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POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS BARRLES NOT EN ROUTE TO TACOMA

by Stacey Burns, The Tacoma News Tribune

They were taken off ship minutes before it left Taiwan port

TACOMA, U.S.A., 23 July, 1999 - Crushed barrels potentially coated with hazardous waste are not en route to the Port of Tacoma as some feared earlier this week - news that pleased environmental groups and dockworkers Thursday.

"This shipment was stopped and should have been stopped," said Jim Puckett of the Asia Pacific Environmental Exchange and Basel Action Network, both environmental groups in Seattle. "We are real proud of what we heard."

The barrels once held mercury-contaminated waste and now are sealed in shipping containers. They were taken off a U.S.-bound ship minutes before it left the port at Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

Dockworkers unloaded the cargo after a request by the company that owns the ship, the Astoria Bridge. It is to arrive in Tacoma on Aug. 5.

Word that the barrels might be headed for Tacoma spread through the port and the region Thursday.

Environmental groups and dockworkers contend the residue coating the barrels might be hazardous. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, however, said there was no danger.

"The delay is good," said Scott Mason, business agent for the local chapter of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. "I'm pleased we now have time to sit back and really learn more about the issue before it comes into our back yard."

Officials with the EPA office in Seattle could not be reached for comment.

If the containers had arrived in Tacoma, it would have been the first shipment of waste to the United States from Formosa Plastics Group.

The Taiwanese plastics manufacturer wants to ship millions of pounds of toxic waste to facilities in the United States, including an Envirosafe Services of Idaho Inc. plant near Boise.

The toxic waste, stored in 350 20-foot cargo containers, contains a compacted combination of graphite pellets, brine sludge from the chlor-alkali manufacturing process and dirt contaminated when the waste was dumped in Cambodia last year.

That waste, along with the crushed barrels, remains in Taiwan.

The EPA is studying what to do about the larger shipment and plans to gather public opinion before making a recommendation to Taiwanese regulators.

Puckett said environmental groups will fight efforts to bring the toxic waste to the United States.

"We've won round 1," he said. "We are very happy that so far things have been put on hold."

* Reach staff writer Stacey Burns at 253-597-8268 or stacey.burns@mail.tribnet.com.

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.
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