GROUNDWORK's
QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER
Volume 6, No 4
Dec 2004
IN THIS ISSUE:
From the Smokestack
Lead Story - The chemical industry’s
horrific legacy in Bhopal
Air Quality – Communities on the
fence line
Corporate Acoountability - We know
what you did last century!
Corporate Acoountability - How to
save the Earth
Waste Project -Chemical Safety: Profits
before people or responsible waste management?
News from groundWork USA - Not
in anyone’s backyard!
Cynics Corner – How green is
your Valli?
Community News – The
Vaal Triangle
Goodbye, Ardiel and Ferrial. Hello,
Siziwe.
Publications
In the pipeline
From the Smokestack
by groundWork Director, Bobby Peek
This month we say good-bye to Ardiel Soeker and Ferrial Adam.
After a “partnership” of nearly four years, Ardiel
Soeker is leaving groundWork to join Biowatch as an advocacy
officer. Ardiel and I have worked together for seven years,
first at EJNF and now at groundWork. We have grown close over
the years and as we part ways it is indeed a sad moment. But
I can look back with much happiness and say we were fortunate
to have had Ardiel around in the formative years of groundWork.
Ardiel took on the challenge of growing our fledgling Air
Quality Project in 2001 and made it work.
Ardiel, we wish you all the best in your new post, and hope
that your travelling never gets as hectic as it was in groundWork.
After 14 months with groundWork Ferrial has decided to move
back to Johannesburg. Ferrial’s Corporate work will
be managed by myself until after our “Corpse Awards”
next year. We wish Ferrial all the best in her future job
seeking.
Spook (as Ardiel is affectionately known) and ADAM, we will
miss U both!
In January Siziwe Khanyile will be joining us as the new
Air Quality campaign manager. We look forward to this. Please
see page 19 for her background. We are positive that she will
take the good work started by Ardiel and strengthen it over
time.
Engen and Sasol join forces
On a strange note, community activism is being drawn closer
together with the support of none other than industry. It
was recently announced that Engen and Sasol are going to partner
in their endeavors to extract profits from the people of South
Africa. This will provide the south Durban community (home
to the Engen Refinery) and the communities of Sasolburg and
Secunda (homes to Sasol’s refineries) a common challenge.
It is hoped that the high death toll at Sasol’s industries
will not be brought through to the Engen refinery in south
Durban.
Bhopal anniversary
The lead story in this newsletter focuses on the 20th anniversary
of the tragic gas explosion at Bhopal in December 1984 that
left tens of thousands of people dead and injured. It is hoped
that those who are legally responsible for the explosion and
its legacy will be brought to trial. At the present time we
can do nothing but hope that the disaster of Bhopal never
repeats itself anywhere in the world. The potential no doubt
is there, especially in places such as south Durban, Sasolburg
and Richards Bay. It is ironic that, as our democracy grows
in South Africa, we continually have industrial developments
adjacent to poor black communities, including expansions of
industrial footprints in both Sasolburg and south Durban,
which have the potential of a Bhopal. groundWork USA clearly
indicates that environmental injustice and the foundations
of new Bhopals are also springing up in the USA (see page
17). When are we going to learn?
Finally, there has been an addition to the groundWork family.
I recently became a parent and both Veni and myself would
like to take this opportunity to thank all those that have
been so kind to support us during this period. We have a baby
boy whose name is Samuel.
We wish all of you well over the festive season, and look
forward to 2005 with much vigour,
Bobby
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The chemical industry’s horrific legacy in
Bhopal
By Gary Cohen1 and Bobby Peek
2nd December 1984: On this day, twenty years ago, families
in Bhopal were awakened at ten minutes past midnight by a
terrible burning sensation in their eyes and lungs. Within
minutes, men, women and children staggered into the street,
gasping for air. As they ran in complete terror, someone yelled
out that the Union Carbide pesticide factory had exploded,
spewing out poisonous gases throughout the city.
Soon thousands of people lay dead in the city’s main
roads, with every truck, taxi and ox cart weighted down with
injured and terrified people of all ages. No one in the emergency
room at the city hospital knew what toxic gases had been released
in the explosion or how to treat the flood of patients. By
the morning, more than 5,000 people were dead, and another
half million people injured.
Bhopal has rightly been called the “Hiroshima of the
Chemical Industry”. Bhopal not only represents the stark
story of the human fall-out from a chemical factory explosion,
but it offers up important lessons about the “culture”
of the chemical industry and its approach to human safety
and public health. 
The sad reality is that we continue to learn about the effects
of new man-made chemicals by exposing people to them and then
learning after the damage has already been done which chemicals
are harmful and in what way. All of mankind has been turned
into guinea pigs at the mercy of a chemical industry that
is throwing caution to the wind.
So, we learnt just how toxic and lethal dioxin is after Dow
Chemical, Monsanto and other chemical companies had exposed
American veterans and the entire Vietnamese population to
the herbicide Agent Orange. We learnt how poisonous asbestos
is after thousands of asbestos miners in South Africa and
worldwide died very painful deaths after exposure to asbestos.
We have witnessed first-hand the toxicity of mercury after
workers at Thor Chemicals in Cato Ridge, just outside Durban,
were killed and injured after exposure to mercury. And we
have learnt just how life-threatening exposure to methyl-isocyanate
(MIC) is after Union Carbide gassed an entire city in India.
