UAE: Review of Seismic Risk in the GCC
Last year the Government of Dubai began a review of current building safety codes in relation to seismic design provisions, based on data taken from four seismic monitoring stations located around the UAE.
The current requirement of Zone A of the Uniform Building Code is that building structures in the UAE should be able to withstand an earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale, although Dubai is in fact rated Zone 0, which means it can accommodate an earthquake of a magnitude of 4 to 4.5. The adoption of the Uniform Building Code (UBC) 2A classification was an extra precaution. The 2002 earthquake in Fujairah measured 5.1 on the Richter scale. The nearest tectonically active region is southern Iran.
It has been argued that the seismic design provisions of building codes in the region can be substantially reduced. A new seismic hazard assessment for the Gulf presented in Dubai Municipality in mid-April 2007 indicated that the seismic hazard in the region is significantly lower than UBC 2A and that a less conservative Zone 1 code could be introduced.
While high-rise structures, which are subject to low seismic force, are being constructed in accordance with earthquake codes, it is low and medium height buildings that are most at risk from seismic activity. Thus all buildings should be designed to cope with earthquakes.
Another associated hazard is soil liquefaction and landslides induced by earthquake shock, perhaps a more serious problem in sandy regions. Offshore developments where the soil is saturated by water are similarly susceptible.
Previous studies of seismic hazards in the Gulf States have produced contradictory results, ranging from near aseismic to high risk. However, the introduction of a new seismic hazard assessment method has produced more reliable and conservative results, which may lead to the adoption of an upgraded building safety code.
Norway: Ocean Tug Capsizes in UK Waters
On 12th April 2007, the Norwegian-owned anchor-handling tug "Bourbon Dolphin", a 75-metre-long vessel of 2,974 gross tonnage with a crew of 15 onboard, capsized around 75 miles west of the Shetland Islands over the Rosebank Oilfield in the UK sector of the North Sea. The tug was manoeuvring in calm conditions while laying out a 16-tonne mooring anchor for the drilling rig "Transocean Rather", also Norwegian-owned.
According to reports, the tug made a sudden sharp turn at a distance of about 1,700 metres from the rig, the limit of its anchor chain length, and the anchor cable jumped from its metal guides, rolling the vessel over to port. The tug overturned in less than two minutes. Seven of the crew were rescued from the sea but eight were lost, trapped inside the hull. Three days later the vessel sank in 1,200 metres of water when rough weather interfered with a salvage attempt by Smit Salvage, bringing rescue and recovery operations to an end. Human error or a steerage problem is suspected as being the likely cause of the incident, which is being investigated by the Scottish police, the UK Health and Safety Executive and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
India: Agenda for Climate Change Monitoring
India is developing rapidly, but so too is the rate of environmental degradation, and there is at present no co-ordinated, nationwide monitoring network to assess the impact of man-made emissions on the environment. A recent article published in the journal Science by P. V. Sundareshwar, et al. (Science, 2007, 316, 204-205) draws attention to the problem and outlines a proposal for a national network, to be known as INDOFLUX, which would consist of giant towers to measure atmospheric gases as well as systems to monitor the oceans and coasts.
INDOFLUX would be modelled on existing atmospheric monitoring networks such as AmeriFlux, AsiaFlux and CarboEurope, which comprise FLUXNET, a global network of over 450 atmospheric flux towers which monitor carbon dioxide levels and other environmental variables. The goal is that the data generated will benefit the global effort on measuring and tracking such variables. INDOFLUX would characterise the current state of the Indian environment and would play a crucial role in informing policy decisions.
The Indian Department of Science and Technology has requested US$50 million from their government to fund the project over the next five years, and scientists are hopeful it will go ahead.
International: China to become Biggest Global Source of CO2
On 18th April 2007, the International Energy Agency (IEA) published a report in which they state that China will overtake the United States as the world's largest emitter of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, either this year or next. Previous IEA forecasts had suggested that on current trends China would overtake the United States by the year 2010. UN data for 2003 had put the United States as top CO2 emitter, accounting for 23% of global emissions, and China second on 16.5%.
The IEA is based in Paris and is the energy adviser to 26 developed nations. Its annual report is called World Energy Outlook.
The new report will put pressure on Beijing to take more action on climate change as discussions take place on the extension of the UN-sponsored Kyoto Protocol on global warming beyond 2012. At present, the Chinese Government is as reluctant as the Bush administration to accept binding national caps on carbon emissions.
Europe: More Dangerous Goods Banned in the EU
In mid-April 2007, the European Commission released figures showing a rapid rise in the number of dangerous goods withdrawn from sale across the EU. The number of non-food items banned from sale more than doubled between 2004 and 2006. Children's toys now form the biggest category of hazardous goods on sale, most of them originating in China. About half of all goods withdrawn in 2006 were Chinese.
According to the Rapid Alert System (Rapex) the hazardous products included toys containing sharp or choking internal objects, badly insulated electrical wiring, use of high-lead paint, and a skin cream-gel containing a dangerous fungus. The banned products were categorised as:
- Toys: 24%.
- Electrical appliances: 19%.
- Motor vehicles: 14%.
- Lighting equipment: 11%.
- Cosmetics: 5%.
UAE: Plastic Waste Pollutes the Dubai Desert
Wide swathes of the desert near Dubai are carpeted by plastic waste, which is killing wildlife and domestic animals in increasing numbers. The Emirates Environmental Group report that two out of every three animals necropsied at the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory in Dubai had died in part due to ingesting plastic rubbish. The animals included camels, donkeys, cattle, sheep, goats, gazelles, ostriches and houbara bustards.
Both domestic and wild animals eat plastic bottles, bags and food wrappings thrown away by the public into makeshift unapproved dumps or along quiet stretches of highway. Plastic waste is indigestible and cannot pass through the gut. It forms balls of waste in the stomach which lead to slow starvation as they increase in size. The bodies of most of the unfortunate animals are also dumped in the desert.
On average, every Dubai resident throws away more than a tonne of waste every year, one of the highest per capita anywhere in the world.
The UAE Minister of Environment and Water said that the Government is trying to stop the destruction by eliminating the harmful plastic waste.
Uganda: Short-Term Economic Gain Rated Higher than Conservation of Vital Resources
European biodiesel policy, like that of the USA, is based on political rhetoric rather than reasoned economic analysis of energy needs and is in effect promoting the subsidisation of environmental degradation on a massive scale. If the EU policy of producing sufficient biofuel (type E85 fuel, 15% gasoline and 85% ethanol) to meet 20% of total demand by 2020 were based on oilseed rape as the fuel crop, it would require the use of 60% of the European arable land area, which is impractical.
The preferred alternative fuel source is higher-yielding palm oil, which does not grow in Europe. To meet the 20% target would require around 13 million hectares of palms, and the vast plantations necessary would inevitably be developed in areas at present covered by the dwindling equatorial rainforests of Borneo and Africa. Soya and sugar are also regarded as biofuel crops.
In April 2007, the President of Uganda began a legal process that will allow the Sugar Corporation of Uganda to cut down a quarter of the protected 32,000-hectare Mabira Forest in order to expand its operations into the production of sugar for the European biofuels market. The forest is located on the watershed of two tributaries of the River Nile, and fears have been expressed that deforestation will reduce local rainfall and further empty Lake Victoria, whose persistent low levels have caused major reductions in power supplies from Ugandan hydroelectric power stations over the past two years.
In November 2006, the Ugandan Government sold the Bugala Forest nature reserve on an island in Lake Victoria to an Asian-owned palm oil company, Bidco, which has since razed the rainforest.
When Uganda gained independence 40 years ago, around 20% of the country was forested, but today the figure is 7%. The Bwindi Forest in south-west Uganda is the last stronghold of the mountain gorilla. The London-based International Institute for Environment and Development commented on the recent annexing of these two forests, pointing out that it contravenes the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, to which Uganda is a signatory.
A UN report published on 8th May 2007 entitled Sustainable Bioenergy: A Framework for Decision-Makers, warns that although biofuels can bring real benefits if properly planned, they can bring adverse consequences if not. The report is particularly concerned about the razing of rainforests for biofuel plantations and food price rises caused by the intensive farming of energy crops, with their demands for water and resources.
OSHA Finds that Safety Standards Save Lives
Recently the US Government passed the Regulatory Flexibility Act, a piece of deregulation legislation designed to make the removal of protective health and safety legislation easier. However, it requires that first an evaluation must be undertaken of the effectiveness of the standards under consideration for repeal, based on the impact those standards have had on reducing injuries, illnesses and fatalities in the workplace.
A regulatory review on the impact of the 1989 US Excavations Standard, which covers procedures for reducing deaths and injuries from excavation and trenching activities in the construction industry, was carried out by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a department of the US Department of Labour. It found that the Excavations Standard had reduced deaths from approximately 90 per year to 70 per year. In addition, overall construction industry activity when adjusted for inflation had increased by 20% over the same period.
As a result of these findings, the OSHA Standard will remain in effect as its amendment or revocation cannot be justified.
