GOVERNOR SAYS DON'T BRING TAIWANESE WASTE THROUGH OREGON by Associated Press COOS BAY, USA, 18 March 2000 -- Gov. John Kitzhaber has told an Idaho environmental company to give up any plans it may have to use Oregon as the port of entry for a load of mercury-laden sludge that was illegally disposed of in Cambodia. US Ecology, a subsidiary of American Ecology Corp. of Boise, Idaho, has been asking around dock facilities in Coos Bay to see if they would be willing to handle the load of 18,000 sealed 50-gallon drums of sludge, which has been blamed for the death of a dockworker who handled it when it was sent to Cambodia. Once inside the United States, the company hopes to truck the sludge, generated by Formosa Plastics of Taiwan, to its facility near Beatty, Nev., where it would extract the mercury and dispose of the remains, said Steve Romano, vice president of American Ecology. Nevada must grant permits for the operation to go ahead. Kitzhaber noted that an attempt to dispose of the waste in Cambodia failed in 1998, and a proposal to bring it through California in 1999 was met with strong opposition. "First, this waste should be managed in Taiwan," Kitzhaber wrote. "Second, your Beatty, Nevada hazardous waste site is located northwest of Las Vegas. It is not appropriate to bring this waste through an Oregon port when the logical route to the site is through a California port. Los Angeles is also being considered as a port for the sludge, Romano said. "Apparently, the only reason to use an Oregon port is to avoid the negative publicity and protests that could occur at California ports," Kitzhaber wrote. Dock owners and managers, stevedores and longshoremen had little to say about the proposal. "If all state and federal requirements are fulfilled, then we can unload it," said Ingvar Doessing of Jones Stevedoring Company in North Bend. A hazardous waste dump in Arlington, Ore., already turned down a request to dispose of the sludge, said Bob Danko of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. FAIR USE NOTICE. This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The Basel Action Network is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability and environmental justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a `fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond `fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. More News