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Indian activists campaign against use
of killer mercury
By Rahul Verma
New Delhi, India, Aug. 12— A month before an international
conference on the issue, Indian environment activists are urging the
government of India — one of the largest consumers of mercury —
to restrict the use of the element that can cause paralysis, insanity,
or even death.
A group of experts from across the world are expected to meet in the
Indian capital of New Delhi next month to prepare a draft document on
the dangers of mercury to be presented to the government. “The
Indian government does have mercury on its priority list,” says
Kishore Wankhade, senior program officer with the New Delhi-based environment
group, Toxics Links.
The threat of mercury — believed to be one of the six most serious
pollution threats to the planet — is high in India, which has the
second largest consumption of the toxic metal in the world after China.
Of the global consumption of about 3,000 tons of mercury in a year,
India accounts for 250 tons.
According to Toxics Links, even 1/70th of a teaspoon of mercury, or
0.9 gram, can contaminate a 25-acre lake, making fish unfit to eat.
To highlight the effects of mercury in the air, over 60 experts are
expected to take part in the two-day workshop from Sept. 6 on “Managing
Mercury in India.”
“We hope to draft out a management strategy on how to reduce mercury
in the Indian industry,” says Wankhade.
Mercury can permanently damage the human central nervous system or,
in more severe cases, afflict vital organs such as lungs and kidneys.
The consumption of methyl mercury through fish can endanger fetuses.
Environmental groups warn that it can cause fetal brain damage without
any symptoms in the expectant mother. Mercury can also affect new-born
babies, leading to mental and physical disabilities and delayed development
of motor and verbal skills.
Environmentalists stress that there are alternatives to mercury and
that, in many developed countries, its use has declined. “Mercury
usage, in most cases, is substitutable and not doing so reflects the
lack of concern about this extremely toxic heavy metal,” Toxics
Links says.
Wankhade points out that battery-manufacturing units have found alternatives
to mercury. The digital thermometer, popular in the west but still a
luxury in India, is a safe substitute for thermometers using mercury.
The New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment, a leading Indian
environmental group, has also been highlighting the problem of mercury
pollution in India. “This is a very serious problem and urgent
steps need to be taken to completely ban or severely restrict the usage
of mercury,” it says in an article on mercury pollution.
One of the major problems with mercury poisoning is the fact that the
symptoms are mild and difficult to detect. In the less severe cases,
the signs — such as headache and fatigue — are similar to
those of a common cold. But mercury poisoning can lead to depression,
memory loss, and in extreme cases, insanity, coma, or death.
But lack of awareness about the dangerous or even fatal impact of mercury
leads to the improper use — and dumping — of the metal. Children
and adults earn daily wages by pouring mercury from one flask to another,
without any form of protection.
“The dispersion of mercury into the environment is a major concern
in the world today, especially in developing countries,” says Toxics
Links.
It points out that though mercury occurs naturally in the environment,
human activities cause most mercury releases.
“Reports indicate the levels of mercury in rivers, coastal waters,
soil, and food items are way above acceptable levels in India,”
it says.
But only limited studies have been conducted in India to highlight the
impact of mercury on people’s health. A study done in Singrauli
in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh indicated high levels
of mercury in the blood of people living near a thermal plant, another
mercury user.
Mercury mostly finds its way into water and air through industrial wastes
dumped into the ground. CSE states that mercury has been found in the
water near chlor-alkali industries that use mercury and in paint manufacturing
units that depend on mercury-based catalysts.
According to some studies, villages in Gujarat were found to have up
to 1,200 percent more than the permissible levels of mercury.
“To avoid a mercury disaster in the near-future, industries using
mercury in its processes should immediately shift to non-mercury alternatives,”
says CSE.
The New Delhi workshop, to be attended by representatives from NGOs,
governments, industry, and pollution control boards, is expected to
look into issues such as health and environment, alternatives available,
sectoral usage of mercury in India, international policy initiatives,
trade, and Indian regulations.
Source: OneWorld.net
Police shut US-owned
polluting Indonesian gold mine
Washington, DC, Aug. 13 — Friends of the Earth
International welcomed the Aug. 13 decision by Indonesian police to
suspend operations at a US-owned mine which dumps mine waste into the
ocean, while condemning support for the destructive practice of ocean
dumping of mine waste recently expressed by the global lending arm of
the World Bank.
Indonesian police decided on Aug. 13 to suspend operations at the Newmont
Minahasa Raya gold mine after tests at the police forensic laboratory
confirmed scientific studies showing heavy metal pollution attributable
to ocean dumping of mine waste into Buyat Bay, North Sulawesi.
Indonesia has been gripped by news of an epidemic of health problems
ranging from skin ailments, lumps, and nervous system complaints suffered
by dozens of Buyat Bay residents.
Since 1996, Newmont has been dumping 2,000 tons of mercury and arsenic-laced
mine waste (tailings) into the bay daily through the use of Submarine
Tailings Disposal (STD).
“The Buyat Bay pollution disaster shows that instead of benefiting
poor communities, mining operations destroy livelihoods and health.
So, we do not need the World Bank Group to speak on behalf of developing
countries to justify supporting the multinational mining industry,”
said Longgena Ginting, Director of WALHI-Friends of the Earth Indonesia.
Gold mine waste disposal is also in the news in Papua New Guinea (PNG),
where it reportedly caused in the past days fish kills at Canadian mining
company Placer Dome’s Misima gold mine.
Earlier this week, Misima Islanders were shocked to witness the sea
filled with dead fish where the STD mine waste pipe enters the ocean.
Frazer Bourchier, Misima mine manager, confirmed that cyanide was being
discharged down the tailings pipe. PNG’s The National newspaper
reported that “the fish killed showed hemorrhaging in the liver,
diaphragms broken, eyeballs bulging from socket, and their insides inverted
into the mouth.”