Vietnam: Government Ban on Polluting Industries near Rivers
The Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in Ho Chi Minh City announced on 23rd April 2007 that remedial action would be taken to prevent the progressive pollution of rivers in the north and south of Vietnam in order to avert further environmental and economic damage. The Government plans to strengthen co-ordination between ministries and local authorities and toughen regulations to protect waterways.
In the Dong Nai River basin in the south, the Government will ban leather tanneries, dyeing facilities, and factories or industries processing tapioca and rubber latex. Five other sectors will also be limited, including cement, aquatic products processing, plant protection chemicals, fertilisers and paper pulp production. Other Government pollution control measures will include the mobilisation of funds from foreign donors and domestic companies, and strict implementation of policies to prevent new polluting sources.
The Cau, Nhue-Day and Dong Nai Rivers have been the worst hit by pollution. The Dong Nai River basin comprises 11 provinces and cities, including six in the key southern economic zone. The high rate of solid waste pollution downstream of the Dong Nai River was measured at three to nine times the permitted level. The rivers have also been polluted by heavy salinisation, metals and oil. The rate of intestinal illnesses in the three districts of Binh Duong province in the Dong Nai River basin not affected by water pollution is lower than in the polluted districts, including Ben Cat, Dau Tieng and Tan Uyen.
The polluted Thi Vai River is adversely affecting marine life and limiting water supply for domestic use and production. Most of the 77 production, business facilities and industrial zones operating along the Thi Vai River have failed to reach environmental protection standards. Only 12 construction facilities were found to have complied with standards on treatment of wastewater.
International: Workplace Cancer Study Methods Underestimate Risk
A paper published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine by Elizabeth J. Malloy and colleagues reports on a study of cancer risk in workers exposed to metalworking fluids. The reference is Elizabeth J. Malloy, Katie L. Miller and Ellen A. Eisen, 2007, "Rectal cancer and exposure to metalworking fluids in the automobile manufacturing industry", Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Vol. 64, pages 244-249, BMJ Publishing, doi:10.1136/oem.2006.027300.
The researchers, based at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, USA, looked at the exposure-response relationship between metalworking fluid exposure in the car industry and the incidence of rectal cancer. They found that when their research enquiries took into account the latency period, or time-lag effect, the proportion of cancers found to be caused by workplace exposure was almost 50% higher. They conclude that current occupational health methods systematically underestimate the true extent of the problem by failing to take adequate account of the time-lag between exposure and development of an occupational cancer. The latency period means a significant proportion of work-related cancers can be missed. The analysis shows stronger evidence for a causal association between exposure to straight metalworking fluids (mineral oils) and the incidence of rectal cancer than was previously described using standard analytical methods.
Nicaragua: Plantation Workers Sue American Pesticide Company
In late April 2007, it was announced that Amvac Chemical Corp. of southern California, a pesticide manufacturer and distributor, had agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by 13 Nicaraguan banana plantation workers who alleged that the pesticide DBCP (1,2-Dibromo-3-chloropropane or C3H5Br2Cl, a soil fumigant and nematocide of high acute toxicity) supplied by the company nearly 30 years ago had caused them to become sterile. Amvac Chemical Corp. agreed to pay a total of US $300,000. The legal proceedings took place in Los Angeles, and the suit also names Dow Chemical Co. and Dole Fruit Co. as defendants. In addition, the three companies face other lawsuits involving similar allegations in the United States and Nicaragua.
The pesticide was manufactured by Dow and Amvac and used by Dole on plantations in Latin America. Production of DBCP was suspended for most uses by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1977 after workers at an Occidental plant in Lathrop, California, were found to have low or zero sperm counts after working with the substance. Amvac, which had a business strategy of buying from larger companies the rights to market older pesticides under regulatory scrutiny, sold the chemical in Nicaragua after it was suspended for use in the United States and other companies had ceased to manufacture it. DBCP was not permanently banned for all uses in the United States until 1985.
More than 12,000 Nicaraguan workers contend that they were sterilised or otherwise sickened by exposure to DBCP, which has been demonstrated to cause male sterility, brain and kidney damage in laboratory test animals. Tens of thousands of banana workers worldwide have sued over the use of the substance, but no lawsuit has ever gone to trial in the United States. In 1997, Dow, Shell Group and Occidental Chemical Corp. settled one such suit with 26,000 workers in Latin America and elsewhere for US $41 million.
UAE: Construction Workers Involved in Wall Collapse
An Indian worker was killed and four others, three Egyptians and another Indian, sustained serious injuries after a wall collapsed near a building under construction in Ajman. The workers were trying to fix the wall of a manhole from the inside when it collapsed on top of them because the cement was not dry. The injured workers suffered fractures to their backs and legs and were taken to Khalifa Hospital. The incident was reported on 20th April 2007.
Apart from what should be an obvious danger of structural weakness, there is also a risk of serious burns from the chemical reaction involved in the setting of cement. All workers should be trained in awareness of such common hazards.
Ethiopia: Chinese-Owned Oil Company Attacked
On 24th April 2007, a group of 200 unidentified armed men attacked the Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia. The company was exploring for oil in the region.
The gunmen, possibly ethnic Somali separatist militants, stormed the company compound and engaged in a 50-minute battle with troops protecting the facility, located in Abole, some 120 kilometres from the regional capital of Jijiga. At least 74 people were killed, some nine Chinese nationals and at least 65 Ethiopians.
Federal Agency to Enforce Chemical Plant Security
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has developed an interest in infrastructure protection and security requirements for chemical plants, which are considered potential terrorist targets. In its first effort to regulate a private industry, the Department is from June 2007 enforcing new national security rules at chemical plants, warehouses and other businesses that store dangerous chemicals. The rules will affect around 7,000 plants and businesses identified as presenting the highest risk. As in the UK, many large plants are located in densely populated areas.
The rules will not force plants to use safer substitute chemicals, but will require the installation of secure perimeters; cordoning off particularly high-risk storage tanks such as those containing chlorine or other agents which are toxic if inhaled; conducting background checks on employees and contract workers; training workers in security and emergency response; and tightening cybersecurity against hackers. Failure to comply with requirements will incur fines of up to US $25,000 a day and perhaps an order to cease operations.
Chemical plant safety has long been a legal requirement enforced by the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB), but the CSB has so far failed to comment on why the DHS feels it necessary for new rules to enforce safety standards that should already be in place.
Australia: Government Inquiry into Town Poisoned by Lead
On 30th April 2007, a parliamentary inquiry began in Perth into lead contamination in the West Australian southern port town of Esperance, where 13 residents, including two infants, have been discovered to have high blood lead levels. More than 4,000 birds have died from lead poisoning around the town since December 2006. High readings of lead and nickel have also been found in rainwater tanks used to supply drinking water.
The parliamentary committee inquiry will investigate why the mining company Magellan Metals, owner of the Wiluna mine which is located hundreds of kilometres from Esperance, transported and exported lead carbonate through Esperance Port in powdered form rather than in pellets. The government departments of health, environment and conservation, and planning and infrastructure have been summoned to appear before the inquiry, which will consider their response to the lead contamination and whether they adequately carried out their responsibilities.
The inquiry is due to report back to the Legislative Assembly by 16th August 2007.
Russia: Oilmen Ponder Iceberg Safety
The giant Shtokman gas field lies 550 km offshore in the Arctic and contains more than enough gas to supply the world for a year. The area cannot be reached by helicopter from a continental base. The water depth is around 600 metres and the weather is hostile. Installing a platform in such stormy seas will be difficult, as freezing winds and six months of winter darkness are only some of the environmental challenges.
Global warming has added another dimension to the project, as studies have shown that as the Arctic climate gets milder, the risks of huge iceberg formation and ice storms in the Barents Sea will grow significantly by 2015. The Shtokman project will need up to four production platforms capable of withstanding 25-metre waves. Gas will flow to the shore by pipelines, where it will be liquefied for shipment to the United States. The project developers foresee a system of iceberg monitoring and the use of special technologies to deflect them away. What these might be is unclear, as some floating ice formations can be more than 100 km long and equal in size to the island of Jamaica.
The Shtokman field was discovered in 1988 and it was realised then that it would be costly and difficult to develop. The present owner is Gazprom, and the company intended the field to come onstream in 2003. The US $30 billion-plus development has been repeatedly postponed due to lack of funds, lack of appropriate technology, and Gazprom's inability to agree terms with Western partners. Negotiations were started and then broken off with US Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Statoil and Norsk Hydro, and Total.
China: Pneumoconiosis the Most Common Workplace Disease
Thousands of miners and cement workers in China are dying each year from breathing in coal and cement dust, according to the People's Daily of 30th April 2007. Government figures reveal that the lung disease known as 'black lung' or pneumoconiosis accounts for three quarters of all occupational deaths.
The Chinese Health Ministry reports that of 677,000 occupational disease cases reported in China since the 1950s, more than 90% were incidents of pneumoconiosis. In 2006, pneumoconiosis accounted for 76% of the 11,000 new occupational disease cases, among which 621 cases involved workers under the age of 18. The proportion of pneumoconiosis cases was 1.44% higher than in 2005, and the latency period of the disease was shorter.
