Land conservation through public/private partnerships

Abstract

Call it a toxic memorial, a monument to loose laws and fast money.This monument, tons of municipal incinerator ash from Philadelphia, lies on a rural Haitian beach where it was dumped one night in 1986 by a barge called the Khian Sea.The ship had entered the port with a permit to unload fertilizer.Fertilizer?Hardly!This cargo contained some of the most toxic chemicals on the planet--dioxins and furan and laced with heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic.As workers began heaping the ash only yards from the incoming waves, one crewman even stuffed his mouth with a handful of the flaky black cargo to prove its harmless nature.Nearly one fourth of the 13,000 plus tons of waste had been unloaded from the barge before the Haitian government intervened and ordered the ash reloaded onto the barge.But the Khian Sea disappeared under the cover of darkness, leaving approximately 3,000 tons of toxic ash on Haiti's beach.The Khian Sea returned to Philadelphia with the remainder of its deadly cargo.The ship spent the next two years vainly seeking a dumping ground; it crossed the Atlantic, sailed around the coast of West Africa, through the Mediterranean, down the Suez Canal and into the Indian Ocean.When it finally pulled into the Singapore harbor it had a new name (the Pelicano), a new owner, and an empty hull.No one is willing to take responsibility for this scandal.The city of Philadelphia blames the middleman who blames the barge owner.The owner claims the ash was still on board when the barge was sold.The tangled case went to court; finally in 1993, two executives of Coastal Carriers, operators of the Khian Sea, received modest fines and prison sentences for dumping in the ocean without a permit.The legal battle is not over yet.But how much longer will the ash sit on the beach, and who will remove it?