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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Thick Smog on the Caribbean Coast

Diógenes Pina * Special to IPS

BAJOS DE HAINA, Dominican Republic, Feb 1 2007 (IPS) - Looking down from the hills of Paraíso de Dios, the smokestacks of more than 100 factories can be seen stretching out in a wide line, near the Dominican Republic’s Caribbean coast.

The plants, which were set up without any regard to environmental standards, are the reason that the town of Bajos de Haina was listed by the New York-based Blacksmith Institute late last year as one of the world’s 10 most polluted places.

Paraíso de Dios (God’s Paradise) is a neighbourhood of Bajos de Haina, located 20 km west of Santo Domingo, where an automobile battery recycling plant functioned for two decades. But although the smelter was relocated seven years ago, the high levels of lead and other pollutants continue to cause health damages among local residents.

More than 100 manufacturing, chemical, pharmaceutical, metallurgical and power plants operate in Bajos de Haina, as does the country’s oil refinery.

The town also has the Dominican Republic’s main port, which in 2002 registered merchandise movements of 10.4 million tons – around 65 percent of the country’s total.

“The pollution has to do with the large number of industries,” says Juan Felipe Ditrén, director of environmental quality in the Secretariat (ministry) of the Environment. “However, the big problem is not just the industries, but the fact that when the companies set up shop here, the country’s environmental laws were very weak.”

The area began to emerge as an industrial hub in the 1970s, when the government pushed through an industrial promotion law that drew factories which brought the now unmanageable pollution in their wake.

The factories release a combined 9.8 tons a year of formaldehyde into the air, as well as 1.2 tons of lead, 416 tons of ammonium and 18.5 tons of sulphuric acid, according to an inventory on dangerous, polluting emissions in the industrial zone compiled by the Secretariat of the Environment in 2004.

“As a result of this study, 84 hazardous substances were identified, 65 of which are major toxics,” states the inventory report.

It underlines that “the greatest threat to the environment and human health are heavy metals, generated mainly by factories that produce electric and electronic goods.” A total of 15,819 tons of pollutants are generated annually by the industrial complex, the report found.

Among the pollutants dumped into the ground, the study cites lead (74.2 tons), copper (91.3 tons), and sulphuric acid (412 tons).

In addition, 33.9 tons a year of sulphuric acid, 29.6 tons of phosphoric acid, 4.5 tons of chlorine and 10.2 tons of ammonium are dumped into the water.

In its introduction, the inventory report says that because of the low overall level of awareness on the environment in the Dominican Republic, a clear diagnosis of the problem is needed in order to identify the sources of pollution, before solutions can be found.

The study recommends that it be made obligatory to report any substances posing a risk to the environment or health that are used, handled, commercialised or disposed of by industries in the country.

The high level of pollution in Bajos de Haina dates back years, “but nothing is being done here to address the problem,” said Víctor Manuel Báez of the Community Action Foundation. “There is a misconception that the pollution here is only caused by lead, but that’s not the case.”

A study carried out in 2005 by the Dominican Republic Academy of Sciences found that in Bajos de Haina, 93 percent of health consultations were for asthma, 83 percent for bronchitis, 69 percent for flu symptoms, and 68 percent for acute diarrheal infections.

“Air pollutants are also causing extremely serious problems,” Báez notes.

Estela shows up at the Norma Ruiz maternal child hospital carrying her two-year-old son Jesús, shortly before 9 a.m. She hurriedly gets off the “motoconcho” (motorcycle taxi) and heads towards the emergency room. “He has a bad case of the flu, doctor; he hardly slept,” she says.

She later comes out on her way to the pharmacy, with several prescriptions in hand. “They told me he has something called ‘bronchitis’,” she says. “I’m going to buy this medicine for him to take.”

Respiratory ailments are common in the area, among both children and adults. Last year, more than 35,000 cases of pulmonary problems in children under 14 were treated at the Norma Ruiz hospital

The town of Bajos de Haina has a population of 90,000, and 32 percent of local households are below the poverty line, according to a government report on poverty in the Dominican Republic carried out in 2005. To the 15,819 tons of hazardous substances generated every year by industry must be added the tons of urban waste and non-toxic industrial waste.

The Academy of Sciences 2005 study reported that Bajos de Haina produces around 85 tons a day of garbage, which is thrown into an open-air dump, “an inappropriate means of disposal.”

In the face of the overwhelming challenge of overseeing and dealing with the complex web of pollution sources on its own, the Bajos de Haina municipal government has appealed to both the public and private sector to provide assistance and cooperation. The plan is to begin to carry out another inventory of sources of pollution in the next few months.

The inventory will cost around 2,500 dollars, 160 of which will come from the municipal government and the rest from the central government, according to the proposal submitted to the municipal authorities by a group of experts, which would also include a series of measures aimed at fighting pollution.

“We, as a city government, cannot unilaterally say that we are going to fix the problem,” said Mayor Luís Alberto Concepción, who took office in August. “We have to combine efforts with the Secretariat of the Environment and other institutions interested in helping us come up with a solution.”

The proposal, “Towards a Participative Environmental Management Policy”, is aimed at triggering research and future action focused on preserving the local environment and improving human health.

Ditrén said that introducing major changes in the industries that have been operating in the area for several decades will be a difficult task, because it will require the incorporation of new technologies, “the cost of which would be very high.”

The “general law on the environment and natural resources”, which was passed in 2000, sets specific standards and norms to be observed by newly installed factories.

But in this case, the damage is already done, and no one knows how long it will take to come up with and implement solutions. “All of these changes will be undertaken gradually,” said Ditrén.