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- Path: sparky!uunet!caen!spool.mu.edu!agate!naughty-peahen
- From: Greenpeace via Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive,alt.activism,talk.environment
- Subject: NEWS: Protest Against Unocal's Toxic Shipments to the So. Pacific
- Followup-To: talk.environment
- Date: 14 Dec 1992 23:27:49 GMT
- Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
- Lines: 39
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Message-ID: <Greenpeace.14Dec1992.1527@naughty-peahen>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
-
- [Greenpeace Press Release from Environet -- Redistribute Freely]
-
- RETURN TO SENDER:
- PROTEST AGAINST UNOCAL'S TOXIC SHIPMENTS TO SOUTH PACIFIC
-
- LOS ANGELES, Dec. 11 (GP) -- As opposition continues to mount
- against Unocal's scheme to ship toxic waste to the Marshall
- Islands, environmental activists will protest Monday at the oil
- company's Los Angeles headquarters to demand that the waste be
- returned to the United States.
-
- The protest, organized by Greenpeace, will begin at 11 a.m.
- on Monday, Dec. 14, at the Unocal offices, 1201 W. Fifth St.
- in downtown Los Angeles.
-
- "If this scheme goes through, it would be the first time toxic
- waste from the U.S. has been dumped on a Pacific Island nation,"
- said Michelle Anton, director of Greenpeace's L.A. office.
- "We can't allow Unocal to launch a new era of toxic colonialism
- in the Pacific."
-
- The waste barge "Pacific Trader" left Honolulu for the Marshall
- Islands on Nov. 16, loaded with petroleum-contaminated dirt dug
- up from Unocal's gas stations in Hawaii. Although Unocal claims
- that it plans two shipments of waste totalling 13,000 cubic
- yards, documents obtained by Greenpeace show that the company
- could ship up to 169,000 cubic yards over the next three years.
-
- The scheme was brokered by a waste-export company set up by a
- Unocal engineer, who has been suspended pending a conflict-of-
- interest investigation. Following revelations that the soil
- would remain four times more toxic than permitted under U.S.
- regulations, Marshalls officials are reconsidering the scheme,
- and could turn the "Pacific Trader" away upon its arrival.
-
- "If this stuff is supposedly safe, why is Unocal trying to avoid
- U.S. regulations and dump it in the Marshalls?" asked Anton.
- "Shipping waste from rich nations to the Third World is unsafe
- and immoral, and it ought to be made illegal."
-