Since the Bhopal disaster, we’ve learnt that we all
carry the chemical industry’s toxic products and byproducts
in our bodies. Every man, women, child and infant on the planet
has a “body burden” of a variety of chemicals
- picked up from the environment and our parents - some of
which are linked to cancer, birth defects, asthma, mental
illness, lung disease, kidney disease and other health problems,
some of them fatal.
South African oil and chemical giant, Sasol, operating in
our own “backyard”, has had several industrial
incidents at its various plants around the country, including
explosions, gas leaks and fires. A chlorine leak at a Sasol
subsidiary in south Durban a few years ago gassed hundreds
of children at two schools in south Durban. Probably the worst
incident at a Sasol industry was the fire at one of its Secunda
operations on 1st September this year that has so far claimed
the lives of ten people. Our Minister of Labour was quick
to respond to the Secunda fire in a noble and brave manner
stating that:
"If Sasol continues to kill people, if people continue
to die in their workplace, whether it means there is no fuel
in the country, I as Membathisi Shepherd Mdladlana will not
allow any company to kill people."
Since then, dear Minister, Sasol has had another two deaths
at its Sasolburg oil refinery and another death at the Bosjesspruit
colliery, and we have yet to see you take the action you threatened.
We still have fuel in South Africa and we still have worker
deaths.
Twenty years have passed since the Bhopal gas leak which
has caused so much suffering - twenty years in which to learn
from the mistakes of the past and twenty years to try and
right the wrongs. But today in Bhopal thousands of people
remain sick from chemical exposure, while more than 50,000
are disabled due to injuries. The amount of compensation Union
Carbide paid to the survivors has not been enough to cover
basic medicines, let alone other costs associated with disabilities
and the inability to work.
The abandoned factory site remains essentially the same as
it did the day that fateful night when the residents of the
city of Bhopal fled for their lives. Sacks of unused pesticides
lie strewn in storerooms; toxic waste litters the ground and
continues to leak into the neighbourhood well water supply.
Officials at Dow Chemical, the new owners of Union Carbide,
claim they have nothing to do with the ongoing disaster in
Bhopal. Yet Dow may soon be faced with a subpoena from the
Bhopal Court to present its subsidiary Union Carbide in a
criminal case or face action for obstructing justice. And
the New York District court may soon order Dow to clean up
the toxic mess left behind by Union Carbide twenty years ago.
On this twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, survivors
in Bhopal will march and make speeches and demand their basic
right to be free of chemical poisons, to be compensated for
damages, and to hold Dow Chemical and Union Carbide liable
for the world’s worst industrial disaster.
The Bhopal survivors are not only speaking for themselves,
but for us as well. In the last two decades, with an ever-growing
list of deaths and injuries as a result of industrial incidents
in South Africa, Bhopal has come much closer to home. The
chemical terror the residents of Bhopal have experienced and
the lack of care and respect they have received are haunting
reminders of the frightening hazards posed by large chemical
plants. When are our elected leaders going to listen to their
people and stop throwing around rhetoric and do something
about the problem?
Note: [1]Gary Cohen is the Executive Director of the Environmental
Health Fund in Boston, USA. He serves on the international
advisory board of the Sambhavna Trust, which operates a free
medical clinic for the survivors in Bhopal.
Air Quality Campaign
Communities on the fence line
By Ardiel Soeker
On the 2nd and 3rd December 2004, representatives from South
African industrial communities gathered in Richards Bay, KwaZulu–Natal,
to review civil society’s strategy on industrial pollution
in the light of the imminent enactment of the National Environmental
Management: Air Quality Act.
In Sasolburg, in June 2002, South African industrial fence
line communities came together for the first time to discuss
and strategise around how to respond to the deteriorating
air quality in industrial pollution hotspots.
At that workshop communities decided upon a four pillared
strategy - awareness and education; mobilisation; good research;
and advocacy and lobbying - to guide community responses to
industrial pollution. A key objective of this strategy was
to lobby for legislation that would more effectively regulate
industrial polluters.
The imminent enactment of the new National Environmental
Management: Air Quality Act is a victory for fence line communities.
Implementation of the act will be the new challenge.
We invited a number of key organisations and individuals
to provide the necessary context and detail to enable good
discussion and debate around strategies and tactics.
Peter Lukey from the Department of Environmental Affairs
and Tourism, the implementing agent, gave a presentation that
focused on DEAT’s implementation plan for the new legislation.
The new act requires that a number of instruments or tools
be established before the real implementation can take place.
These tools include:
- the National Framework for air quality management,
- the establishment of “priority areas”,
- the setting of national ambient air quality standards
and
- the establishment of local air quality management plans.
Siva Chetty from the eThekwini Municipality presented on
the success and challenges of the Durban Multi Point Plan.
The implementation of the Multi Point Plan has provided the
necessary groundwork for the quick and effective implementation
of the new legislation in Durban.
Ellen Nicol from the Legal Resources Centre gave a presentation
on the opportunities that the new legislation provides for
civil society to participate in and determine implementation.
It became clear to delegates that the proper implementation
of the new act will require fence line communities to participate
in highly technical and scientific processes. It would also
drain the limited resources that are available to fence line
communities.