Indonesia: US Gold Company Cleared of Poisoning Charges
In the last week of April 2007, an Indonesian court cleared the US gold mining company Newmont of criminal charges over allegations that its Sulawesi mine operation had poisoned local villagers by dumping mercury and arsenic into nearby Buyat Bay. The hearing had lasted for 21 months and was very costly to the company. Newmont claimed it was the victim of a damaging hoax connected to local politicking during the 2004 elections. However, it had already paid out US $30 million to an environmental foundation after having to settle a separate civil action over the pollution.
The Indonesian Environment Ministry announced that it would appeal the court decision.
India: Oil Industry Atmospheric Pollution in Assam
In September 2005, there was a disastrous fire at the Oil India Limited (OIL) Dikom oilfield which burned for a fortnight. Assessment of the environmental pollution caused by the incident has taken almost two years to calculate by the Centre for Atmospheric Studies (CAS) at the Department of Physics, Dibrugarh University, Assam. The findings by P. K. Bhuyan, et al., were published in the 25th April 2007 edition of the journal Current Science. CAS routinely monitors atmospheric aerosol optical depth (AOD) using a multi-wavelength radiometer, housed on the premises as part of a network of observatories sponsored by the Indian Space Research Organisation under its Geosphere Biosphere Programme. The aerosol monitoring is carried out under a subprogramme called the Aerosol Characterisation and Experiment.
Detailed scientific studies of the quantities of aerosols released by the Dikom blaze have revealed that the atmospheric aerosol content increased by 200% over the city of Dibrugarh. The implication is that over the area of the fire, around 15 kilometres from the city, aerosols could have jumped more than 2,000%. Fortunately, winds and rains during the days of the inferno washed out much of the pollution, which otherwise would have led to a severe public health situation.
The fire incident was not a unique occurrence, and the rising aerosol content over the whole of Assam is suspected as being caused by decades of fumes and other pollutants released by hundreds of other oilwell flares, blazes and mishaps in upper Assam. OIL has been accused of resorting to pollution control through press advertisements, by making claims of steps taken to conserve the environment.
Nigeria: Attacks on Foreign Workers Continue
On 1st May 2007, armed gunmen attacked the "Mystras", an oil industry service vessel anchored near a Chevron-operated oil production platform, 90 kilometres offshore from Port Harcourt in the southern Bayelsa state. The militants shot one Nigerian sailor and threatened the crew with dynamite before boarding and abducting six foreign oil workers, believed to include four Italian employees of the Italian energy group ENI, one American, and one Croat. The following day, a second abduction is reported to have taken place from a nearby offshore oil production platform operated by Agip.
On 2nd May 2007, armed insurgents broke through a perimeter fence with dynamite and kidnapped three South Koreans, eight Filipino workers and a Nigerian after a gunfight with security guards at the Daewoo Engineering & Construction Afam 6 power plant site, located around 30 kilometres north-east of Port Harcourt. A Daewoo managing director was among those seized. A total of 1,755 workers including 148 Koreans are employed at the site, which is guarded by Nigerian soldiers and security officials.
On 3rd May 2007, a Dutch oil worker was kidnapped by unidentified assailants from a bar in Warri, southern Nigeria.
On 4th May 2007, another group of armed men kidnapped a British subcontract worker from the Houston-based Transocean Inc. Trident 8 drilling rig off Brass, in Bayelsa state.
It is hardly surprising that thousands of foreign oil workers have left Nigeria since the spate of kidnappings began early last year, to the detriment of the Nigerian economy.
USA: Total Fined $2.9 Million for Texas Refinery Pollution
On 1st May 2007, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that the oil company Total had been fined $2.9 million for pollution violations at its Port Arthur refinery in Texas and would have to spend another $37 million to upgrade its facility.
The case involved a fixed penalty for the flaring of hydrocarbon gases. In addition to reducing emissions generated by flaring of both acid gas and hydrocarbon gases, Total is required to cut annual emissions of sulphur dioxide by more than 800 tonnes, nitrogen oxides by 180 tonnes and carbon monoxide by 120 tonnes.
Recently the EPA has forced 86 refineries in 25 states to address environmental problems and invest more than $4.5 billion in new pollution control technologies to reduce atmospheric emissions.
USA: Plant Accident Shuts Down Prudhoe Bay in Alaska
On 2nd May 2007, an accident with a piece of heavy equipment in the giant Prudhoe Bay oil field temporarily knocked a sizable chunk out of North Slope crude oil production. North Slope output was down by about 90,000 barrels a day, or almost 12% of normal production.
BP announced that a side-boom crane used to handle pipe was in transit when it hit an electrical power line, causing a shutdown of a nearby processing plant called Gathering Centre 2, one of three gathering stations on the western side of the Prudhoe Bay field. There were no injuries. The plant is a key facility that separates the raw stream from wells into oil, water and natural gas. The plant had already been partially shut down for maintenance work and the accident with the crane brought it to a full stop. Production was expected to resume within five days.
BP runs Prudhoe Bay on behalf of itself and other owners including ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Forest Oil.
International: IPCC Third Report on Global Climate Change Assessment
The third part of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was released on 4th May 2007, and outlines ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the costs of climate change damage. Part 1, released in February 2007, considered the physical basis of climate change; and Part 2, released in April, looked at the impacts of global warming. Entitled Summary for Policymakers, Part 3 can be downloaded from http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM040507.pdf.
Part 3 aims to set out the costs and benefits of various policies. It assesses the likely costs to the global economy of stabilising greenhouse gases at various concentrations in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 70% since 1970 and will rise by between 25% and 90% over the next 25 years if nothing is done and business carries on as usual. The increase will be due to an expansion in the use of fossil fuels, which are set to continue as the dominant world energy source.
In summary, the report estimates that stabilising greenhouse gas emissions will cost between 0.2% and 3.0% of world gross domestic product by 2030, depending on how fast greenhouse gas emissions grow. Boosting renewable energy, switching to nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, reducing deforestation and improving building design and energy efficiency can all help, but there must be changes in consumption patterns for human society as a whole.
The IPCC claims that stabilisation at reasonable cost is possible and there is considerable economic potential for the mitigation of global greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades, which could offset the projected growth of global emissions or reduce emissions below current levels.
The current atmospheric concentrations are equivalent to about 425 parts per million of CO2-eq. The IPCC estimates that stabilisation to between 445ppm and 535ppm by 2030 would cost less than 3% of global GDP; for a range between 535ppm and 590ppm it would cost 0.2-2.5% of GDP; and between 590ppm and 710ppm might bring anything between a net benefit of 0.6% and a net cost of 1.2%.
Thus the sharpest cuts, keeping greenhouse gas concentrations to levels equivalent to between 445ppm and 490ppm CO2, which would keep the global temperature rise to 2.0°-2.8°C, might cost anything up to 3% of global GDP by 2030, while lesser curbs could even enhance growth. European Union policy is to avoid a temperature rise greater than 2°C.
China, with the backing of India and Brazil, had demanded amendments to the IPCC report in that the burden of responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions should be placed upon developed countries. China, in contravention of IPCC rules, wanted a paragraph inserted to the effect that the present industrialised nations are to blame for most of the greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere since the start of the western world industrial revolution.
Peru: US Oil Company Accused of Illegal Waste Discharges in the Amazon
In a report issued on 3rd May 2007 by a coalition of protest groups, including Amazon Watch and EarthRights International, the US oil company Occidental Petroleum was accused of contaminating an area of the Peruvian Amazon where it and its successor company have drilled for oil for the past 32 years, causing widespread lead and cadmium poisoning. It was alleged that in violation of Peruvian and international law the company had dumped an estimated nine billion barrels of toxic waste in the area since it started prospecting in the early 1970s. The toxic material is euphemistically termed "produced waters" and was dumped directly into rivers and streams used by the indigenous Achuar people for drinking, bathing, washing and fishing. Medical research documented in the report revealed dangerously elevated levels of lead and cadmium in the Achuar population.
Occidental's activities were described as falling short of accepted industry standards throughout the course of their operations, as the company discharged massive quantities of contaminated waters into local streams, stored wastes improperly, and caused periodic oil spills. The company relinquished the oilfield in the Corrientes river basin to the Argentinian oil company Pluspetrol in 2000, and has since divested itself of all its Peruvian petroleum interests, but the report claims the pattern of spillage and poisoning continued unabated.
Occidental first signed a contract with the Peruvian Government to drill for oil in the Amazon in 1971, beginning large-scale production four years later in an area designated as Block 1AB, which became the largest onshore Peruvian oilfield, producing at its peak 42% of total Peruvian oil output, around 115,000 barrels of crude per day.
International: EU Bans Severe Animal Testing of Cosmetics
The so-called Draize animal tests are a series of procedures which involve applying cosmetic ingredients to the eyes and skin of live laboratory rabbits. The reactions of the rabbits are used to gauge whether the ingredient is an irritant to human skin or not. Such procedures are performed on an estimated 20,000 animals in Europe every year.
On 27th April 2007, the Independent Scientific Advisory Committee of the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) in Ispra, Italy, approved a series of humane alternatives. Two of the alternative procedures use waste animal tissue reclaimed from slaughterhouses as a replacement for live animals in eye irritation tests; and two more will replace live animals with in vitro cell cultures for determining whether chemicals irritate the skin. A fifth alternative test, used to identify skin allergenic substances, substitutes for around 250,000 tests per year performed on live mice.
