. "The U.S. Department of Agriculture tested it because of concerns the ash came in contact with Haitian soil," Plunkett said. "After treatment, they found it posed no agricultural or environmental threat."

Meanwhile, state environmental officials said EPA tested the stigmatized waste in 1988 after it was dumped at a Haitian wharf. Most of the ash was returned to the ship after environmentalists complained.

"They tested it in Haiti and it wasn't hazardous, but it has moved around since then," said Kris McFadden of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

On Saturday, the state took samples to determine whether the load is lethal, or whether it can be safely brought ashore. McFadden said the results should be released today.

Waste Management will continue to try to find a home for the wayward ash in the Southeast, Plunkett said. The ash probably won't be dumped in Florida, he said. A disposal facility in Carlyss, La. is a possibility.

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