After intense debate and discussion, the workshop agreed
upon the following interventions that would guide our strategy
to improve air quality in South Africa:
1. Influencing the strategic plans, frameworks, setting of
standards, establishment of priority areas, etc for the proper
implementation of the new air quality legislation and,
2. Maintaining pressure to get industry to clean-up.
The new air quality legislation calls for the establishment
of a number of tools to manage air quality. These tools are
technical in nature and require fence line communities to
acquire sophisticated skills and expert knowledge. Instead
of trying to convert environmental justice activists into
chemical engineers and toxicologists, delegates felt that
a more strategic approach to influencing the air quality management
plans, frameworks, setting of standards, establishment of
priority areas and other air quality management tools established
by the new legislation would be the establishment of a civil
society technical advisory group that would support and guide
communities’ involvement in the implementation of the
new legislation. This would also prevent the process of implementation
from draining local resources, and would allow community activists
to maintain the pressure to get industry to clean up.
Delegates called for DEAT to convene, as a matter of urgency,
a national conference on the implementation of the new legislation.
This conference should target industry, all spheres of government
and communities. The aim of the conference should be to kick
start debate around the establishment of a National Framework
for air quality management, as required by the new legislation.
On the 4th December, the day after the above workshop, fence
line community activists joined the Richard Bay community
in solidarity against environmental injustices in area.
The Community Speak-Out was co-hosted by Vuka Environment
Dot Com (a Richards Bay based environmental justice organisation)
and groundWork.
Local residents and workers testified to the negative impact
of industry on their health and well–being.
Gary Campbell related his experiences as a worker for a number
of big companies in Richards Bay. He alleged that his body
became contaminated by mercury, which had affected a number
of organs, including his digestive system and nervous system.
The companies refuse to take responsibility for their actions,
whilst Gary and his family have to bear the daily health costs
of treating his symptoms. He is busy compiling the evidence
needed to take those responsible to court.
Mr Manaba, a local resident living next to the the Ticor
mining operation in Richards Bay, alleged that Ticor had violated
his environmental rights by developing a heavy mineral mining
operation adjacent to his community. Here local residents
live with the dust and the noise of a mining operation across
the fence from their houses. Both Vuka Environmental Dot Com
and groundWork are in discussions with Ticor to seek a remedy
to the situation.
Community people from Secunda, Sasolburg, Boipatong and south
Durban shared their struggles and experiences with Richards
Bay Residents and pledged their support and solidarity.
The Speak-Out resolved to address an urgent dossier to the
relevant authorities for immediate intervention into the concerns
residents raised.
Corporate Accountability
“WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST CENTURY!”
by Ferrial Adam
Nominations have been opened to find those corporations operating
in South Africa that are deserving of a “Corpse Award”.
Before you turn the page in horror, this is not some kind
of satanic ritual! A “Corpse Award” is a tongue-in-cheek
award for corporations that have been voted by South African
civil society as being guilty of bringing about human loss,
suffering and environmental destruction in the pursuit of
profit. It is a play on the slang abbreviation “corps”
(corporations) and in this instant fits perfectly.
Some of the culprits that have been nominated thus far will
come as no surprise and include infamous oil companies, mining
houses, power utilities and paper industries - even the company
from which this recycled paper is obtained.
Organisations and community members can nominate both national
and multinational corporations operating in South Africa to
receive a “Corpse Award”. The nomination forms,
including the criteria for nominations, can be downloaded
from www.groundwork.org.za and can either be faxed to groundWork
or emailed to bobby@groundwork.org.za. Nominations close on
31 December 2004, and the Corpse Awards ceremony will take
place in the second quarter of 2005. The awards will be structured
in such a way that there will be one overall winner as well
as winners in different categories.
A wide spectrum of organisations and communities have been
involved in the planning of these awards. These include Timberwatch,
the Anti Privatisation Forum, Boipatong Environmental Working
Group, Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, Geosphere, Vuka
Dot Com, SDCEA, Jubilee and others who are dealing with issues
ranging from pollution to health to labour.
It became quite clear in discussions amongst these above
organisations that the Corpse Awards campaign could serve
to create links between different civil society campaigns.
Many companies have been nominated more than once and for
different reasons. For example, a particular company (we will
release the name of this lucky candidate at a later date!)
was nominated by groundWork for air pollution, by the Anti
Privatisation Forum for electricity cut-offs, and by Earthlife
Africa for the promotion of nuclear energy (sorry, no awards
for the correct guess of who this might be!). It is envisaged
that these linkages will not only serve to strengthen local
and national campaigns, but will also highlight the fact that
many of the varied challenges facing us are linked to environmental
justice issues.
Over the past year we have witnessed the giving (with much
fanfare) of a number of corporate “environmental”
(read: “greenwash”) awards. groundWork’s
campaign is a necessary response to expose these greenwash
activities and awards that have flooded the media. These include
the Mail & Guardian’s “Greening the Future”
awards, and the “Technology Top 100” Awards Programme,
to name but two. Sasol won a “Technology Top 100”
award for it’s level of technology - this even after
at least 15 people were killed as a result of three different
accidents at Sasol this year. We are sending out a challenge
to the companies that will be nominated (a final list of nominees
will be released in January 2005) to come and receive their
Corpse Awards at the award ceremony, just as they have attended
the many other award ceremonies and got their proud pictures
in the newspapers.
