Dangerous Elements Found in Ash Shipped From Philadelphia : Dumping of Toxic Waste in W. Africa Raises Concerns

About 15,000 tons of allegedly dangerous American waste dumped in West Africa is feared to be threating both the population and environment.

The waste ash from municipal incinerators in Philadelphia, containing toxic dioxins and a mix of heavy metals, already has withered vegetation around the dump site on the island of Kassa, four miles off the mainland capital of Guinea, Conakry, local sources say.

Guinea authorities have appealed for international help to assess pollution danger from the waste, which was tipped on a quarry site just a few yards from the sea, said environmental sources in Nairobi.

Dioxins are carcinogenic byproducts of the incineration of modern plastics and synthetic materials. Heavy metals concentrated in the ash include dangerous cadmium, copper, nickel and lead.

The ash’s arrival on a little-known African island is the latest chapter in a complex tale of high seas cat-and-mouse, according to sources in Nairobi.

They said that Philadelphia, a heavy industrial area that accumulates huge mounds of more or less contaminated ash, originally signed a $9-million contract for the disposal of 450,000 tons of incinerated garbage and industrial waste in Panama and the Bahamas.

Pollution Danger Cited

But buyers in both countries backed out when they learned that confidential U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analyses of the ash found some samples tainted with unacceptable levels of the poisons. Other samples were less dangerous.

“Significant amounts of the substances in the ash will very likely leach directly into wetlands and aquatic environments, possibly damaging and killing aquatic life and entering the human food chain,” the October, 1987, EPA report said.

The EPA judged that the ash presented “a reasonable potential for environmental damage and an increased risk of human cancer.”

By then, however, 13,500 tons of ash were aboard the Norwegian-owned Khian Sea, a Liberian-registered vessel. Refused permission to unload in Panama, it roamed the Caribbean looking for another site.

About 3,500 tons were unloaded at Gonaives, Haiti, early this year before the government found out. It told the vessel to reload and leave Feb. 5.

The ship did not reload the ash but sailed away, hunted by a French navy vessel alerted by rumors that it planned to unload the rest of the ash on the French island of Martinique. The Khian Sea sailed back to the United States and still sits in the mouth of the Delaware River with about 12,000 tons of its load.

Torvald Klavness, an Oslo-based company that owns both the Khian Sea and a sister vessel, the Bark, had a contract with Philadelphia to dispose of about 30,000 tons of ash. The company says about half went into landfills in Ohio. Another 15,000 tons were loaded aboard the Bark.

The Bark sailed from Philadelphia on Feb. 4. Alarm bells rang again in the Caribbean, and the French navy again went on the alert off Martinique.

But the Bark was steaming east across the Atlantic.

The Norwegian firm, which maintains that the ash is not dangerous, sold the cargo for $117,450 to a Guinean company that manufactures a cement-like substance for construction bricks. Most of the shipping documents described the ash as “construction materials.”

Insiders in Guinea say the cargo was given an import license Jan. 11 and the ship anchored off Kassa--population 5,000--on Feb. 17.

The Guinean Environmental Protection office says it knew nothing until it was informed from abroad in early March of the nature of the shipment. It has now isolated the huge mound and taken extensive samples.

Precautions Advised

British specialists have advised Conakry to move the ash onto an impenetrable rock layer, surround it with drainage ditches and water it regularly to prevent winds blowing it around until a permanent solution is found.

Experts in Nairobi say the case illustrates the dangers of unloading industrial waste on Third World countries ill-equipped to deal with complex modern chemicals.

The problem is further complicated by the absence of reliable information on long-term environmental effects of chemicals like dioxin. National standards of “safe” levels differ and there is no recognized international norm.

A toxicologist based in Europe said ash with mild concentrations of dioxin and heavy metals could be dumped safely only in specially created landfills where impervious clay linings prevent seepage.

“I certainly would not want my children playing on this dump in Guinea,” he said. “It must be dealt with in a controlled fashion.”

He said he suspected that the Philadelphia municipal incinerator ash may be no more toxic than that from other industrial cities, but he said the ash is always potentially dangerous and must be treated with “extreme caution.”

“The samples taken from Philadelphia that I have seen show some relatively high levels of toxic material but in general are relatively low,” he said. “It depends on the sample taken. They can vary greatly.”