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NEVADA MAY BAN MERCURY SLUDGE

by Mary Manning, Las Vegas Sun

LAS VEGAS, United States, 14 May 1999 -- Contaminated waste from Taiwan that a company wants to bury in a landfill near Beatty may not be allowed into the state, a Nevada official reviewing the firm's plans says.

"At this time, the state is inclined not to allow the sludge into the state," said David Emme, chief of the state Division of Environmental Protection's solid waste.

US Ecology Corp. hopes to bring as much as 5,000 tons of soil contaminated with the metal mercury to its Beatty dumpsite, 95 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The state is reviewing the plan and will judge it on how the state and US Ecology interpret environmental regulations, Emme said.

The environmental watchdog group Greenaction said Wednesday that the organization will fight any effort to dump foreign toxic waste at Beatty.

"The large quantity and high toxicity of this waste poses a risk to public health and the environment during transportation, treatment and disposal that was never evaluated in an environmental impact report," Greenaction Executive Director Bradley Angel said.

If Nevada allows US Ecology to dump the waste at Beatty, it would set a "dangerous precedent" that could turn the state into a toxic waste site, Angel said.

The cake and soils containing mercury came from the Formosa Plastics Corp. of Taiwan, which had dumped the waste in a seaside resort in Cambodia in December.

That dumping caused an environmental scandal that forced Formosa Plastics to bring the waste back to southern Taiwan. Two Cambodian dock workers died after coming in contact with the material and four more people were trampled to death when hysterical residents fled the town.

The company then tried to ship the waste to a Northern California hazardous landfill operated by Safety-Kleen Corp., but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the material could not come into the country, because the mercury levels violated federal standards.

US Ecology became interested in the problem. The company believes it has the technology to treat the waste so it becomes less dangerous.

Unlike radioactive sludge that reached ground water 300 feet under the Beatty site in less than 30 years, the Taiwan wastes contain no liquid, he said.

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