Earth Summit 2002 - Greenpeace

What happened?

On the night of 2 December 1984, 40 tons of lethal gases leaked from Union Carbide's pesticide factory in Bhopal, India. It was the worst chemical disaster in history. By the third day of the disaster, more than 8,000 people were dead from direct exposure to the gases.

What is happening now?

Approximately 520,000 people have been exposed to poisonous gases. A second generation of children face health impacts from this toxic legacy. Well over 150,000 chronically-ill survivors still need medical attention.

In 1999, Greenpeace and Bhopal community groups documented the presence of stockpiles of toxic pesticides as well as hazardous wastes and contaminated material scattered throughout the factory site.

This survey found substantial to severe contamination of land and water supplies with heavy metals and chlorinated chemicals.

Greenpeace is a member of AaCcTt (Action against Corporate crime and Toxic terror), which is a joint action group including survivors' and support organisations, working to secure justice for the survivors of Union Carbide's gas disaster in Bhopal, and to hold polluting corporations liable.

What needs to be done?

Greenpeace and Bhopal survivors are calling on Dow Chemicals to:
- Clean up the factory site at the company's expense, as would be required in the US;
- Secure long-term medical treatment facilities and medical rehabilitation for the survivor's of the poison gas leak;
-Ensure economic compensation for the gas-affected people and their families; and
- Provide clean drinking water to communities that are forced to consume contaminated groundwater.

The Belgian multinational, Solvay, has over one million tons of dioxin-contaminated lime at its Santo André facility on the Rio Grande in Brazil.

This is one of the greatest concentrations of persistent organic pollutants in Latin America and is the by-product of PVC manufacture, an operation now discontinued by the plant.

In March 1998, high levels of dioxin were found in milk produced in Germany. The contaminated lime was used for making citrus pulp pellets, which were exported to Germany and other European countries where they served as cattle feed.

In December 1999, Solvay signed an agreement in which they agreed to decontaminate the Rio Grande riverbed and their lime deposit within two years.

What is happening now?

After two years of discussions, Solvay has not agreed to implement destruction technologies to clean up the contaminated area. Solvay has not fulfilled the agreement amongst the parties to contain the contaminated site and decontaminate the critical areas. Nor has Solvay been further investigated for selling contaminated lime.

In April 2002, over 200 local community members and students from the ABC Paulista region participated in a parade against the contamination by the company.

What needs to be done?

Solvay should take responsibility and clean up the contaminated area as well as compensate the people affected. Governments should ensure that Solvay is held liable in Brazil as well as at its headquarters in Europe.

Shell Chemicals started producing pesticides "drins" (endrin, dieldrin and aldrin) in 1952 - ending completely in 1990. During this time Shell was almost the only producer in the world.

Exposure of people to drins has led to many poisonings and deaths. Many incidents have been reported, for example the consumption of bread made from endrin-contaminated flour that affected at least 936 people and caused 26 deaths.

Drins are banned by the UN because they are associated with the incidence of cancer and reproductive, endocrine and immune system dysfunctions.

What is happening now?

Large quantities of expired, prohibited and unwanted drins are in storage worldwide. In many cases the storage facilities are inadequate and packaging of the drins and other pesticides are in very bad condition.

Exposure of workers, local communities and the environment to these very toxic pesticides cannot be excluded and accidents with these old pesticides can easily happen.

Shell has removed some of the drin stockpiles and drin waste from several African countries. But the pesticide companies including Shell refuse to take full responsibility for the complete removal of stockpiles.

What needs to be done?

Shell should be accountable for the removal of banned and obsolete pesticide stockpiles including drins. Pesticide companies should be obliged to take full responsibility for the removal and safe destruction of the obsolete pesticides in industrialised countries.

British Nuclear Fuels' (BNFL) Sellafield site reprocesses spent nuclear fuel to obtain plutonium, produces plutonium MOX fuel and is shipping weapons-usable plutonium around the globe.

In 1957 three tons of uranium caught fire in one of the site's two plutonium production facilities (piles), releasing radiation into the atmosphere.