Against this disastrous backdrop, the International Finance Corporation
(IFC) — the main lending arm of the World Bank — recently
ignored recommendations in a report on mining and oil investments commissioned
by its parent organization, the World Bank Group.
The rigorous Extractive Industries Review is critical of riverine and
ocean disposal of mine waste, however this and other recommendations
are ignored in the new IFC draft mining guidelines. The IFC draft states
that “deep marine tailings disposal may be considered as a preferred
alternative” in certain circumstances, and also refuses to rule
out riverine or shallow marine tailings disposal.
The IFC position even ignores the repudiation of destructive dumping
practices by mining giants such as BHP Billiton. BHP Billiton walked
away from the Ok Tedi mine in PNG after destroying a river system, fisheries,
and landowners’ gardens through riverine disposal of 80,000 tons
per day of mine waste.
“BHP Billiton was considering using Submarine Tailings Disposal
of mine waste at their Gag Island Nickel project in Indonesia. However,
Chairman Don Argus recently wrote and declared BHP-B would not use STD
in any of their projects,” said Igor O’Neill of the Mineral
Policy Institute. “Ok Tedi proved that you can’t trade the
environment to alleviate poverty. The IFC is out of step with mining
industry majors who now reject mine waste dumping,” he concluded.
IFC guidelines are important not just because they guide the IFC’s
lending operations, but because they are treated as a de facto standard
by other public and private financiers and export credit agencies. The
new draft guideline is the first step in a major overhaul of all of
IFC’s standards.
“This is not a promising start,” said Janneke Bruil of Friends
of the Earth International. “The IFC seems out of touch with reality.
Reckless dumping of toxic waste in our rivers and seas is irresponsible,
outdated, unacceptable, and worlds away from its mission to alleviate
poverty through sustainable development.”
Source: Friends of the Earth International
In the heat, nobody thinks of the warming
By Sanjay Suri
Athens, Greece, Aug. 10 (IPS)— The scorching sun of Athens
would suggest this might be more the place to think about global warming
than Salt Lake City where the winter Olympics of 2002 were held. It
has turned out to be just the other way round.
For the first time the environmental cost of holding an Olympics event
was calculated at Salt Lake City in the United States, and more than
compensated. But such a move has not even been considered in Athens
within a European Union regarded as far more progressive than the
United States in matters environmental. This too has been a move the
other way round.
Environmental groups had figured that the winter Olympics would generate
about 120,000 tons of carbon, mainly through travel to and from the
Games for the visitors and the athletes, and the energy consumption
at the events. The organizers sought out environmental groups and
worked with several companies for donations of emissions cuts that
added up to more than 300,000 tons.
These cuts meant that the companies took demonstrable measures to
cut use of fossil fuels or to save energy that would lead to a reduction
of the 300,000 tons or so of carbon released into the atmosphere.
The methods of cutting emissions and measuring the cuts are in some
dispute. But allowing even for wide margins of error, the organizers
seemed to have a basis to claim that those were the first carbon neutral
Games.
The Athens organizing committee did not even think of doing anything
like this. “Carbon? You mean like carbon at the Games?”
an Olympics spokeswoman at the media center in Athens asked. She had
not heard of such a thing. It was clearly not a matter that the organizers
had felt the need to brief their spokespersons about.
“Clearly this should have been done,” Anthony Fields from
the environmental group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) told IPS. An emissions
compensations package should have been a part of the Olympics Games,
he said.
WWF produced a report recently showing how the Olympics had failed
to keep its declared commitment to the environment through the Games
and preparing for them. On most counts it found the Greek performance
“very disappointing.” WWF did not rate the Athens Olympics
on emissions because this was a track the Greeks never said they would
step on to.
Taking the Salt Lake Olympics as a yardstick, the emissions from the
Athens Olympics are likely to be far higher. There is much larger
participation, for many more events, and athletes and visitors will
be covering far bigger distances. Heavy use of air-conditioning in
temperatures around 35 degrees C will also mean a higher release of
hydrofluorocarbons, which are proportionate to a volume far more harming
and warming than carbon emissions.
A simple calculation offered by the environmental group Future Forests
suggests that an athlete traveling from New York to Athens and back
will cover 9,478 miles and burn 1.74 tons of carbon dioxide as his
or her share of emissions in the course of the flight. The athlete
would have to plant two trees or supply two energy saving bulbs to
someone in a developing country to make his or her share of the flight
carbon neutral.
The Athens Olympics are expected to draw well over a million visitors,
including many thousands of journalists. Emissions arising from domestic
travel will be fewer. But the Olympics mark the largest international
gathering, and carbon neutral Games would make for a strong symbolic
and substantial statement.
By contrast, the Beijing Organizing Committee of Olympic Games which
is arranging the 2008 Olympics has declared that it is “committed
to a zero net emissions Games, where Beijing will minimize emissions
of air pollution associated with hosting the Olympics, and obtain
offsetting emissions reductions in sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide
and other pollutants from projects and programs in China as well as
through emissions trading markets around the world.”
The Beijing Games are engaging several US companies for building green
designs and energy systems into plans for the next Olympics. As a
member of the EU Greece is committed to the Kyoto Protocol under which
specific steps have been agreed to reduce emissions of greenhouse
gases, principally carbon dioxide, that cause global warming. But
China, which is also a party to the Kyoto protocol, seems to be taking
it far more seriously.
The US efforts at Salt Lake City and again for the Beijing Olympics
coupled with the Greek failure to observe the Kyoto protocol at the
Olympics have only strengthened the arguments of the Bush administration
that steps can be taken in the cause of the environment without having
to sign the protocol.
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