The alternative test procedures have been available for commercial use for many years, but ECVAM had to demonstrate that they are as good as, or better than, current procedures on live animals in order for the EU to enforce their use. In early May 2007, it was announced that the live animal procedures will now become illegal under the European Cosmetics Directive, and the regulatory authorities in each member state will enforce the use of the alternatives.
Cosmetics companies will still be allowed to test relatively mild substances on the eyes of live animals until further alternative procedures are approved, or until 2009, when most cosmetic tests on live animals will be banned in Europe, regardless of whether alternatives have been approved or not.
China: Coal Mine Owner Gaoled for Life
In early May 2007, the owner of a small coal mine in Miaojiang, Shanxi Province, was fined one million yuan (about ?108,000) and gaoled for life by a Chinese court after he was found guilty of deliberately concealing an underground gas explosion, which resulted in the deaths of 21 people and delaying rescue work for nearly two days. Last year the Government had ordered the closure of his private mine, but he restarted work in February 2007 with no safety permit or operating licence. On 18th March 2007, a gas explosion trapped the workshift of 21 miners underground, but instead of calling the rescue services he tried to conceal the accident by cutting the cables of the pit shaft and telling inspectors the mine was closed. He ordered other mine workers to stay at home and sent the families of the victims to a neighbouring province, promising them money if they kept quiet. Had he not done so, the men might have been rescued alive. In addition the court sentenced eight civil servants and 13 others for involvement in the same incident.
Corruption among private colliery owners is widespread, and the Chinese authorities want to move towards larger and safer giant pits, such as the new mine at Ili in Xinjiang Province, which reportedly has reserves of two trillion tonnes of coal, 40% of the national total.
International: Disappearing Arctic Sea Ice
Global climate forecasts issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are based on computer models which use mathematical equations to describe key aspects of the physical world, such as greenhouse gas levels. To simulate past climates and project future trends, the models are started at a given year in the past, say 1800, and run forward in time to allow all the parts of the simulated world to interact. Although the simulations include real-world observations, the information does not necessarily capture small-scale fluctuations in such factors as ocean heat and ice thickness, which may significantly diminish sea ice.
The climate prediction models used by the IPCC indicate that by 2050 to 2100 the polar Arctic summers will be ice-free for the first time in about one million years. However, new research has revealed that the ice has been vanishing about three times faster than the models have predicted, shifting the inevitable meltdown about 30 years ahead of schedule, much sooner than thought.
Research by Julienne Stroeve, et al., from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre at the University of Colorado, published in the May 2007 issue of Geophysical Research Letters (J. Stroeve, M. Holland, W. Meier, T. Scambos, M. Serreze, 2007, "Arctic Sea Ice Decline: Faster than Forecast", Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 34, No. 9, L09501, doi:10.1029/2007GL029703) reports on a comparison of the results from the 18 IPCC climate models with data from aircraft and ship reports and satellite measurements. The team found that, on average, the IPCC models simulated ice losses in September (when ice retreats to its annual minimum) at 2.5% per decade from 1953 to 2006. In contrast, the real-world observations show September ice actually diminished by about 7.8% per decade during that period. This suggests current model projections are overly conservative, and summer sea ice may disappear considerably earlier than had been assumed. One reason why global climate models underestimate the rate of melting is that they do not take full account of the amount of heat transported into the Arctic from the Atlantic Ocean and Bering Sea, which affects the rate of sea ice melting.
UAE: TECOM Improves Construction Site Safety in Dubai
On 5th May 2007, it was reported that the Dubai Technology, Electronic Commerce and Media Free Zone Authority (TECOM) had claimed an improvement of 65% in the standard of safety on construction sites since new health and safety regulations were introduced in April 2006. Their success is attributed to strict regulatory enforcement by a team of safety inspectors, who are empowered to issue violation notices to contractors in breach of regulations, and which must be acted on immediately. Minimum fines are US $272 (AED1,000). More serious violations incur higher penalties; for example, a workplace death will incur a fine of $27,226 (AED 100,000).
TECOM is now working with Dubai Municipality to expand the coverage of safety standards and guidelines to the entire city.
UAE: Another Construction Site Fire Incident in Dubai
On 5th May 2007, a fire broke out on the Palm Jumeirah development in a building under construction, Golden Mile 2 located on the trunk of the Palm. Fire-fighters said the blaze, which destroyed two multistorey car parks, was believed to have originated in an electrical fault in cable wiring in the basement, which ignited building materials and produced substantial black smoke. Three people were injured, apparently by smoke inhalation.
The Palm Jumeirah is a $14 billion project forming one of several man-made islands in Dubai. Most of the buildings on the island are still under construction and have yet to be handed over to their owners.
Europe: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Slip
On 8th May 2007, the European Environment Agency announced that emissions of greenhouse gases from the 15 most developed EU member countries fell by only 0.8% in 2005 from 2004, mainly due to a reduction in the use of fossil fuels. The largest reductions were made by Finland, Germany and the Netherlands (UK emissions actually increased in 2006 over 2005 values).
Under the Kyoto international agreement for fighting climate change, the 15 countries are supposed to cut their emissions by 8% over the period 2008-2012 compared to 1990. The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 2005 brought the decrease to the Kyoto Protocol reference year of 1990 to 1.9%.
The 12 countries that joined the 27-member European Union in 2004 and 2007 are not subject to the same constraints because of their lack of economic development compared to the 15 older members.
When taking into account figures from all 27 nations in the EU, greenhouse gas emissions fell in 2005 by 8% from 1990 levels, mainly due to the closure of polluting factories in the former Communist members of the EU.
Nigeria: Oil Production Halted by Bombings
Nigerian insurgents known as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) blew up three oil pipelines in the Niger Delta on 8th May 2007, forcing the Italian oil company Eni to halt production of 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) feeding its Brass export terminal. The Brass terminal is capable of exporting 200,000 bpd but Eni said the company's current quota was 150,000 bpd. The company had to suspend all production at its Akri and Oshi oilfields after sabotage on the Ogoda-Brass and Tebidaba-Brass pipelines.
On the previous day, Chevron was forced to shut down a 42,000 bpd production facility because of a protest by local villagers armed with sticks and machetes.
Nigerian output capacity is roughly three million bpd, and before this latest attack some 700,000 bpd were already being lost due to sabotage and violence.
A further reduction in African oil output followed on 9th May 2007, when a fire at a Total-operated oilfield in Congo-Brazzaville resulted in the deaths of two workers and caused the shutdown of about 60,000 bpd.
China: Chemical Workshop Explosion Forces Evacuation
It was reported on 11th May 2007 that three people were killed and dozens injured in a workshop explosion and fire in a chemical factory owned by Cangzhou Dahua TDI Co. Ltd in the Hebei Province of North China. The incident took place on 4th May 2007, and the authorities evacuated more than 2,000 residents from a nearby village in case of a possible toxic gas leak.
The company is one of the major Chinese producers of the polyurethane intermediate chemical toluene di-isocyanate, CH3C6H3(NCO)2 . The substance is a severe irritant, both to the skin or if inhaled or ingested, and is listed as a potential workplace carcinogen. Investigations into the cause of the explosion were underway.
France: Employer Failed to Protect Workers from Mutagenic Chemical
At a TASS social security tribunal held in April 2007 in Moulin, France, it was found that Adisseo France, a large-scale animal feed supplement producer, was liable for exposing its employees to kidney cancer. For 25 years the company had negligently exposed some of its workers to the mutagenic and carcinogenic agent Chloracetal C5, which is used in the manufacture of vitamin A. Twenty-two cases of kidney cancer had been diagnosed among plant employees from 1984 onwards.
The tribunal found that despite knowing in 1990 that Chloracetal C5 was a mutagen and a cause of renal cell carcinoma, the company had failed to improve protection for its employees. Adisseo France had not taken the necessary measures despite being aware of the danger, and instead doubled the amount of pension payable to kidney cancer victims. The company had overlooked the risk because occupational cancer rate calculations are based on deaths, and kidney tumour patients have a reasonably good survival rate.
Adisseo France was found to be in breach of its duty and ordered to pay compensation of ?50,000 to ?60,000 to each of nine current or former workers suffering from kidney cancer.
International: Climate Change and Human Migration
An online report published on 14th May 2007 by the refugee aid organisation, Christian Aid, predicts that the world is facing its worst migration crisis, in which around one billion people will be forced from their homes between now and 2050 as the effects of global climate change deepen. The report, Human Tide: The Real Migration Crisis, can be downloaded as a 2MB PDF document from: http://www.christianaid.org.uk/Images/human_tide3__tcm15-23335.pdf
The report claims that in addition to armed conflict, large-scale development projects and widespread environmental degradation, the increasing impact of global climate change (changing weather patterns, drought, rising sea level) will cause severe water shortages and crop failures, forcing people to leave their homes and triggering local wars over competition for resources.
