space Press Releases, News Stories

By Danielle Knight, IPS

In September, a chemical plant in Maine owned by HoltraChem closed down, leaving behind 118 metric tons of mercury, one of the largest stockpiles of the toxic metal in the United States. Several federal and state government officials say the neuro-toxic chemical, which has now been bought by another chemical company, DF Goldsmith, will be shipped to India.

"This would amount to nothing less than environmental racism if what Maine recognises as a hazardous waste is dumped onto poorer countries with less regulatory infrastructure who use obsolete technology," says Richard Stander with the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine, a non-governmental organisation.

News of the transfer of the mercury to India, say activists, is resurrecting memories of one of the largest chemical disasters in history, the 1984, a poisonous gas leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India killed 2,500 people and injured more than

50,000. The US companies, they argue, are again taking advantage of lax safety regulations in the Asian country.

Mercury has been linked to a host of neurological problems. Mercury affects the human brain, spinal cord, kidneys and liver. Long-term exposure can result in symptoms that get progressively worse and lead to personality changes and even a coma.

In Lewis Carroll's famous children's story, "Alice in Wonderland", the strange and unpredictable character of the Mad Hatter was a reference to mid-19th century hatmakers who used mercury in the wool felting process.

Mercury is particularly dangerous to foetuses, women of childbearing years, pregnant women and young children. A recent study by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences warned that at least 60,000 babies per year in the United States could be at risk for lower IQ and learning disabilities because their mothers have eaten mercury-contaminated fish and seafood. The metal is considered a global pollutant because it travels around the world carried by wind and rain. Mercury does not break down; it accumulates in the fat of animals, concentrating as it moves up the food chain.

Regional environmental officials and the governor of Maine, Angus King, want the toxic metal safely stored and first contemplated bidding on the purchase of HoltraChem's mercury when the plant closure was announced. But because state regulators did not have a safe place to store the mercury, King asked the Pentagon to purchase the mercury and add it to the country's stockpile of mercury waste stored on military bases.

The Pentagon refused, arguing that federal law does not allow it to store or dispose of toxic material unless it is owned by the Department of Defence or the public is in imminent danger.

"I think it is a sad commentary that a federal administration that prides itself on (and even brags about) its environmental record cannot influence their own administrators to do the right thing," Arthur Rocque, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection for the state of Connecticut, wrote in an op-ed piece published in Maine.

The company that eventually contracted to purchase HoltraChem's mercury, DF Goldsmith Chemical and Metal Corp., based in the state of Illinois, will not say where the chemical will be sent. "Basically, this is a business matter between ourselves and HoltraChem and we don't have any comment relating to the matter," Jim Moran, vice president of DF Goldsmith, told IPS.

More than 30 environmental groups from the US and India, including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Council of Maine, are urging the US Environmental Protection Agency to develop an agreement with the Pentagon to accept HoltraChem's mercury into the federal stockpile.

Environmentalists say the HoltraChem controversy highlights a policy loophole around mercury. The Basel Convention which regulates trade in hazardous waste does not apply to mercury because despite its toxicity, the substance is viewed as legally traded metal, not a toxic chemical.

According to the US government agency, International Trade Administration, India is the largest recipient of mercury exports from the USA. While there has been no confirmation of where the mercury will be sent in India, environmental groups speculate that it could go to either a fever thermometer factory or a plant much like the HoltraChem-owned facility that used the mercury to make chlorine and caustic soda.

Mercury thermometers in the USA are being rapidly phased out in many cities, states and individual hospitals because of safety and environmental concerns, and are being replaced by digital thermometers.

On Saturday, environmental groups protested outside the HoltraChem plant site in Orrington, Maine where the mercury was produced. They are calling on Governor King to hold an emergency meeting with DF Goldsmith to convince the company not to send the waste to India. The controversy over HoltraChem's mercury, according to Bender, illustrates how the US government needs to establish a plan to phase out the use of mercury.

The group says that state and federal agencies should develop interim and long-term storage plans for mercury or the metal will just be circulated back into commerce in the United States or in developing countries.

"We should be exporting appropriate technologies to developing countries, not our problems," says Bender.