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Corporate Accountability
How to save the Earth
Third year tech students portray their thoughts on how to
save the Earth
By Bobby Peek
“Third world countries have little say as rich countries
are trying to get their hands on the abundance of wealth in
the South”, say Kajal Krippen and Hilton Veckranges,
two third year Environmental Health students at the Durban
Institute of Technology (DIT). This statement is in response
to my enquiring as to how they came up with the concept for
their winning poster in this year’s Epidemiology 3 poster
competition: “How to save the Earth”. Sixteen
innovative poster presentations were entered, all of which
left much food for thought.
It is this type of analysis and response from people just
on twenty years of age, that brings hope for all of us who
seemingly have insurmountable challenges to conquer, including
corporate greed and the ceaseless destruction of the Earth.
What made these young students come up with their winning
idea was a combination of life experience and the manner in
which they are have been educated within the Environmental
Health department at the DIT.
Kajal Krippen is a resident in the coastal town of Scottburgh,
where the infamous Sappi Saiccor has its paper mill. Already
as a teenager still at school, she was working on projects
that sought to understand and expose the corporate wrongdoings
of Sappi. As many people have witnessed in the Scottburgh
area, along with the prevalence of air pollution from the
Sappi plant there was an apparent high incidence of sick children.
Kajal was “intrigued by this” and her project
sought to unpack the links between sick children and pollution.
But already then Sappi was weary of this young mind, and warned
her to make sure that her facts were correct. She was also
wise to Sappi’s claims that its effluent was biodegradable
and, like many other people in the area, was concerned about
this apparent “cover-up” by Sappi. In 1999 a sulphur
gas leak caused injury to several school children in the neighbourhood.
This was not its first sulphur gas leak, and in fact government
knew that the sulphur dioxide ambient air measurements in
the vicinity of the industry far exceeded the requirements
set down by government for Sappi. Yet Sappi has never been
prosecuted for air pollution.
Hilton Veckranges, a resident from Sydenham in Durban, was
also drawn by experience to tackle the issue of environmental
health at a tertiary level. As a coloured resident in Sydenham,
he had first hand experience of the Durban Solid Waste landfill
site located in his community. The noxious odorous gases that
come off the landfill site often impact upon the residents
in Sydenham. To top this, he only became aware of the insidious
nature of how corporates infiltrate one’s existence
when, a few years ago, he learnt through adverts on the lamp
poles in his neighbourhood, that Petronet transported Sasol
gas through an underground pipeline that was only meters away
from schools, houses and churches in the area. It is sad that,
although the location of both of these developments was the
result of apartheid planning, the democratic government of
South Africa has chosen not to heed calls from residents in
the area but to allow these two developments to continue.
Coupled with the above, Hilton has also witnessed how the
urban poor in his community have progressively become marginalised
and lost their homes and/or become illegal residents as a
result of policies where people are forced out of state supported
housing.
When I asked Kajal and Hilton what drew them to study Environmental
Health, they both responded in unison that it is about making
a difference and wanting to help people. And, in retrospect,
the manner in which the subject is taught has also kept them
within the department.
Hilton candidly says he is not too sure about what he will
do when he has completed his studies, but he wants to hone
his skills on environmental management. Kajal is thinking
of work and further studying in the field of occupational
medicine and health.
These two have worked together closely since their first
year for three years now. They confidently say that they are
a good team. They have worked on many projects together, including
research on the contentious South Durban Industrial Basin.
They know from where environmental injustice comes, and their
poster depicts the furtherance of ecological debt of the North,
where the resources of the South are often plundered for the
benefit of the North. The Earth, they finally say, is not
in God’s hands anymore. You decide for yourself: “Whose
hands is it in anyway”? Kajal and Hilton know!
From groundWork, we wish them all the best in their future
careers and we are confident that one day they will both be
working in sectors that will be challenging corporate power
and abuse and that call for a better world. Well done!
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Waste
Chemical Safety:
Industries and governments need to choose responsible waste
management ahead of profits at any cost
By Llewellyn Leonard
"By accepting responsibility, we take effective
steps toward our goal: an inclusive human society on a habitable
planet, a society that works for all humans and for all nonhumans.
By accepting responsibility, we move closer to creating a
world that works for all." Sharif M.Abdullah
S.A. government “jumps the gun”
News that some cement industries in South Africa are seeking
government authorisation to burn obsolete pesticides and other
types of hazardous waste in their cement kilns caused much
consternation at a recent international chemical safety workshop
in Nairobi, Kenya. And further dismay followed when it was
learnt that one S.A. government department (the KwaZulu-Natal
Department of Agriculture and Environment) had actually requested
a local cement company (Natal Portlands Cement) to burn agricultural
chemicals, presumably as a way of getting these chemicals
off their hands.
Obsolete pesticides are persistent in the environment and
have been linked to an array of very serious - and potentially
fatal – health problems and environmental destruction.
It is now widely accepted that burning these chemicals does
not destroy them but releases them – and other chemical
compounds – into the environment in gaseous form –
a form that is more readily inhaled, ingested and absorbed.
Obsolete pesticides form one group of chemicals that has
recently been receiving particular attention at an inter-governmental
level, in such initiatives as the global Strategic Approach
to International Chemicals Management (SAICM). The aim of
the SAICM is to get governments to commit to internationally
recognised chemical safety objectives.
