NEVADA TARGETED FOR TOXIC SLUDGE by Keith Rogers, Lase Vegas Review-Journal LAS VEGAS, Nevada, 10 March 2000 -- A dump near Beatty is a proposed site for the extraction of mercury from tons of imported waste. A state environmental official said Thursday he expects to receive a plan within a week from US Ecology Inc. that, if approved, would allow the company to extract mercury from thousands of tons of toxic sludge imported from Taiwan for disposal at a dump near Beatty. The official, Jeff Denison, hazardous waste permit supervisor for Nevada's Environmental Protection Division, said US Ecology officials informed him they will submit an application to change their permit in order to treat some 18,000 drums of mercury-laced sludge cake. The application will be subject to public comment, he said. "They were in the process of preparing that," he said. "Any day now I will get it and I'll review it." US Ecology had expressed an interest in shipping the waste to Nevada last year after it caused a scare in Cambodia, where the Taiwan company, Formosa Plastics Corp., had taken it for disposal. US Ecology's plans, though, have been in limbo since, after U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., voiced strong objections, and the Environmental Protection Agency sought more information about what the waste contained. Steve Romano, vice president of American Ecology Corp. in Boise, Idaho -- US Ecology's parent company -- confirmed that US Ecology was in the process of seeking Nevada's approval to treat the mercury-tainted waste with equipment selected for use at Superfund sites. "Our position has been that we will only do the job if we can satisfy the regulators. We are in the process of seeking the answers," he said during a cellular phone call from Oregon. He said the company is exploring options to import the waste to a port in either Oregon or California. "I will confirm that Coos Bay (Ore.) is a location we would look at because it does offer a large docking facility. It is one of a number of places," Romano said. Environmentalists and Bryan said they would oppose attempts to import the waste and transport it to Nevada for treatment and burial. "The last thing that Nevada needs to do is to create the impression that whatever hazardous waste product is generated anywhere in the world is welcome here," Bryan said. "Part of that undercurrent is what has placed us in the cross hairs for nuclear waste," he said, noting that regardless of if it's transporting highly radioactive or very hazardous waste, it's "not in the best interest of the health and safety of Nevadans." Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction, an environmental justice watchdog group with headquarters in San Francisco, said he will organize a protest involving Nevada residents if the waste arrives at U.S. ports or the Beatty site. "We are extremely concerned that the state of Nevada and the EPA have been negotiating with US Ecology to bring this scandal-plagued and highly toxic waste to Nevada," he said. The 17,976 drums, some of which contain lesser amounts of other toxic compounds, were last reported stored by Formosa Plastics on the waterfront of Taipei, Taiwan, awaiting shipment to a western U.S. port. In late 1998, the waste was hauled by ship from Taiwan to a crude dump near Sihanoukville, Cambodia. In a panic, thousands evacuated the town when a link was made between the waste and man who died after he cleaned the hold of the ship. The death of another man, who used the sludge's shipping sacks as bedding, also was blamed on mercury poisoning. To quell the hysteria, the waste was excavated, put in barrels and returned to Taiwan in March of 1999. An EPA official in San Francisco, John McCarroll, said mercury levels in some samples from the 7,233 tons of waste reached 20,000 parts per million -- 77 times more than what is allowed for disposal in U.S. hazardous waste dumps Romano acknowledged that some tests of the waste turned up "extremely low" levels of PCBs and dioxins, cancer-causing compounds. "The EPA has suggested there be additional testing. We wholeheartedly agree," he said. One EPA official described the mercury treatment process as similar to distilling whiskey. The mercury in the waste is heated until it vaporizes and is then collected as a liquid. US Ecology plans to recycle the mercury. State and federal officials said questions remain about the waste containing dioxins and PCBs, and transporting the waste to the Beatty site by trucks or rail cars. Denison said, "Those are the concerns that have been raised not only by us but by other agencies." FAIR USE NOTICE. 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