Remediation crews clean up some of the worst contaminated homes in Dong Mai, Vietnam. Credit: Blacksmith Institute for a Pure Earth

By Kitty Stapp
NEW YORK, Jan 27 2015 (IPS)

The village of Dong Mai in Vietnam’s agricultural heartland had a serious problem.

To boost their meager incomes, its residents – former artisans who once produced and sold bronze casts – had taken to cannibalizing old car and truck lead-acid batteries and smelting them by hand in their own backyards. As a result, the 2,600 people living there had some of the highest blood lead levels ever recorded."Concretely: We know how to change the situation because we have done it." -- Stephan Robinson

Dong Mai’s water and soil had become terribly contaminated — 32-36 times higher than the acceptable limits. People were getting sick, including children. One home assessed with an X-ray Florescence (XRF) analyser had lead levels 50 times the higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard.

Local government knew of the problem, but the cost of cleaning it up – expected to run into the millions – was daunting. Then, a collaboration with the Blacksmith Institute for a Pure Earth found ways to remediate the lead for much less: about 20 dollars a person.

Once major remedial work was completed, in February 2014, lead levels in the population fell by nearly a third in six months.

“Political will takes time to build,” Rich Fuller, Blacksmith’s president, told IPS. “Governments need solid data on the scope of problems, and how to solve them. Most governments are just starting to build their teams for pollution, and those NGOs that provide support, rather than criticism, have really been a huge help.”

Together with Green Cross Switzerland and the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP), the Blacksmith Institute released a report Tuesday highlighting cleanup success stories like Dong Mai’s.

Top Ten Countries Turning the Corner on Toxic Pollution notes that pollution kills more than 8.9 million people around the world each year, most of them children, and the vast majority — 8.4 million — in low- and middle-income countries.

To put that figure in perspective, it is 35 percent more than tobacco-related deaths, almost three times more deaths than malaria and 14 times more deaths than HIV/AIDS.

Women in Senegal didn’t know their toxic jobs were poisoning themselves and their families. Credit: Blacksmith Institute for a Pure Earth

“Contrary to popular belief, many of the worst pollution problems are not caused by multinational companies but by poorly regulated small-scale operations like artisanal mining, small industrial estates or abandoned factories,” Stephan Robinson of Green Cross Switzerland told IPS.

“However, high-income countries are indirectly contributing by their demand for commodities and consumer goods to the issue as many of these small-scale operations produce the raw or precursor products,” he added. “They thus support many of these smaller industries, adding to the severity of pollution problems in low-income countries.”

Lead, the culprit in Dong Mai, is especially devastating for children. It can damage the brain and nervous system, cause developmental delays, and in cases of extreme exposure, result in death. Children also tend to have higher exposures because they play in dirt and put their hands and other objects in their mouths.

The economic toll of pollutants on poor and middle income countries is high: the costs of air pollution alone range between six and 12 percent of GDP.

Previous Blacksmith reports had focused on the 10 worst toxic hotspots, but this year, the groups chose to look at practical, replicable solutions that don’t require a vast amount of resources to implement.

“There is so much to do,” Fuller said. “Only a few countries have started down the path. We wanted to give them credit, and have them be examples for expanding work on pollution in other countries.”

In the case of Dong Mai, mobilising the active participation of villagers and local officials was key.

Instead of removing the contamined soil and carting it off to landfills, the backyards were capped with sand, a layer of geotextiles, 20 centimetres of compacted clean soil, bricks, and finally, concrete on top, safely sealing away the lead.

After an educational campaign, 50 villagers took on the task of remediating their own yards in this way. What could have cost about 10 million dollars was accomplished for 60,000.

“GAHP members are encouraged to help their neighbours,” Fuller said. “Often, a success in one country can translate into a project in another.  This is certainly true of lead poisoning and e-waste. The GAHP model is collaborative between international agencies, and between countries, all helping each other work out how to solve these awful problems.”

The other success stories in the report were led by Ghana, Senegal, Peru, Uruguay, Mexico, Indonesia, Philippines, the Former Soviet Union and Kyrgyzstan.

In Thiaroye Sur Mer, Senegal, lead battery recycling was replaced with profitable hydroponic gardens.