The report is derived from information published by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which did indeed state that by 2080 up to 3.2 billion people, or one third of the global population, would face drought; up to 600 million would be subject to famine; and up to seven million would face coastal flooding. From this, the Christian Aid report writers extrapolate the number of displaced people globally to about one billion by 2050.
Geographical areas giving most cause for concern are Saharan Africa, the Middle East and southern Asia, where water scarcity will become the major issue.
International: Survey of Potential Breast Cancer Carcinogens
In the USA, breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women in their late 30s to early 50s. According to the US National Cancer Institute, genetic factors may influence the risk of a person developing the disease, but they cannot explain the variation in cancer rates in different parts of the world. Women living in developed countries are roughly five times more likely to develop the disease, primarily through exposure to carcinogenic chemicals in the environment.
A review of 900 scientific studies dealing with potential carcinogens linked to breast cancer has been undertaken by researchers based at several US institutes. Claimed to be the most comprehensive survey of its type to date, it contains a list of 216 widespread and common chemical compounds which caused breast tumours in animal studies, some of which have been linked to breast tumours in humans. The research was published in the journal Cancer (references: DOI: 10.1002/cncr.22653, 10.1002/cncr.22654, 10.1002/cncr.22655).
Of the 216 compounds identified in the new database, 73 have been found to be present in consumer products or as contaminants in food, 10 are registered with the US Food and Drug Administration as food additives, 35 are air pollutants, and 29 are produced industrially in the USA in very large amounts, exceeding 500,000 kilograms per year. The researchers point out that relatively little is known about the effects of these agents on health.
A few of the common substances noted as being linked to human breast cancer are:
- Benzene (a constituent of road vehicle exhaust emissions).
- Acrylamide (formed when starchy foods are cooked at high temperature).
- Perfluorooctanoic acid (used in non-stick and stain-resistant coatings on cooking vessels, furniture and rugs, clothes).
- Vinyl chloride (used to produce the hard plastic polyvinyl chloride, or PVC).
- Malachite green (a textile dye, also used as an antifungal agent in fish hatcheries) .
- Clonitalid (a pesticide linked to breast cancer in rats, which is used to control populations of sea lamprey in tributaries feeding the Great Lakes in the USA).
Zambia: Polluting Chinese Manganese Mine Closed
On 11th May 2007, the Environmental Council of Zambia, a statutory regulator, served a closure notice on Chiman Manufacturing Limited, a Chinese-owned operation in Kabwe, a mining town 150 kilometres north of the capital, Lusaka.
Chiman Manufacturing mines manganese ore and was found to have failed to put in place air pollution control mechanisms, and failed to provide adequate personal protective equipment for employees. The plant had been emitting air pollution beyond statutory limits, affecting hundreds of residents in nearby townships.
The Kabwe area is heavily polluted from decades of mining for toxic mineral ores, such as copper and lead, with serious public health implications for residents.
Zambia has experienced an influx of Chinese investment in mining, manufacturing and agriculture, but their safety record is viewed with suspicion after more than 50 workers died in an explosion at a Chinese-owned copper mine in 2005.
Mongolia: Gold Miners Pollute Drinking Water
Mongolian police arrested two illegal Chinese gold miners after mining waste poisoned the drinking water in a small community in north-west Mongolia. The State Emergency Agency of Mongolia announced on 11th May 2007 that mining waste water containing several thousand times the acceptable limit of sodium cyanide was disposed into the water treatment line of Khongor soum, in Darkhan Uul municipality.
The waste water, which also contained mercury, poisoned the drinking water of the community of 5,400 people after the water treatment system broke down, and threatened to leach into the Kharaa River, which flows into Siberia. There were no reported human deaths, but three animals died. The cyanide and mercury were being used to separate gold from ore.
At present the Mongolian authorities lack any list or registry of operations outside the governmental legal framework. The Government exerts little control over illegal stream mining in the grasslands, and is considering regulations that would impose some standards and control over a sector which at times employs up to one-tenth of the national population. According to the Ministry of Nature and Environment, only eight companies in Mongolia are legally allowed to use sodium cyanide to extract gold.
USA: Congressional Review of the BP Prudhoe Bay Shutdown
On 16th May 2007, the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) reported to a US House of Representatives subcommittee that they found striking similarities between the causes of the fatal 2005 BP Texas City accident and the company's pipeline failure at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in 2006 which resulted in the leakage of more than 200,000 gallons of oil. The pipeline suffered extensive corrosion due to lack of maintenance over several years.
Although the CSB did not investigate the Prudhoe Bay accident, they were asked by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight to review a BP internal audit of the accident. The CSB concluded that virtually all of the seven root causes identified for the Prudhoe Bay incident have strong echoes in Texas City. These factors included the significant role of budget and production pressures in driving BP decision-making, which ultimately harmed safety.
The hearing, entitled 2006 Prudhoe Bay Shutdown: Will Recent Regulatory Changes and BP Management Reforms Prevent Future Failures?, was attended by representatives from the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Division of the US Department of Transportation.
The CSB made further comparisons of safety culture similarities at Texas City and Prudhoe Bay. Both investigations found deficiencies in how BP managed the safety of process changes. In Prudhoe Bay there was a normalisation of deviance where risk levels gradually crept up due to evolving operating conditions. The Prudhoe Bay pipeline problems did not result in repairs or improved maintenance. At the Texas City refinery, abnormal startups were not investigated and became routine, while critical equipment was allowed to decay. By the day of the accident, the distillation equipment had six key alarms, instruments and controls that were malfunctioning. Trailers had been moved into dangerous locations without appropriate safety reviews.
Other common findings at both Texas City and Prudhoe Bay included flawed communication of lessons learned, excessive decentralisation of safety functions, and high management turnover. BP focused on personal safety statistics but allowed catastrophic process safety risks to grow.
Nigeria: US Chevron Pulls Out Oil Workers
It was announced in mid-May 2007 that US Chevron Corp. (CVX) would immediately begin withdrawing hundreds of workers and contractors from offshore Nigerian waters due to recent militant violence against foreign companies in the biggest African oil-producing country.
The company described its move as temporary suspension of non-essential work, but the number of contract workers impacted would be in the hundreds. It was not clear how contractors would maintain on-going oil production. Workers on several drilling rigs, construction barges and support vessels will be out on temporary standby.
The actions came after four recent attacks against Chevron. In the second week of May, militants abducted six Chevron workers and four other contractors who were working for the company. Chevron has shut 57,000 barrels a day of additional oil production due to the attacks. The company was producing about 390,000 barrels a day before the recent assaults.
International: Accident-Prone People Exist
Human factors are an important issue in health and safety and have been subject to much analysis. For example, it is known that young persons tend to suffer more accidents at work through lack of experience, lack of skills or co-ordination difficulties. Among mature people, those who work on oil rigs or railway maintenance or suffer high stress and fatigue levels are similarly more prone to mishaps.
A recent Dutch study on supposedly accident-prone people has shown that such unfortunates do indeed exist. Ellen Visser and colleagues at the University Medical Centre Groningen in the Netherlands analysed the results of 79 studies which examined how prone people are to having accidents. The reference is Accident Analysis and Prevention, DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2006.09.012.
The study recorded the mishaps suffered by 147,000 people, drawn from the general population in 15 countries. They found that there is a discrete group of people who suffer the most accidents. Statistically, one in 29 people have a 50% higher chance of being involved in an accident than the rest of the population. The study does not demonstrate which people are most at risk, only that they do exist. The team suggest that accident-prone people have certain personality traits that predispose them to accidents.
International: Australia Raises Concern over Medium-Density Fibreboard
Medium-density fibreboard (MDF) is a widely used engineered wood material similar in application to plywood. It is formed by breaking down softwood fibres into a powder and then combining it with wax and resin. It is formed into panels by applying high temperature and pressure. Large-scale production of MDF began in the 1980s, its name being based on its density of around 600-800 kg/m³, in contrast to lighter particle board and high-density fibreboard (500-1,450 kg/m³). In all fibreboards, formaldehyde resins are used to bond together the constituents, usually urea formaldehyde, but some fibreboard for exterior or marine use includes stronger adhesives such as phenol formaldehyde.
Formaldehyde was classified as a Class 1 Carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2004, and in the EU its current listing as Category 3 is under review. It is also an allergic sensitiser which can cause asthma. MDF presents a health risk to those who work with it, particularly from exposure to dust from milling and cutting. The material is also known to outgas formaldehyde and other volatile organic chemicals for the life of the product, but with little proven risk to health. Risk control is based on precautions while machining and with dust-particle control.
MDF manufactured in Australia or New Zealand, where workplace exposure standards are tighter than in the UK, must comply with four national standards, but tests carried out by the Australian Wood Panels Association, and the Australian Environmental Labelling Association Inc., on fibreboard products manufactured elsewhere have revealed that almost half of imported products fail to meet Australian standards, with many times the maximum formaldehyde emissions level. There have been calls for such imported toxic MDF to be banned from use on construction sites.
In the USA, new regulatory restrictions were imposed in April 2007 in California on formaldehyde use in wood-based boards, requiring manufacturers to reduce by more than half the current amount of formaldehyde emissions.