The main radioactive cloud from the fire travelled across most of England and over to Europe. Radiation dose rates within the site, and in the surrounding area, greatly exceeded dose limits yet the operator decided against evacuation. Workers on site were exposed to up to 150 times the maximum permissible level of radioactivity and local people received 10 times the maximum permitted lifetime dose. A 1982 report estimated that the 41 isotopes released by the fire caused 260 cancer cases, at least 13 of them fatal. Other scientists consider this a significant underestimation.

Between 1952 and 1995, Sellafield dumped an estimated 182 kilograms of plutonium (alpha) into the Irish Sea - the equivalent of about half the fallout of plutonium in the entire North Atlantic from 520 atmospheric bomb tests in the 60s.

In general, discharges declined in the 80s, although an accident in 1983 resulted in an uncontrolled discharge of radioactivity. More than 20 kilometres of beaches were closed because of the high levels of contamination found there.

BNFL shipped plutonium-uranium mixed oxide material (MOX) to Japan in 1999, and deliberately falsified vital quality control data during its manufacture. Japan has demanded its return as a condition of signing further MOX contracts with BNFL, which could result in up to a 100 more shipments taking place over the next decade.

What is happening now?

BNFL still has authorisation to discharge radioactive waste (including 90Tera Becquerels/year of Technitium99 (Tc-99) into the Irish Sea. Tc-99 has been found in marine life as far away as Norway and Denmark. Scientists believe that official estimates of the collective doses received from Tc-99 may have been underestimated by as much as 1,000 times.

Countries in the region have taken steps against this continued discharge. Members of the Oslo-Paris Convention resolved in the 1998 "Sintra Agreement" that " progressive and substantial" reductions in the marine discharges of artificial radionuclides were required to ensure concentrations in the environment reach "close to zero".

However, since then there has been almost no progress. Ireland has taken the UK to the Convention's arbitration process because of the UK's failure to consult prior to approving the Sellafield MOX Plant opening in December 2001.

For more information on this issue visit our Stop Plutonium Terror website.

Aventis and Monsanto produce and market genetically engineered (GE) crops and seeds. They are responsible for genetic pollution of nature and food crops.

Genetic contamination is exported internationally via contaminated seeds, and prevents farmers from growing GE free crops and consumers from choosing GE free food.

What is happening now?

GE oilseed rape (canola) in Canada is proving that 'super-weeds' are already emerging.

A recent study by English Nature revealed the widespread emergence of multiple herbicide resistant volunteer oilseed rape plants following the planting of GE oilseed rape in the Canadian prairies. As a result, known toxic chemicals such as 2,4-D are being used to control the new weeds.

The use of GE crops is also leading to the genetic contamination of seed production by GE varieties.

In 2000, non-GE oilseed rape exported from Canada to Europe was contaminated by GE oilseed rape. Many fields planted with this contaminated seed in Europe had to be destroyed. These contamination cases are driving seed production out of the prairies to other parts of North America. In some cases it is being driven out of Canada altogether.

Canadian canola farmers have found that their crops have become contaminated by the GE canola against their wishes. This contamination demonstrates the manner in which GE crops spread uncontrollably once released into the environment. Canola farmers who want to stay GE free can no longer sell their produce as non GE - it is increasingly becoming a GE crop by default.

Linked to GE canola in Canada are the growing number of cases in which Monsanto is suing farmers when GE canola is discovered growing on their fields. Many farmers claim that they never planted GE seeds and that the GE Canola came to them via cross-pollination and other methods of gene flow. So, instead of being liable for the contamination the GE companies are using the contamination as a reason to sue the farmers who don't buy their products.

What needs to be done?

There is no system in place yet to protect farmers or the public from the damage that could be caused by these GE plants. GE companies should be held liable for any harm and financial loss caused by GMO contamination of seeds and fields.

For more information on this issue visit the Greenpeace Genetic Engineering website.

TotalFinaElf has been importing 18 to 20 million tons of oil annually from West Siberia. The oil is being produced in the Samotlor oil field and is transported through the Druzhba pipeline, which goes from West Siberia to Schwedt and Leuna, Germany.

