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HAITI TO RETURN U.S. WASTE

By MICHAEL NORTON Associated Press Writer

GONAIVES, Haiti, November 6, 1998 (AP) Bits of broken glass still glitter on the wharf, more than 10 years after tons of noxious ash and ground bottles from the United States were dumped on the outskirts of this coastal city in Haiti. Friday, after years of battling, Haiti began to prepare the waste to send it back. It's a victory for every developing country that developed countries are tempted to use as a garbage dump,'' Gonaives

Mayor Eder Jean-Pierre said. In the late 1980s, the cargo ship, Khian Sea, loaded with glass and ash from Philadelphia trash incinerators, went from port to port in search of a dumping ground.

In December 1987, the ship's crew unloaded nearly 4,000 tons of the ash, labeled ``soil fertilizer,'' near Gonaives port, 100 miles north of Port-au-Prince. The military government of Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy was compensated for the dumping. The U.S. Embassy tried to dissuade the government from accepting the ash, arguing it didn't have proper facilities to handle it. Haitian officials tried to seal the ash in concrete but were interrupted by a June 1988 coup d'etat. Environmentalists in Haiti have argued the waste was toxic.

Greenpeace, the environmental activist group, said it tested samples at its London laboratory and claimed the ash had high levels of cadmium, lead, copper and zinc that were leaching into surrounding soil.

The Haitian Collective for Environmental Protection and Alternative Development claimed it killed several handlers, the group's executive secretary Aldrin Calixte said. Tests performed by the Environmental Protection Agency, however, found no evidence of toxicity.

After years of negotiations, the city of Philadelphia agreed to contribute $50,000 toward disposal costs of $372,000. A New Jersey waste company is paying $100,000 and Haiti's government is covering the remainder. Caribbean Dredging and Excavation Inc. of New York, is carrying out the contract, and said the ash would go to South Carolina. However, South Carolina's Department of Health and Environmental Control said it had not yet received a formal request for such a transfer. To excavate, truck, and load the ash onto the cargo ship will take about two weeks.

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