The fact that representatives of over 100 governments travelled
to Nairobi to participate in the SAICM talks in October is
an indication that most countries recognise the need to manage
chemicals and their hazardous by-products in a safe and systematic
manner. That our government could at this point in time even
consider – let alone encourage – the incineration
of obsolete pesticides virtually undermines the SAICM talks,
as well as other international processes and treaties such
as the Africa Stockpiles Programme and the UN’s Stockholm
Convention. Having participated in all these processes our
government cannot claim ignorance. So then why the rush to
burn this waste? Is it plain disorganisation within government
departments or are some officials having their pockets lined
by industries looking for yet cheaper ways of doing things,
even if it is at the cost of the environment and human well
being?
Hazardous waste – an acceptable fuel?
South Africa’s newest air quality law (the recently
enacted National Environmental Management: Air Quality Bill)
contains clauses that would allow for the incineration of
hazardous waste under the guise of alternative fuels. These
clauses on “controlled fuels” were sneakily slipped
in at the last minute by the Department of Environmental Affairs
and Tourism (DEAT) after the consultation phase of the Bill
was closed.
The South African government does not have a formal policy
on the use of hazardous waste as an alternative fuel source
for industries. There is no mention made of “controlled
fuels” or alternative fuels in the White Paper on Integrated
Pollution and Waste Management of March 2000. This policy
informs the air quality legislation. So the insertion of the
additional clauses without consultation was unlawful.
Since October 2002 groundWork has been offering to work with
government on developing policies around alternative fuels,
cement kiln incineration and hazardous waste incineration.
The inclusion in the law of a process allowing for the use
of controlled fuels in a combustion process effectively pre-empts
debate on whether such fuels and combustion processes are
appropriate, necessary and without negative environmental
and health impacts.
Industries, such as the cement industry, have been calling
for “alternative fuels”/“controlled fuels”
and have lobbied government extensively, going as far as taking
the Deputy Minister of Environment to Europe to view this
technology - a technology which we have neither agreed to
nor debated in the context of policy formulation and strategy
yet we now find it included in our legislation!
Mayor concerned
The Holcim Cement plant located in Dudfield, Lichtenburg,
in the North West Province, is proposing to replace its existing
coal fuel stock with hazardous waste. In November groundWork
travelled to Lichtenburg to meet the local mayor, Mr. J. Bogatsu.
The honourable mayor was not aware that hazardous waste was
going to be burnt in his community. No draft Environmental
Impact Reports have been forwarded to the municipality for
comment, nor has any proper stakeholder consultation been
conducted with the surrounding communities.
In addition to Holcim Cement, other cement industries, such
as Pretoria Portlands Cement (PPC), Natal Portlands Cement
(NPC) and Lafarge Cement, are also operating in the area.
I was concerned that, since this is largely an agricultural
region, pollution arising from the burning of hazardous waste
in cement kilns will have a detrimental affect on this sector,
since the release of dioxins and other chemicals could contaminate
crops and livestock - and subsequently people who consume
these crops and animal products.
The municipality was heartened to hear that a previous attempt
by Peacock Bay Environmental Services (PBES) to build a hazardous
waste incinerator in Sasolburg was vetoed by the Free State
government after the mayor of Sasolburg and the local council
disapproved of the proposal. The mayor of Lichtenburg has
since addressed letters to both the Deputy Minister and MEC
to consider seriously vetoing this proposal until government
has a clear policy on this issue.
Workers Union alarmed
In November the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) requested
groundWork to inform them of the proposal by the cement industries
to burn hazardous waste in their cement kilns and the potential
hazards that this would pose for workers. Many representatives
of NUM were unaware of these proposals and were shocked during
the presentation to hear that studies as recent as 2003 on
the burning of hazardous waste in cement kilns showed workers
suffering from interstitial lung disease, pleural thickening,
chronic bronchitis and various cancers. Of great concern to
NUM was the fact that the US Environmental Protection Agency
(US EPA) had identified cement kilns as the third largest
source of dioxin (a carcinogen) and the second largest source
of mercury (a developmental- and neurotoxin) in the atmosphere.
I was glad to see NUM representatives agree that no workers
should be exposed to such toxic pollution by such outrageous
proposals. NUM has since showed their intent to inform workers
of the situation and take action against these proposals.
Fears of an increase in international waste trafficking
There is a fear amongst civil society that, if the S.A.
government allows the burning of hazardous waste in cement
kilns, there will be an increase in the burning of hazardous
waste in cement plants in the rest of Africa. Another fear
is that the stockpiled hazardous waste (including pesticide
waste) from African countries may be exported and disposed
of in cement kilns in S.A. This would go against one of the
SAICM objectives, which relates to a clamp down on and banning
of international trafficking in chemical wastes. No community
should be used as a dumping ground for hazardous wastes from
industries that are increasing profits by practising cheap
and unsafe waste disposal practices. There is a need to move
away from a focus on waste disposal to a cradle-to-grave waste
management paradigm. And chemicals that cannot be safely disposed
of should not be manufactured or used in the first place.
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groundWork USA News
Not in Anyone’s Backyard!
Local residents challenge Boston University’s Bioterror
Lab
By Toussaint Losier
In early 2003, Safety Net, a residents’ organisation
from Boston’s Roxbury and South End neighbourhoods,
learned that Boston University (BU) had applied for federal
funds to build a National Bio-containment Laboratory. After
further questioning, Safety Net learnt that this billion-dollar
laboratory would contain the world’s deadliest diseases
and study possible defences to their potential use as biological
weapons.
According to Safety Net organiser Klare Allen, “We
pretty much made a commitment to tell everybody about this
bio lab because they had been working on this for two years
and nobody in the community knew about it.” Since then,
Safety Net and Alternatives for Communities and Environment
(ACE) have been working with a coalition of organisations
to oppose the planned “bio-terror lab” while calling
attention to the University’s refusal to provide the
public with crucial information and highlighting the lack
of public participation in decision making.
Since the 2001 anthrax mail scare, public fears over a potential
terrorist attack using biological weapons - or ‘bio-terrorism”
- have fuelled exorbitant increases in government spending.
For instance, last year the U.S. government spent over $4.5
billion on bio-terrorism. The same year President Bush proposed
Project BioShield: a 10-year, $6 billion program to set-up
the country’s bio-terrorism preparedness. This project
includes not only stockpiling vaccines and treatments, but
also funding the construction of six new Bio-safety Level
4 research facilities, including funding for BU’s $1.6
billion facility.
Bio-safety Level 4 labs deal with category A pathogens, like
anthrax, botulism, plague, smallpox, and Ebola. These pathogens
have no known treatments or cure and the government acknowledges
that they pose a “high risk of exposure and infection
to personnel, the community, and the environment.” Six
such labs are currently operating in North America, all of
them in rural parts of the country. The proposed BU lab would
be the largest biological defence facility in the U.S. It
would also be the first in a densely populated urban area.
Fifty thousand people live within a one-mile radius and 1
million live within ten miles of the site.
Though the bio-lab would be a university facility, the federal
guidelines stipulate that the lab would be under the management
of national agencies and be utilised for the government’s
bio-terrorism program agenda for at least the next twenty
years. The U.S. government has objected to international agreements
on monitoring biological weapons and warfare research. As
a result, this federal regulation would trump any health,
safety or environmental oversight by state and local agencies.
More importantly, there does not need to be any public disclosure
of what occurs in the lab, including the release of a pathogen
from the lab.
As Safety Net members campaigned around the proposed bio-lab,
residents initially refused to believe that this was being
planned in their backyard. The BU has withheld information
about the laboratory while claiming that the majority of local
residents supported it. Only after serious public pressure
did the university release an edited version of its application
for funding, but it still refuses to release other important
documents that detail how the diseases would be handled.
BU has also been slow to address the question of how the
proposed lab would affect the quality of life of the surrounding
community. From health indicators of infant mortality, food
security, and asthma-related emergency room visits, to social
data on unemployment, poverty, and racial background, those
neighbourhoods nearest to the proposed lab already bear a
disproportionate share of the city’s problems.
Questions about how the pathogens would be transported to
the laboratory and what emergency response systems would alert
residents to a pathogen release in a timely manner remain
unanswered.
Currently, coalition members are putting pressure on BU to
participate in a public debate so that they can have answers
to their questions. Next year’s city council elections
are also seen as a way to leverage those members who are still
on the fence. The coalition is growing and their message is
clear. It is not “Build it in the suburbs” but
“Don’t build it anywhere!’”
Cynics Corner
How green is your Valli?
By Greenfly
Former comrade, one time parliamentarian, and now turned
fat cat businessman, Valli Moosa is also the new head of the
IUCN – the World Conservative Union (no, that should
be Conservation, I guess). Many in that august body are probably
congratulating themselves for choosing to be led by such a
cool progressive. I mean his credentials are impeccable, aren't
they? He burnt the old SA flag and refused to sing the Afrikaner
nationalist anthem on “Republic day” when he was
just 14 years old. He was in the leadership of the Black Consciousness
Movement in the '70s. He was repeatedly detained and harassed
as a leader in the United Democratic Front in the '80s. He
played a leading role in the African National Congress negotiating
team in the early '90s. And he became a deputy, then full,
cabinet minister in the first and second democratic terms
of government. If he died tomorrow, he would almost certainly
be described by ANC spokespersons as a “dedicated revolutionary”
to the end.
Does this mean that the IUCN has taken a brave and decisive
turn to the left, embracing a new radicalism that sees conservation
as part of a broader revolution? Nope, I'm afraid it means
nothing of the sort, dear readers. If anything, Moosa's presidency
of the IUCN signals a consolidation of the neo-liberal camp
in a decidedly mainstream establishment organisation. The
journey from flag-burning militant to IUCN boss is a sorry
tale of compromise, connivance and cooption.
As ordinary South Africans start to pay the costs for the
ways in which the dream of transformation was sold down the
river during our “miracle” transition, Moosa's
name should not be forgotten as a key figure in the ANC negotiating
team that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
As social movements mount heroic struggles for basic resources
and services to the poor, Moosa's name should be remembered
since, as minister for provincial and local government, he
facilitated the privatisation of municipal services.
As activists and movements continue to face the combined
onslaught of state repression and government's duplicitous
divide and rule strategies, we will all no doubt recall Moosa's
name as the environmental minister who hosted the World Summit
on Sustainable Development (W$$D) in Sandton, South Africa.
Here, according to The groundWork Report 2004,
“a candle-light march of South African social movement
activists and global allies was ‘violently disrupted
by police recklessly throwing eight percussion grenades into
the crowd and injuring at least three international visitors’
[Ngwane]. At the same time, the South African government was
threatening to ban a major protest march aimed at exposing
weaknesses and hypocrisy in the WSSD and highly critical of
the ANC government. As it happens, public revulsion at the
action against the smaller ‘candle-light’ march
made it politically too expensive to ban the big march. The
government backed down and allowed the march – but organised
its own counter march on the same route on the same day under
the banner of the ANC! This strategy simply reinforced the
humiliation, as the ANC-sponsored march was notably smaller,
drawing between 1,500 and 4,500 compared to the estimated
20-25,000 who marched under the banner of “Social Movements
United”.
But it turns out that attacking the independent left and
implementing neo-liberal policies was not enough for this
man's revolution. He's now left government and walked, straight
through the revolving door, into business. In a flagrant abuse
of his political connections and the spadework he put in as
environment minister, Moosa now heads up a company set to
make millions trading carbon (dis)credits on the stock exchange!
Community News
The Vaal Triangle - Another SEA – another wait for
action!
By Bobby Peek
Sasol is pushing for an SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment)
in the heavily industrialised and polluted Vaal Triangle.
SEAs’ main appeal to industry seems to be that they
keep government tied up in bureaucracy and distracted from
their real work of monitoring industry.
The classic example of how SEA’s can go wrong is the
SEA conducted in south Durban a couple of years ago, which
was to seek environmental improvements in south Durban, but
ended up calling for the relocation of thousands of residents
to make way for more industrial development. Knowing the drawbacks
and bureaucracy that are part and parcel of the SEA process,
groundWork is reluctantly participating in the Vaal SEA process,
along with our community partners in Boipatong and surrounds.
The problem with the Vaal Triangle is that its biggest polluters,
such as Iscor, Sasol and Eskom, know what they have to do
to improve their environmental performance and reduce pollution,
and should just get on with it! They do not need an SEA to
tell them this! Recognising this problem and seeking a solution,
the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), acting on behalf of groundWork,
Boipatong Environmental Working Group, Steel Valley Crisis
Committee, African Genesis Heritage Environmental Club and
the Sasolburg Air Quality Monitoring Committee, has called
upon government to take action immediately and set in motion
a process to achieve immediate emission reductions and to
design a holistic air quality management plan for the area
in parallel to the SEA process.
In 2003 the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) commissioned a Vaal
Triangle Air Quality Situation Assessment. Based on preliminary
calculations it is estimated that the direct health costs
associated with inhalation exposures of just 3 pollutants
(ambient fine particulates, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide
concentrations) in the Vaal Triangle are approximately R289
million. This costing excluded health impacts of other toxic
chemicals, e.g. benzene. It also excluded the cost of lost
working hours.
From the research it emerged that household pollution has
the largest impact (over 60%) upon the health of people due
largely to the use of paraffin and coal as domestic fuel.
Industry, however, which is responsible for more than 90%
of the ambient pollution in the area, has a more insidious
long-term chronic impact upon the health of people. Industrial,
mining and institutional fuel burning was estimated to be
responsible for 65% of the predicted chronic bronchitis cases
due to emissions from such sources being more constant throughout
the year (in comparison to household fuel usage which increases
in winter).
It is evident that government needs to urgently step in and
ensure that people in the area have access to cleaner energy.
Options included renewable energy (e.g. solar power), natural
gas or the provision of affordable electricity. Government
needs to deliver this. It doesn’t need an SEA to prove
this is necessary!
Based on the research, the LRC sent a letter of demand to
the Minster of Environment and Tourism and the MECs for Environment
in Gauteng and the Free State requesting that they undertake
the following actions to ensure that the present impact of
pollution is reduced:
- direct Natref, Sasol Chemical Industries, Iscor Vanderbijlpark
Works and Iscor Steel (Vereeniging) to: prepare comprehensive
emission reduction plans and emission reduction targets for
immediate implementation with time frames; investigate and
report on measures for further reduction of emissions, including
the option of implementing best available technology and the
implementation of the best environmental option for emission
control.
- establish a task team on domestic fuel burning comprising
senior representatives from relevant national government departments,
provincial departments and local authorities, recognised experts
in the field, fuel suppliers and community representatives.
This task team must develop, within six months, a strategy,
implementation and monitoring plan and budget for emission
reduction measures with regard to domestic fuel burning.
We believe that the immediate measures that are required
to ensure the development and implementation of a comprehensive
air quality management system for the Vaal triangle are:
- The design and implementation of a reasonable and adequate
ambient air monitoring system for the region;
- The design and establishment of a comprehensive emissions
inventory for the region; and
- The design of a comprehensive air quality management
plan for the region.
These are clear actions which government can put in place
now. We hope that our instincts are wrong and that government
does not throw bureaucracy back at us to delay the process.
We will participate in the SEA – but not unless there
is immediate action!
back to top
Focus On
Goodbye, Ardiel and Ferrial
Hello, Siziwe
In December groundWork sadly says goodbye to two staff members
– Ardiel Soeker and Ferrial Adam – who have both
made outstanding contributions to the organisation. And in
January we will be joined by a new groundWorker in the form
of Siziwe Khanyile.
