Deception or

Marshalls

development?

TWO American companies have been trying to persuade the Marshall Islands government to give the green light to huge schemes for exporting waste to the low-lying atoll nation. But they have been accused by the international environmental organisation Greenpeace of being “skilled in

deception not waste development”.

An investigation by Greenpeace made public last month has claimed that not only are the environmental claims by the companies indefensible, but the principle players have long records of financial deception and other alleged illegal activi ties.

The two companies are Seattle-based Admiralty Pacific, which launched the proposal almost two years ago, and the rival Micronesian Marine Development (known as Micromar) of Oakland. Last year Admiralty Pacific offered a plan to ship 17 million tonnes of “non toxic” municipal waste over five years to the atoll chain and to add topsoil from New Zealand, or possibly Australia. The company offered a fee of US$l4O million with an option to continue dumping for a further 10 years.

Admiralty offered this “garbage mountain” to counter the threat of flooding from rising sea levels caused by the so-called greenhouse effect. When that proposal collapsed, the company revamped its idea. Now Admiralty claims that it can enhance Marshallese fisheries resources while solving North America’s tire disposal problem by exporting waste tyres to the Marshall Islands for dumping in lagoons to create artificial reefs.

As many as 250 million tires are discarded each year in the US half of them being randomly dumped throughout the country. Enormous tyre fires have raged for weeks at many tyres dumps, spreading toxic fumes for many kilometres.

Pressure is mounting to get rid of stockpiled scrap tyres.

However, Admiralty has not abandoned its plans to fill in the Marshallese lagoons with waste. “With the addition of solid waste to the artificial reefs and lagoons created by the tyres,” the company proposal said, “new land could be created for agricultural use.”

Micromar’s plan is a variation on the original Admiralty proposal. Micromar wants to use millions of tonnes of US garbage to create landfill in the Marshall Islands. Although the company claims the garbage will not contain any toxics and will not contaminate the environment, critics say these claims are impossible to fill. □