South Africa: Refinery Workers' DNA Damaged by Benzene Exposure
A research study by the Wits School of Public Health in Johannesburg has found that exposure to the benzene in petroleum has caused high levels of DNA damage in workers at an unidentified South African fuel refinery. Continued exposure to the carcinogen had reduced the ability of their bodies to repair the DNA damage. Benzene is a natural constituent of crude oil, but is usually synthesised from other compounds in petroleum. Long-term exposure to high levels of benzene in air can cause leukaemia.
The study involved the analysis of blood samples from 27 refinery workers and nine office staff at the refinery, taken before and after their shifts. The method used to analyse the data, the "comet assay", is considered a sensitive way to determine DNA damage by benzene. The range of workers affected included those in the refinery, in distribution, tank drivers and office staff. The cell DNA damage was highest in refinery workers, but was also present in office staff who worked in premises about two kilometres from the refinery.
The team state that their results suggest that the workers' offsite time between shifts was not long enough for DNA to repair successfully, and it might be necessary to stagger shifts to allow workers to recover from exposure.
International: CO2 Emissions Exceed Worst-Case Scenario
In late May 2007, a research team led by Michael R. Raupach of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation published a paper (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0700609104) which finds that recent global carbon dioxide emissions are growing more rapidly than even the worst-case climate scenario used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The team studied the growth of CO2 emissions from data gathered from four public sources: the Energy Information Administration; the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre, US Department of Energy; the United Nations Statistics Division; and the World Economic Outlook of the IMF. They found that emissions growth suddenly accelerated in 2000. During the 1990s, emissions grew by 1.1% per year on average, but the number shot up to 3.3% between 2000 and 2004, the end of the study period.
When the recent emissions trend was compared with the IPCC "worst-case scenario", the team found that reality was at least as bad, if not worse, because actual emissions are at the high end of the IPCC dire consequences projection. The IPPC predicted that their A1F1 scenario would lead to a 4°C rise in temperature by 2100.
The acceleration in CO2 emissions after 2000 is attributed not to a growth in global population, but to a reduction in global energy efficiency. No part of the world reduced the amount of carbon used to produce energy between 2000 and 2004, despite widespread publicity in support of greener sources of energy and more efficient energy use.
The analysis also showed that developing countries, comprising 80% of the world's population, accounted for 73% of the growth in CO2 emissions in 2004, but only 40% of total emissions.
Russia: Workers Die in Coal Mine Methane Explosion
On 24th May 2007, the Russian Emergencies Ministry announced that at least 36 workers were killed and six injured in a methane explosion at the Yubileynaya coal mine near Novokuznetsk, in the Kemerovo region of Siberia. Around 178 mine workers were rescued alive after the blast, but another two were still unaccounted for. The mine is owned by Yuzhkuzbassugol. In March 2007, a methane explosion at the nearby Ulyanovskaya mine, which is owned by the same company, killed more than 100 workers.
Qatar: New Building Industry Safety Standards Introduced
A new building safety code could result in construction companies in Qatar facing prison and fines of up to $2,727 (QR10,000) for serious violations. The new regulations, which are based on standards used in the UK and the USA, have been introduced to raise health and safety and building materials standards across all of the country's construction sites, including public and private building projects, and roads.
Contractors have complained that their existing contracts do not take full account of the new regulations, and therefore any supplementary requirements might have to be resolved on a case-by-case basis.
China: State Punishment for Lead Poisoning Officials
China Daily reported on 28th May 2007 that the chairman of the Huixian non-ferrous metal smelter company would be charged with violating environmental laws, and another 19 company officials had either been sacked or received warnings. The smelter lies in the north-western province of Gansu, where more than 2,000 people, including some 300 children, suffered lead poisoning from waste discharged by the smelter. An investigation last year found that the local environmental protection bureau had violated laws in approving construction of the plant, now known to be the source of the contamination. The company had discharged waste exceeding the environmental standards and did not use anti-pollution equipment.
One of the problems the central government in Beijing has in trying to enforce stricter monitoring of potential environmental hazards is the tendency of local officials to allow or overlook violations because they are accustomed to being judged on economic growth at any cost.
Taiwan: Nuclear Waste Dump to be Closed
The 45-square-kilometre tropical Orchid Island lies in the Pacific Ocean, 105 kilometres east of Taiwan, and was selected 25 years ago as the site for a nuclear waste dump by Taiwan Power Co. on the grounds that the island was isolated and sparsely inhabited. The Lan Yu Storage Site contains 97,672 barrels of semi-solid nuclear waste in a poorly defined former millet-growing area along the coastline.
It was announced on 29th May 2007 that following numerous protests and reports of illness among the indigenous people, the Taiwan Government had decided to close the site and remove the waste to one of three sites on Taiwan's main island. The 3,100 islanders complain of an increase in the incidence of stomach cancer, mutated fish caught in the Pacific Ocean and contaminated soil where they grow taro and yams.
Removal of the toxic radioactive waste will take five years and an environmental clean-up will take another eight years, according to Taiwan Power Co.
India: Bhopal Waste to be Incinerated
Bharuch Environ Infrastructure Ltd (BEIL), an Indian company, said on 29th May 2007 that it plans to incinerate toxic waste still remaining from the 1984 Bhopal disaster, when a release of methyl isocyanate gas from a pesticide plant run by a subsidiary of the US chemical company Union Carbide (UC) killed at least 10,000 people and affected around 550,000 others.
In 1989, Union Carbide paid $470 million in compensation to victims and claimed that responsibility for the clean-up lay with local officials. UC sold its interest in the Bhopal plant in 1995, and in 2001 UC was sold to Dow Chemical Co. of Michigan. Dow maintains that it is not responsible for cleaning up the disaster site, and the plant is now under the control of the Indian Madhya Pradesh state, which has agreed to pay BEIL US$220,000 (?163,700) to dispose of the waste.
Around 350 tonnes of waste will be transported from Bhopal to Ankleshwar, an industrial area in the western state of Gujarat, where it will be burned at high temperatures over the course of a week.
New Zealand: Government Action on Contaminated Industrial Sites
The most contaminated industrial site in New Zealand is the former Fruitgrowers Chemical Company site at Mapua, near Nelson, a pesticide factory which operated from the mid-1930s to 1988. The company produced organochlorine pesticides, such as DDT, DDD and dieldrin, and later manufactured paraquat and organophosphorus pesticides, such as malathion and gusathion. In the late 1950s, at a separate site two kilometres away, the company made synthetic plant hormones such as 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D for herbicides. The spray 2,4-D gained notoriety as the main component of Agent Orange, a defoliant used by the American military during the Vietnam War and blamed for causing birth defects in the offspring of those exposed to it. In the late 1970s, the company was making 84 different types of pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and fungicides, using 124 chemicals.
Mapua was the largest operation of its kind in New Zealand. The factory suffered many spillages and buried its waste on site, leaving a legacy of considerable contamination. Clean-up work is being undertaken by the government Environment Ministry and work is due to be completed this year.
A further NZD $9.88 million (around US $7.5 million) of public money is being used to clean up the second most contaminated site, the Tui Mine near Te Aroha in the Waikato, which was abandoned in 1973. The operators abandoned ore dumps, mine tailings and contaminated water. Hazardous substances have since been seeping from the site, affecting the quality of two streams which flow into the Waihou River. Actions to protect water quality will include reconstruction of the tailing dam, capping of the tailing deposits and bulkheading old mine shaft entrances. The work should be completed by 2010.
International: Risk of Parkinson's Disease Increases with Pesticide Exposure and Head Trauma
According to a study by Dr Finlay Dick and colleagues at the University of Aberdeen, published online ahead of print in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, exposure to pesticides and traumatic head injury may have a causative role in Parkinson's disease. Both of the two risk factors are potentially modifiable. Head trauma resulting from contact sports such as boxing can be avoided, and further research could identify more specifically which pesticides are associated with triggering the disease, so that the agents can be substituted.
The team found that people who had been exposed to low levels of pesticides were 9% more likely to have Parkinson's disease, compared with those who had never been exposed. Those who had been exposed to high levels of pesticides were 39% more likely to be affected. Previous published studies had suggested strongly that exposure to pesticides is a risk factor, with agricultural workers showing higher rates of the illness.
Parkinson's disease occurred 1.28 times more frequently in people who had been knocked unconscious once, compared with those who had never been knocked out; and occurred 2.56 times more frequently in those who had been knocked out more frequently.
The study was funded by the European Commission and is one of the largest case-control studies to date of genetic, environmental and occupational risk factors for Parkinson's disease or other degenerative parkinsonian syndromes. It involved 959 prevalent cases of parkinsonism and 1,989 controls (a group of people of similar age and gender who had not been diagnosed with Parkinson's) recruited in Scotland, Italy, Sweden, Romania and Malta. Patients with drug-induced or vascular parkinsonism or dementia were excluded. Subjects completed a questionnaire regarding their lifetime occupational and recreational exposure to solvents, pesticides, iron, copper and manganese. Their lifetime exposure was then estimated blind to disease status and the results were adjusted, as appropriate, for age, sex, country of residence, tobacco use, ever having been knocked unconscious and family history of Parkinson's disease.
The paper can be downloaded at: http://press.psprings.co.uk/oem/june/om27003.pdf.
Nigeria: More Oil Workers Kidnapped
It was reported on 28th May 2007 that gunmen had kidnapped around ten expatriate oil workers in southern Nigeria, including four Britons, three US nationals, one South African and a Filipino. Also a Pole, who was the chief engineer of Pacific Dredging and Marine Ltd, was abducted by six gunmen in a boat near Warri, an oil town in the Niger Delta. The attacks were the latest in a series mainly attributed to militants seeking a greater share of the region's oil wealth.
Oil industry sources said the first attack was carried out by 15 gunmen in two boats offshore from Sangana community in Bayelsa. It was not immediately clear which company operated the vessel that was attacked nor who employed the men seized.
Since the start of May 2007, around 40 expatriates linked to the oil industry have been seized in southern Nigeria by a variety of different groups. Most have since been released.
International: Train Drivers Exposed to Magnetic-Field-Induced Cancer Risk
A research study by Martin Röösli et al published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine finds that railway workers exposed to extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF) have an elevated risk of certain blood cancers. The paper, Leukaemia, Brain Tumours and Exposure to Extremely Low Frequency Magnetic Fields: Cohort Study of Swiss Railway Employees, was published online on 24th May 2007; doi: 10.1136/oem.2006.030270 (Occ & Env Medicine Abstract).
Electrical and magnetic fields (EMFs) are energy fields which surround electrical devices, such as engines, computers, electrical wiring and power lines. The researchers studied more than 20,000 Swiss railway workers who were followed for 30 years, and found that for certain workers the risk of myeloid leukaemia and Hodgkin's lymphoma increased with their exposure to ELF-MF. Train drivers had from three to 20 times more exposure than yard engineers, train attendants and station managers, due to spending many hours in their engine cabs, and were nearly five times more likely to develop myeloid leukaemia than station managers, who had the lowest exposure to magnetic fields. Train drivers were also more than three times as likely to be diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, which is a cancer of the lymph system.
The authors point out that there was a large variation in the magnetic field strength associated with different types of train engine, mainly due to the construction of the engine and the distance placed between the driver and the electrical supply. They conclude that the risk is to railway workers and not to the travelling public, who spend considerably less time in trains. They suggest that new rolling stock should be designed to minimise magnetic field exposure.
Australia: Airline Faces Chrome Cancer Challenge
An aircraft maintenance sheet metal worker employed by the Australian airline Qantas at Sydney Airport between 1971 and 1991 was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2005. Recently, the New South Wales Dust Diseases Tribunal found that it was caused by inhalation of the known carcinogen, hexavalent chromium, arising from work in confined spaces using an air-powered grinder to cut and grind metal surfaces and components which were coated with primers, paints and sealants that contained hexavalent chromates. Both he, and other workers on his shift, were also exposed to the spraying of aircraft with paint which contained respirable hexavalent chromium compounds. The man was awarded Aus $1 million in an out-of-court settlement.
Over a 20-year period, some 300 workers were employed in such work and faced similar exposure risks, so the case has the potential to cost Qantas many millions of dollars in compensation claims.
International: Radiation Hazard for Tobacco Smokers
Research published by Constantin Papastefanou of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece ("Radiation Dose from Cigarette Tobacco", Radiation Protection Dosimetry, Vol. 123, page 68; doi:10.1093/rpd/ncl033) reports that the radiation dose from radium and polonium found naturally in cigarette tobacco can be a thousand times greater than that from the caesium-137 taken up by green leaves near the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Papastefanou used Gamma-ray spectrometry to measure radioactivity in tobacco leaves collected from 15 different regions of Greece and calculated the average radiation dose due to the naturally occurring radionuclides that would be received by people smoking 30 cigarettes a day.
He found that the average dose from natural radionuclides was 251 microsieverts a year (251.5 µSv y-1) compared with 0.199 µSv y-1 from Chernobyl fallout in green leaves. The radiation dose received by smokers is only equivalent to 10% of the average dose received by everyone from all natural sources, but it is still an increased risk. He argues that cancer deaths among smokers are due to the radioactive content of tobacco leaves and not to nicotine and tar.
India: Toxic Pesticides Banned
On 4th June 2007, it was announced that around 25 pesticides have been banned from manufacture, import and use in India on grounds of involvement as a health hazard to human beings and animals and damage to the environment. Two other pesticides and formulations are banned for use in the country, but their manufacture is allowed for export. Another 37 pesticides are listed as "under review" for their "continued use or otherwise" in the country, including the organophosphate insecticide Monocrotophos, which is acutely toxic to birds and banned in Western countries.
On the banned pesticides and formulations list are Aldrin, Benzene hexachloride, Calcium cyanide, Chlordane, Copper cetoarsenite, Cibromochloropropane, Endrin, Ethel mercury chloride, Ethyl parathion, Heptachlor, Menzaone, Nitrofen, Paraquat dimethyl sulphate, Pentachlorophenol, Phenyl mercury acetate, Sodium methane arsonate, Tetradifon, Toxafen, Aldicarb, Chlorobenzilate, Dieldrine, Maleic hydrazide, Ethylene dibromide, and TCA (Trichloro acetic acid).
The two substances banned for use in India but allowed for manufacture and export are the suspected neurotoxin Nicotine sulphate and the broad-spectrum protective contact fungicide Captafol 80% powder, the latter being produced in Bangalore.
Currently, India has 203 pesticides registered under Section 9(3) of the Insecticide Act 1968.
Global pesticide use has increased 50-fold since 1950, and 2.5 million tonnes of industrial pesticides are now used each year worldwide.
Bangladesh: New Website on Occupational Safety and Health Issues
In late Spring 2007, an online resource was launched dealing with worker health and safety in Bangladesh, prepared by the Centre for Corporate Accountability in London and the Occupational Safety, Health and Environment Foundation (OSHE) in Bangladesh. It is accessible at:
http://www.corporateaccountability.org/international/
bangladesh/main.htm
The site covers health and safety legislation and its enforcement in Bangladesh, specifically the Labour Code 2006, which deals with the obligations imposed upon employers and others towards workers in most industrial and commercial premises; and the Bangladesh National Building Code 2006, which relates to the safety of construction workers. There is no health and safety law applying to agricultural workers. The site contains documents summarising the activities of the enforcing agency, the Factories Inspectorate, which appears to be undermanned at present.
USA: Mississippi Oilfield Explosion Caused by Unsafe Work Practices
The US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) issued a case study on 12th June 2007 based on an investigation into a fatal explosion and fire in early June 2006 on the Partridge-Raleigh Oilfield in Raleigh, Mississippi. Three contract workers died in the incident and another suffered serious injuries. They were all employees of Stringer's Oilfield Services and were completing piping connections between three relocated oil production tanks when welding sparks ignited flammable vapour venting from one of the tanks.
The tanks were 1.5 metres apart and ranged from five to six metres tall and were four metres in diameter. The contents included flammable hydrocarbons, ethyl benzene, xylene, toluene, and naphthalene fumes. Three men climbed on top and two of them placed a ladder between two tanks to serve as a makeshift scaffold. A welder attached his safety harness to the top of one of the tanks and positioned himself on a ladder. To connect the piping to the two tanks, the welder had to weld a pipe fitting onto the side of one tank before attaching a short length of pipe to the fitting and to a nearby open-ended pipe on an adjacent tank. Almost immediately after the welder started welding, flammable hydrocarbon vapour venting from the open-ended pipe ignited.
Welding sparks ignited flammable vapour escaping from the open-ended pipe about 1.5 metres from the contractors' welding activity. The fire flashed back into the tank on which the workers were holding the ladder, and also flashed back into the third tank. The pressure from the burning vapour inside the two tanks caused the tops to blow off. The workers were thrown by the force of the explosion, which resulted in blunt force trauma and fatal injuries. The welder suffered a broken ankle and hip, but survived because he was wearing a safety harness that prevented him from falling to the ground.
The investigation found that unsafe work practices contributed directly to the severity of this accident. The ladder placed between the tanks should not have been used as a makeshift work platform and the open pipe on the adjacent tank was not capped or otherwise isolated with a closed valve to prevent flammable vapour from accumulating near the area where the welding was to be carried out. Also, while not a cause of the accident, the welder inserted a lit oxy-acetylene welding torch into the tank's hatch and then into an open nozzle on the opposite side of the tank to verify that all flammable vapour was removed from the tank, instead of using a flammable gas detector. This dangerous practice is reputed to be common in oilfield operations and even has a name, "flashing". Neither the contracting company nor the oilfield owner required hot work permits to perform welding on the tanks.
The CSB found that Stringer's lacked hot work safety procedures and did not implement available guidelines from the American Petroleum Institute (API) 2009 standard, Safe Welding, Cutting, and Hot Work Practices in the Petroleum and Petrochemical Industries, in preparing and conducting the welding operation on the day of the incident. In addition, Stringer's and Partridge Raleigh did not adhere to Occupational Safety and Health Authority requirements addressing safe welding practices.