Ardiel joined groundWork in late 2000 as our first Air Quality
Project Coordinator. The Air Quality Project was at that time
groundWork’s largest and most visible project and thus
his position came with a fair amount of pressure to deliver!
Ardiel, in his studied manner, put his shoulder to the plough
and rose admirably to the challenge. Ardiel’s strongest
strength is possibly as a community organiser and his ability
to rally and mobilise community-based organisations in South
Africa’s pollution hot spots will be a tough act to
follow.
Ardiel, you will be sorely missed. groundWork thanks you
for your hard work and dedication and wishes you and your
family well in the future.
Ferrial joined groundWork in August 2003 to work on the media,
research and corporate accountability projects. In the just
over a year that she has been with us she has performed commendably
as a spokesperson for groundWork and has also given a lot
of substance to groundWork’s Corporate Accountability
Project. Having helped to get this Project up and running
she now feels the need to seek out new challenges elsewhere.
We also wish her well.
Siziwe Khanyile joins groundWork in January 2004 to take
over from Ardiel as the Air Quality Campaign Manager. She
will be based in the Pietermaritzburg office.
Siziwe comes to us from the KZN Christian Council where she
was responsible for coordinating the Council’s democracy
education program in KwaZulu-Natal. Prior to that she worked
for Lawyers for Human Rights coordinating training around
HIV-AIDs and the law, with particular emphasis on the rights
of people infected and affected by HIV-AIDs in the workplace.
She has a Bachelor of Social Science and a Post-Graduate
Diploma in Marketing and Supply Chain Management. She is currently
studying for a Bachelor of Law degree (LLB) part-time and
has aspirations of becoming a human rights advocate.
Siziwe brings to groundWork her experience in working with
civil society in the developmental sector, and a passion for
justice and human rights, particularly where they impact upon
marginalised groups, such as the poor, woman and children.
In her personal time, she takes delight in entertaining and
being entertained by her four-year old daughter. She also
makes time for prayer, meditation and reading.
We all look forward to welcoming her into the groundWork
team and we are sure that quite soon she will be coming to
a community near you, seeking to increase environmental justice
for marginalised and ordinary South Africans!
back to top
Pulications
Trespass Against Us – Dow Chemical & the Toxic
Century, by Jack Doyle, published by Common Courage Press,
a publication of the Environmental Health Fund, Boston, Massachusetts,
December 2004
At midnight on 2nd December 1984, 27 tons of lethal gas leaked
from Union Carbide's pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, killing
an estimated 8,000 people immediately and approximately another
14,000 people since, and counting.
Today in Bhopal, at least 150,000 people, including children
born to parents who survived the disaster, are suffering from
exposure-related health problems such as cancer, neurological
damage, reproductive problems, birth defects and mental illness.
To coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal tragedy,
author Jack Doyle brings us another corporate biography -
this time of The Dow Chemical Company, the world’s largest
chemical company and parent company of Union Carbide.
The Dow Chemical Company is not only infamous for its links
with the ongoing Bhopal tragedy. Dow is the inventor of Agent
Orange, the herbicide used in the Vietnam War, which has resulted
in unimaginable human suffering on a massive scale in Vietnam
for the past four decades. Dow is also the creator of silicone
breast implants, plastic wrap, pesticides, dry cleaning chemicals
and a myriad of other household plastic and chemical products.
Scientific research has shown that both the processes of manufacturing
some of these products, as well as the use of these products
have increased the levels of toxic chemicals in our bodies
and the environment.
As Doyle writes: "Dow Chemical has been polluting property
and poisoning people for nearly a century, locally and globally,
trespassing on workers, consumers, communities, and innocent
bystanders, on wildlife and wild places, on the global biota
and the global genome. Dow Chemical must end its toxic trespass."
At close-on 500 pages this is a well-researched and detailed
account of how ordinary people’s lives, from Bhopal
to Vietnam, Louisiana, Texas and New Zealand, have been irrevocably
damaged because of exposure to toxic chemicals that have been
allowed to enter the world of commerce before being properly
tested. More than just an expose on Dow, this book draws public
attention to the reality that new chemicals are being invented
and brought into the market place daily and, without our permission,
are trespassing on us and causing us harm.
Doyle and the many activists in India and around the world,
including the survivors of Bhopal, are hoping that this book
will spur Dow to present its subsidiary Union Carbide to the
Indian Courts to face the criminal trial pending there.
This is Jack Doyle’s second corporate biography. In
2002, under contract with the Environmental Health Fund, wrote
Riding the Dragon: Royal Dutch Shell & The Fossil Fire,
which chronicled environmental and human rights abuses by
oil-giant Shell in communities across the globe.
Copies of both books can be obtained from the groundWork
office.
In the pipeline
15th December 2004 – 3rd January 2005 – groundWork
South Africa will be closed
31 December 2004 – Nominations close for the Corpse
Awards. Nominate a corporation which you think needs recognition
for the role it has played in human rights and environmental
abuses in S.A. Nomination forms can be downloaded from groundWork’s
website and emailed to bobby@groundwork.org.za or faxed to
the groundWork office (see page 10 of this newsletter for
more details).
January 2005 – Watch-out for the final list of nominees
for the Corpse Awards ceremony that is taking place later
this year
26 - 31 January - World Social Forum in Porte Allegre, Brazil |