In Mexico City, a contaminated oil refinery was turned into an urban park with one million visitors a year.

In Agbogbloshie, Ghana, informal e-waste recycling by burning electronic scrap that released toxins is now performed safely by machines.

Bicentennial Park is located on the site of a former oil refinery in Azcapotzalco, Mexico. Credit: vladimix, Creative Commons, Some Rights Reserved

“We worked hard to find solutions that would work for the local recyclers,” Kira Traore, Blacksmith’s programme director for Africa, says in the report. “Simply banning burning wouldn’t help them earn an income. Rather, forbidding burning in Agbogbloshie might push the practice elsewhere, thus expanding the pollution and the number of people affected by it.”

Experts note that local sources of pollution – particularly heavy metals like mercury and arsenic – are often very mobile and can have health impacts thousands of kilometres away.

“Mercury from unsafe artisanal gold mining and coal plants travels the globe and is found in our fish which, e.g., we eat as sushi in London,” Robinson said. “DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) is found in the body fat of the inhabitants of Greenland, though there was never agriculture in Greenland.

“Contaminated air from China and elsewhere can be measured in other countries. Radionuclides from nuclear disasters, like Chernobyl, have reached other countries in most of Europe,” he noted.

In essence, rich countries have not only a moral obligation but a vested interest in helping poorer nations address pollution.

“Western nations have had success in cleaning up their toxic and legacy pollution over the last 40 years and can transfer technology and know-how to low- and middle-income countries today. Concretely: We know how to change the situation because we have done it,” he said.

“Pollution problems can only be solved by organisations joining forces and bringing in what they are best at…These are stories proving we are on the right track, and moving forward. But we need to do more with industrialisation in full swing around the world.”

Edited by Roger Hamilton-Martin

Of the tens of thousands of chemicals thought to be in regular use in the United States today, the government’s main labour regulator oversees fewer than 500. Credit: Bigstock

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Oct 22 2014 (IPS)

The U.S. government will soon begin receiving public suggestions on how federal regulators should update their oversight of toxic chemicals in the workplace.

The new information-gathering process, which began last week and will continue for the next six months, could result in the first major overhaul of related regulations in more than four decades. Of the tens of thousands of chemicals thought to be in regular use in the United States today, the government’s main labour regulator oversees fewer than 500."Many workers are currently being exposed to levels of chemicals that are legal but not safe … The process through which OSHA issues new exposure limits or updates old ones is broken.” -- OSHA chief David Michaels

“New chemicals are being introduced into worksites every year, and we are struggling to keep pace with the potential hazards,” David Michaels, the top official at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), an office within the Labour Department, told journalists while unveiling the new request for information.

“As a result, 40 years after the creation of OSHA, thousands of American workers are still becoming ill and dying from exposure to hazardous chemicals.”

The agency is now in the early stages of what could be a landmark attempt to expand this oversight. While the current move applies solely to workers, if successful it could mark a new phase for U.S. chemicals regulation in general – long criticised for having essentially ceded control to the chemicals industry.

The key laws on chemical safety in the United States date back to the 1970s, and are almost universally seen as so weak as to be nearly worthless. Yet while momentum among lawmakers to update these laws has picked up recently, the replacement proposals have been fiercely derided by public health and environmental groups.

Now, the chemicals industry suggests that it supports OSHA’s plan to revisit its regulatory regime, though sector has ardently fought stricter regulation in the past. Indeed, one its main lobby groups intimates that current efforts are already successful.

“We share OSHA’s commitment to protect the safety of workers and to keep regulatory programs up-to-date,” a spokesperson for the American Chemistry Council, a trade association, told IPS. “Our companies have reduced their recordable injury and illness incidence rates by 80 percent since 1990.”

Yet the spokesperson also warned against government overreach.

“As the administration moves forward,” he noted, “we urge them to continue to engage stakeholders and to pursue a clear, workable approach that will focus on workplace exposures that represent a significant risk of harm and that will yield the greatest safety benefits.”

Dangerously outdated

In regulating hazardous chemicals that workers come in contact with while on the job, the crux of OSHA’s oversight mechanism is a list of what are known as permissible exposure limits (PELs). These set caps on the amount of specific airborne chemicals – for instance, formaldehyde, asbestos or lead – beyond which would be considered unhealthy.

