Let's Not Jump to Summary Conclusions Quite Yet
I particularly urge Tochel to be more careful with his statements, many of which are being reported as fact when he is largely quoting Dominican news dailies. Anything reported in the DR press, in my experience with that press since 1995 (including a stint having to provide synopses of that press in the process of doing the DR1 Daily News), has to be taken with a grain of salt. Things reported by Dominican newspapers as fact one day are often withdrawn or substantially changed or admitted to be rumor the next. I wish that wasn't true, but it is.
Tochel is also confusing people by discussing AES's SO2 atmospheric emissions in PR in the same paragraph as discussing the ash dump in Samana. Not connected.
Unless Tochel can convince me otherwise, the mention of the IFC is not relevant to this particular case. The IFC does not invest in Puerto Rico, hence cannot have a stake in the plant that sent this ash.
As for what this stuff really is, I suspect the term "rock ash" being thrown around in the DR press and by the Environment Secretariat is really what is known in the US as "fly ash," a principal residue from coal combustion power plants. EPA used to regulate fly ash as hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the US's principal hazardous waste law. It stopped doing so in 1993, a decision I and many others have wondered about the wisdom of. At the time EPA did so on the basis that (1) risk factors depended on local conditions, and most states provided good enough protection where necessary; (2) human populations were not directly exposed to the groundwater sources known to have been contaminated by fly ash. I don't think either condition gives us any solace regarding the potential risks for the DR, especially in a place like Samana.
If indeed it is fly ash, there are a number of things of potential concern to the environment and to health of the local populace. Past studies have suggested that significant amounts of potentially harmful trace elements from fly ash fallout, including elevated levels of lead, cadmium, copper, zinc, mercury and manganese, accumulate in the soil and may eventually contaminate underground water supplies.
As for the charge that this stuff contains significant traces of dioxin, I think at this stage that is pure speculation, unless someone has had it analyzed by a reputable lab. Fly ash does not always contain dioxin in significant quantities -- unless it comes from a waste-to-energy incinerator, especially older models. Is the AES plant in PR that this came from an incinerator?
But I am like HB -- if it is so harmless, why on earth did AES not try to landfill it in PR instead of paying to ship it abroad?
Given current Dominican law, as I read it, and the DR's commitment under the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes, fly ash is permitted to be exported/imported when it can be shown that it does not contain certain hazardous substances (mercury, lead, cadmium, etc.) in quantities sufficient to elevate risks of toxicity, ecotoxicity, explosiveness, flammability, etc.). Now, question is, what proof did AES and/or Multigestiones submit to the Environment Ministry that these shipments poses no such risks, and if they did not submit test results from a reputable lab, why then did the Ministry approve the permit?
I have often wondered if a country such as the DR, which does not really have the testing & inspection resources to fully check into waste imports, should simply forego them altogether, perhaps sign onto the so-called "Basel Ban" (which essentially bans waste imports).
Your Environment Forum Moderator :glasses: