"At least seven people are said to be under arrest in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after radioactive mineral waste was poured into a river in the southeast of the country. Selah Hennessy reports from the VOA West and Central Africa bureau in Dakar that teams are currently working to rid the river of the waste.
Didace Pembe, Congo's environment minister, says the official who ordered the toxic waste to be dumped has been arrested.
According to local reporter Eddy Isango, seven people from the commission in charge of disposing the minerals are also under arrest.
On Wednesday, the government ordered an inquiry after officials in the southeast province of Katanga said tons of radioactive minerals had been dumped into Mura River, a source of drinking water for the nearby mining town Likasi. The town has a population of around 300,000.
Pembe says the waste has radiation levels 50 times more than the legal standard for safety.
He says the population is being informed through local radio and TV channels not to use the water for drinking, bathing, or for gardening.
He adds that clean up at the site has begun.
Congolese authorities had originally ordered the nearly twenty tons of copper ore containing uranium samples to be dumped in an abandoned uranium mine.
But Pembe says the majority of the toxic minerals were dumped in the river instead. He says officials are tracing some waste that might have been dumped elsewhere.
Most of the copper ore belongs to the Chinese firm Magma-Lubumbashi. The environment minister says the company did not request the waste to be dumped in the river."
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-11-10-voa23.cfm
Saturday, November 10, 2007
[Fwd: Letter to the Editor]
[the 11-11 to 11-17 EPinc is on the stands, and they never published my letter in reply to their incorrect release of GAO stuff (or replied), so here goes...]
Dear El Paso Inc. Editor:
In the November 4-10 Issue of your paper, Mike Mrkvicka wrote that "Feds find Asarco clean on hazmat charges". When queried, your office refused to release the 42-page GAO report that your reporter, Mike, claims to have obtained.
Since that unreleasable-report is Mike's basis for reducing my credibility (and the credibility of the EPA and Federal Dept. of Justice people who authored the 73 page 1998 Secret-Asarco-Settlement-Document that we released last October 2006) in your newspaper, I decided to phone the people at the GAO in charge of the investigation at the Department of Natural Resources and Environment and read the report for myself: I talked with the Chief Operating Officer's office and also the Director in charge of all the different Departments. They haven't finished any report yet. They did send a draft to the DOD and the EPA asking for comments on whether the content was true or not. They told me that your article was not correct because of this; and that also the report will not be an investigative report but simply a process-review of the handling of these military materials. They said that they will have to release their final report earlier than they intended to, so that people can read the actual findings directly from the GAO.
Since your paper often releases very good information, I can only assume that you were given this media piece by some folks representing Asarco's interests, and that you trusted them. But, it appears that your paper and our community, including Asarco, needs to wait until the final report is actually issued to read what is actually said. Even then, we need to realize that the GAO is not investigating the smelter's burning of toxic waste, but instead is looking at the military process of handling wastes.
Dear El Paso Inc. Editor:
In the November 4-10 Issue of your paper, Mike Mrkvicka wrote that "Feds find Asarco clean on hazmat charges". When queried, your office refused to release the 42-page GAO report that your reporter, Mike, claims to have obtained.
Since that unreleasable-report is Mike's basis for reducing my credibility (and the credibility of the EPA and Federal Dept. of Justice people who authored the 73 page 1998 Secret-Asarco-Settlement-Document that we released last October 2006) in your newspaper, I decided to phone the people at the GAO in charge of the investigation at the Department of Natural Resources and Environment and read the report for myself: I talked with the Chief Operating Officer's office and also the Director in charge of all the different Departments. They haven't finished any report yet. They did send a draft to the DOD and the EPA asking for comments on whether the content was true or not. They told me that your article was not correct because of this; and that also the report will not be an investigative report but simply a process-review of the handling of these military materials. They said that they will have to release their final report earlier than they intended to, so that people can read the actual findings directly from the GAO.
Since your paper often releases very good information, I can only assume that you were given this media piece by some folks representing Asarco's interests, and that you trusted them. But, it appears that your paper and our community, including Asarco, needs to wait until the final report is actually issued to read what is actually said. Even then, we need to realize that the GAO is not investigating the smelter's burning of toxic waste, but instead is looking at the military process of handling wastes.
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