Understandably, these figures are haggled over by public health experts, labour representatives and business owners. However, far more concerning than the specifics of the PELs is how difficult – indeed, near impossible – it has been to add new compounds to this list.

As OSHA’s Michaels noted, of the tens of thousands of chemicals in regular use in the United States today, the agency’s PELs number only around 500 compounds. Further, this list has seen almost no change since it was created in 1971, with updates or additions for only some 30 chemicals.

“Many of these PELs are dangerously out of date and do not adequately protect workers,” Michaels stated.

“As a result, many workers are currently being exposed to levels of chemicals that are legal but not safe … The process through which OSHA issues new exposure limits or updates old ones is broken.”

Any major rewrite of OSHA’s chemicals oversight could have an inordinate impact on marginalised communities across the United States. Immigrants, racial minorities and the poor are all overrepresented in a spectrum of sectors that tend to see the highest use of hazardous chemicals.

Further, while U.S. labour regulations for the most part do not extend overseas, including at U.S.-owned ventures in other counties, significant regulatory changes in Washington could have important knock-on effects throughout certain sectors.

“This process does have the potential to improve working conditions abroad,” Matt Shudtz, the acting executive director at the Center for Progressive Reform, a watchdog group here, told IPS.

“Many multinational companies have safety departments. So if they have a plant in the United States where they’re addressing these hazards, they could choose to apply that same principle across the board.”

A spokesperson for OSHA likewise told IPS: “Hopefully the updated PELs will encourage employers all over the world to protect their workers from chemical hazards.”

Selective enforcement

Shudtz’s office is strongly supporting the new moves from OSHA as well as an eventual expansion of the agency’s PELs. But he also notes that a new rulemaking process is not the only way to deal with the current problem.

The legislation that governs OSHA gives it the power to write regulations for specific hazards. But this process is significantly constrained by a requirement, from the early 1990s, that the agency engage in a cost-benefit analysis for any regulatory action.

Such an approach has been a top priority for U.S. businesses and industry, and is reflected in the warning from the American Chemistry Council quoted at the beginning of this article.

But Shudtz and others point to a “catchall” provision, called the General Duty Clause, that allows OSHA to cite a company for hazardous behaviour if there exists both general industry agreement that the behaviour is dangerous and an obvious alternative.

“In the chemicals industry there are consensus-based standards that a lot of employers follow because they protect workers fairly well. And in general, those standards are more up to date than OSHA’s,” Shudtz says.

“The General Duty Clause says that OSHA can use those consensus standards as the basis for its enforcement. Unfortunately, they rarely take that opportunity.”

This is likely due to limited resources, as companies can challenge negative citations and thus drag out the process significantly and expensively. Yet Shudtz says that strong but selective enforcement under the General Duty Claus could achieve an important goal.

“If OSHA were to choose a chemical where there’s widespread exposure and a clear standard that could be applied, and engage in a few enforcement cases and really stick to their guns,” he says, “that would send an important message to other employers that they ought to be abiding by stricter standards.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be reached at cbiron@ips.org

A group of visitors tours Jorge Cora's farm on Jan. 25, 2014. Credit: Elisa Sanchez

By Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico, Feb 10 2014 (IPS)

A decade after the United States Navy’s departure, the Puerto Rican island town of Vieques faces new challenges, and the rebirth of its agriculture sector is hampered by a legacy of toxic military trash that has uncertain consequences.

From 1999 to 2003, Vieques, which is just over twice the size of New York City’s Manhattan Island, was the site of a massive civil disobedience campaign to put an end to the presence of the Navy, which had used the island for bombing practice since World War Two. Puerto Rico is officially a commonwealth and territory of the United States.“The soils in Vieques could be safe for farming, or maybe not. There is uncertainty." -- Biologist Arturo Massol

In 2003, the bombing range was closed. But Vieques faces other challenges, like unemployment, crime, and basic infrastructure issues like health and transportation.

The principal means of transportation between Vieques and the main island of Puerto Rico is the ferry that travels the 30 kms between the town of Fajardo and the pier at Vieques’ Isabel Segunda village. The service is plagued by frequent breakdowns and delays, a situation which discourages tourism and makes life difficult for Vieques residents that need to travel to the main island.

“Transportation here is a disaster,” said Robert Rabin, a U.S. expatriate who moved to Vieques in 1980 and was a major figure in the anti-Navy movement. “This situation is an attempt against the island’s economic development and the health of its residents. When the elderly and sick have to go to the main island for medical appointments, they cannot arrive on time because of the poor ferry service.”

Rabin works at the Conde de Mirasol historic museum in Isabel Segunda and at the newly founded Radio Vieques community radio station. He pointed out that the island town of Culebra, some 15 kms to the north of Vieques, faces a similar transportation plight. “This shows the Puerto Rico government’s lack of commitment to the economic development of both Vieques and Culebra,” he said.

Local residents of both islands feel squeezed out by a large influx of wealthy new residents – mostly U.S. citizens – which is allegedly causing “gentrification”. Rabin says that this type of population displacement is also happening in the main island and in the nearby Virgin Islands.

“I see an increase in the control of foreigners, especially American, over local tourism. The government has not responded to this problem. And the local community has not been able to respond in a coherent way due to lack of organisation,” he said.

“There are some foreigners who set up businesses here and provide good jobs for local people, but they are the exception. Most of them employ friends they bring in from the U.S., and offer Vieques residents only the lowest paying jobs, like maintenance.”

Many of these migrants are “snowbirds”, the term used by local residents to describe people who come only for the winter, staying in Vieques no longer than six months a year. According to Rabin, “When they are away they rent their properties for as much as a thousands dollars a week, or even a thousand a night. Some of those houses are real palaces.”

Not all “snowbirds” are rich property owners. Some come for high-paying jobs in the tourism and construction sectors, others work as carpenters or electricians. The poorer ones live in camping tents in Sun Bay beach, in the island’s south coast.

Vieques has been experiencing a renaissance of sorts in its farming sector. New farm operations, both conventional and organic, have been sprouting up in recent years. One of these nouveau agricultural operations is the small company Hydro Organics, which is working a 30-acre farm called La Siembra de Vieques, located between the Lujan and Esperanza sectors.

La Siembra grows squash, green beans, papaya, moringa, avocado, coconut, eggplant, pineapple, guava and salad greens, among many other crops. Part of the labour is provided by woofers, international backpackers that travel from one farm to another, working in exchange for lodging and food. The farm is run according to the principles of permaculture, a discipline that combines ecological design and sustainable agriculture.

“We are getting started with community-supported agriculture,” said Hydro Organics farmer Vanessa Valedon. “We have consumer-investors who pay in advance for six months of our harvest.”

In Monte Carmelo, a hillside sector next to the old Navy firing range, is the farm of Jorge Cora. He has no running water or electricity and there is no paved road leading to his farm. He plants salad greens, okra, peppers, tomato, basil, neem, tobacco and beets, all without the use of agrochemicals.

“I get no government aid, not even food stamps,” said Cora, who prides himself on his independence. “If I can do all this with no chemicals or government help, I challenge conventional industrial farmers to do the same.”

But there is debate as to whether Vieques farm produce is safe to consume. Some point out that all of the island’s settlements are downwind from the old firing range, where shells of different calibres were exploded over 60 years, blowing up dust and debris contaminated with munitions toxic chemicals, which were carried by the winds and settled in the civilian area.

In the 1990s, the Puerto Rico Health Department determined that the cancer rate among Vieques residents was 26.9 percent above the national average. The anti-Navy movement attributed this anomaly to toxic pollution caused by military activities.

Biologist Arturo Massol, professor at the University of Puerto Rico and volunteer staffer at the non-governmental organisation Casa Pueblo, carried out peer-reviewed studies of military pollution in Vieques and how these toxins travel the marine and land food chains. He believes there is reason for concern, but advises that more studies need to be done.

“The soils in Vieques could be safe for farming, or maybe not. There is uncertainty,” he told IPS.

Massol declared that the Puerto Rican government has a duty to carry out soil tests to ascertain any toxic hazard. For its work with the people of Vieques and the anti-Navy protest movement, Casa Pueblo won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2002.