There is permanent pollution caused mainly by leaking oil pipelines, overflowing oil wells and other oil products. At least 700,000 to 840,000 hectares of land are contaminated by oil.

Contaminated water wells pose a calculable risk to the inhabitants' health. Cancer rates and other diseases are dramatically higher than in non-contaminated regions. This leads to shorter life expectancies. More than half of the rivers used for fishing are polluted by oil products.

Impacts of the oil industry are especially important to indigenous people in the area, the Khants, the Mansis and the Nenets, since oil industry has health, social, economic and cultural impacts on their traditional way of life.

Russian oil companies such as TNK, Yukos and Lukoil, and TotalFinaElf, the major importer of crude oil from West Siberia, are responsible. State authorities that tolerate their behavior are also responsible.

What is happening now?

Greenpeace informed the public of the disaster in West Siberia and tried to convince TotalFinaElf to take action to avoid further pollution by having the pipelines fixed. The firm's management knows about the decrepit state of facilities, the widespread contamination and the repeated accidents in the Samotlor oil field.

Greenpeace has therefore filed a criminal complaint against the responsible parties at TotalFinaElf with the public prosecutor's department in Berlin.

The claim was rejected by the public prosecution department. The reason given for this was lack of sufficient evidence that those responsible had acted intentionally. Greenpeace filed objections to the discontinuance of the investigatory proceedings on 11 April 2002.

What needs to be done?

Three to seven percent of the 20 million tons of oil TotalFinaElf imports leaks out. The corporation is thus partly responsible for the environmental damage caused. Those responsible approvingly accept this as the price to be paid for prosperity, with no regard for the fact that they are becoming ill as a result.

What happened?

On 25 April 1998 a failure of the tailings dam wall at Boliden's Los Frailes mine in Aznalcóllar (Sevilla) released 4-5 million cubic meters of toxic tailings slurries and liquid into nearby Río Agrio, a tributary to Río Guadiamar.

The slurry wave covered around several thousand hectares of farmland, and threatened the Doñana National Park, a UN World Heritage Area.

The direct impact of the disaster included the death of 37.4 tons of fish, 96 bodies of ground vertebrates, high contamination of soils and water, impact on the food chain (high levels of heavy metals in bird tissues) and economically impacted on the agriculture industry, the fishing industry, the mining community in Aznalcóllar and the tourist industry in the region.

What is happening now?

In December 2000 the court of San Lucar la Mayor ruled there were no indications of criminal responsibility in the tailings dam failure and the case was closed.

In November 2001, the Regional Court of Sevilla upheld this decision. In February 2002, an environmental group decided to bring a case of legal responsibility for the tailings dam failure to the Constitutional Court.

On September 2001, Boliden closed the Los Frailes mine and 425 employees were dismissed.
Boliden has spent in total EUR 96 million for the cleanup of the spill, and has received several EU grants valued at EUR 37.7 million. In April 2002, Boliden announced the start of legal procedures to recover the money that it has spent.

What needs to be done?

This case clearly demonstrates deficiencies in Spanish national laws, which allows companies to be acquitted for environmental crimes.

What happened?

Société Forestière Hazim (Hazim) is engaged in large scale illegal logging in Cameroon's tropical forests, including non-authorised logging in state forests, fraudulent markings on logs and fraudulent use of official documents (production declarations and transportation documents).

These logging practices cause a loss of biodiversity, massive economic loss to government and local communities, and social conflicts.

What is happening now?

Hazim has received several sanctions as a result of its illegal activities. However, the sanctions on Hazim so far reflect only a small fraction of the economic damage it has caused. In 2000, Hazim obtained access to new concessions in Cameroon via subcontracting agreements despite its formal exclusion in the 2000 bidding process.

What needs to be done?

The Cameroon government and the international donor-community have failed to take adequate measures to sanction Hazim illegal logging activities. Despite the clear recommendations by various experts, Hazim did not lose its right to operate in the Cameroon logging sector and was not given fines that fully reflect the economic damage caused by the company.