The CSB recommended that Stringer's Oilfield Services management develop and implement written procedures to ensure safe work practices during hot work, tank cleaning, and work from elevated locations. The CSB also recommended that Partridge Raleigh management establish written health and safety performance standards and performance metrics, such as those found in the API Recommended Practice for Occupational Safety for Onshore Oil and Gas Production Operations - API RP-74. The CSB criticised local inspection authorities for failing to establish an effective programme to identify potentially unsafe conditions on well sites and drilling operations. They also noted that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration had not inspected any of the nearly 6,000 oilfields in Mississippi in the preceding five years.
International: WHO Report on Environmental Ill-Health
A report published in Geneva on 13th June 2007 by the World Health Organisation (WHO) describes the results of the first global analysis of the human toll of environmental damage. The problems faced by individual countries were outlined in a breakdown of global figures first released in 2004, including a worldwide annual death toll of 13 million due to environmental health illnesses. As a unit of comparison, the WHO used the number of healthy years of life lost per 1,000 inhabitants because of environmental impact.
Poor countries suffer the most from ill-health caused by the working environment or social conditions, including poor quality water supplies, air pollution, work-related stress, unhealthy lifestyles and road accidents. Emerging and transition economies, including India and Russia, are suffering from an additional burden of illness due to growing environmental health factors. China and India account for around 38% (five million) of global environmental health deaths, although this is not regarded as statistically significant by the WHO because of their large population size.
The worst affected countries are Angola, Burkina Faso, Mali and Afghanistan, with an incidence rate of 316 years of ill-health per 1,000 inhabitants attributable to the environmental factors of poor water quality and supply, diarrhoeal illnesses, and the use of indoor wood or coal fires which cause respiratory diseases. The WHO stressed that many such deaths could be prevented.
People in emerging nations suffer both from the traditional problems seen in poor countries and new problems due to their environment, such as cardiovascular disease caused by sedentary lifestyles. An average of 68 years of ill-health per 1,000 inhabitants are caused by environmental health factors in India, compared to 54 in Russia, 37 in Brazil and 34 in China. The WHO has warned repeatedly in recent years that poorer countries face new problems with lifestyle diseases caused by smoking or fatty foods as their wealth increases, without necessarily shedding their old problems with infectious diseases.
The best rated countries were Iceland and Israel, with a score of 14 years per 1,000; Italy (16); Germany, Spain and France (17); Britain (18); and the United States (19).
Belgium: Concern over Death Rate from Environmental Factors
Environmental health became a hot topic in the Belgian media after the release of the WHO report mentioned in the preceding news item, because around 17,000 people die in Belgium each year due to environmental factors, with air pollution alone claiming 2,000 lives each year. Although Belgium scored relatively high according to the WHO comparative figures (19 healthy years of life lost per 1,000 inhabitants), all of its neighbouring countries scored better. The 17,000 environmental deaths per year represent 14% of the total number of recorded deaths.
Nigeria: UK Government Advises Nationals to Leave
In June 2007, the UK Government Foreign and Colonial Office urged British subjects to leave the Niger Delta due to threats to their safety and a worsening security situation. They advised that the security situation in Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers states makes them unsafe for British nationals. Anyone who chooses to stay does so at their own risk and should take professional security advice. Britons are advised against all travel to the three southern states, including the southern Nigerian oil city of Port Harcourt.
In 15 separate incidents since January 2006, 31 British nationals and over 180 foreign nationals have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta area and one Briton has been killed, according to UK sources.
Middle East: Lessons from Cyclone Gonu
In a scenario of changing global climate, catastrophic natural events with a predicted frequency of once in 50 years or longer will tend to occur with greater and unforeseen regularity. It becomes necessary for offshore and waterfront projects to be designed to withstand extreme environmental conditions perhaps thought remote at the time of project conception. The design cost of withstanding more extreme events is borne initially by the developer, but if ignored may result in far greater cost later.
Increasing sea surface temperatures lead to a rise in sea level by thermal expansion, and more intense tropical cyclone activity. In June 2007, Cyclone Gonu became the strongest tropical cyclone to strike the Arabian Peninsula since records began in 1945. Wind speeds of 175 km per hour and 11-metre waves caused extensive damage to roads, bridges and construction projects. Residential areas were flooded, water and power supplies were cut off and there were around 70 deaths in Oman. The repair of infrastructure damage in Oman is likely to cost millions of dollars from this single event. Another problem in Muscat Municipality arose from residential and commercial development on dried out wadis which (as textbooks explain but few can remember actually seeing) are subject to catastrophic flooding under storm conditions.
Cyclone damage was also sustained in Iran and the northern emirates of the UAE.
Southern Europe and North Africa: Mediterranean to Suffer Summer Heat
A research paper by Noah Diffenbaugh and colleagues at Purdue University in the USA, "Heat Stress Intensification in the Mediterranean Climate Change Hotspot", published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 34, No. 11, L11706 (Reference DOI: 10.1029/2007GL030000) discusses a computer climate model for the Mediterranean region, of sufficient precision to enable resolution of regional changes in temperature for every 20 square kilometres.
The model calculated an overall increase in temperature and a fivefold increase in number of extremely hot days. Among the Mediterranean countries, France will experience the greatest increase in extremely hot temperatures, in excess of 8°C hotter than they were between 1961 and 1989. The 2003 heatwave is thought to have killed 35,000 people across Europe, during which there were nearly 15,000 fatalities in France. The most dangerously hot area will be a narrow strip around the Mediterranean coastlines of Spain, Egypt and Libya, with up to 40 more excess heat days per year.
The Mediterranean region is sensitive to climate change because of surface moisture feedback, whereby as temperatures rise the landmass becomes both hotter and drier, with less evaporative cooling. The researchers argue that in a scenario with rapid population growth and few 'green' policy measures, greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise exponentially during the 21st century, leading to an increase in the number of dangerously hot days of between 200% and 500% by the end of the century. Temperatures currently experienced during the hottest two weeks of the summer would become typical of the coldest two weeks of the summer.
Although a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions would substantially mitigate heat stress intensification throughout the Mediterranean region in coming decades, there are still negative effects detected by the model.
USA: State Health Department Suppressed Excess Cancer Deaths
The Minnesota Health Department (MHD) discovered from its records in March 2006 that 52 iron ore miners had died from mesothelioma, a form of occupational lung cancer with a long incubation period. The figure was 35 more cases than previously known. But the public agency suppressed its research on these additional cancer deaths among Iron Range miners for a year, even though federal government scientists had warned that the findings raised significant health issues. The new information was not released officially until it leaked out recently to mining unions and the media.
Occupational mesothelioma is usually caused by asbestos fibres penetrating the lining of the lungs and develops decades after exposure. Although mining operations used commercial asbestos as heat insulation on such plant as pipes and boilers, which the Health Department regarded as the likely source of exposure for the 17 fatalities recorded between 1988 and 1996, they failed to consider mined ore dust as a potential risk and could not account for the additional 35 deaths since 1998. The MHD feared that public disclosure of the findings would create controversy, as they raised renewed concern about taconite dust and the high incidence of lung cancer among the 4,000 workers in the Minnesota iron ore industry, Iron Range being the location of a known cancer cluster.
Taconite is a low grade iron ore (around 25% magnetite) with a high silica content. It is processed first by grinding to a fine powder and the iron separated from waste rock by the use of powerful magnets. The iron concentrate is then combined with bentonite clay and limestone as a flux and rolled into pellets, which are then roasted at high temperature to oxidise the magnetite to haematite for further processing.
Taconite dust has been suspected as being a dangerous airborne contaminant for some time, although it is unclear whether it is due to silica dust particles alone. Mine workers have reported being exposed to large amounts of taconite dust and until recently they may have worked without respiratory protection. Minnesota state officials also withheld the findings from the federal Mine Health and Safety Administration, which last year was considering stricter limits on asbestos dust in mines.
Russia: Lack of Fire Safety Standards Continues to Cost Lives
Some 17,000 people per year die in fires in Russia, representing a much higher percentage of the population than in Western countries. The causes are lack of appropriate safety standards, lack of enforcement, lack of maintenance, and negligence.
On 21st June 2007, a fire broke out at night in the top floor dormitory area of a retirement home in the Omsk region of Siberia. Ten elderly residents were killed and at least four injured. More than 300 others present in the building were evacuated, according to Tass news agency. The fire alarm system functioned properly and fire-fighters arrived within 10 minutes. The problem seems to have been the absence of an appropriate evacuation procedure.
It was the latest in a series of fatal fires at care centres in Russia. In March 2007, a blaze at a nursing home in southern Russia killed 63 people; and in December 2006, another fire at a drug rehabilitation centre killed 45 women in Moscow.
Nigeria: Gunmen Occupy Flow Station
The Italian energy company Eni, which operates through its subsidiary Agip, declared force majeure on shipments from its Ogbainbiri oil flow station in southern Bayelsa state after unidentified gunmen seized control of the pipeline switching centre on 17th June 2007. Employees in the facility, reported to be some two dozen Nigerian workers and soldiers, were being held by the militants. In the previous week, government troops had clashed with gunmen in the same area, leaving several people dead.
Qatar: Clean Development Mechanism Project Initiated
In late May 2007, Qatar Petroleum received formal approval for its Al-Shaheen Oil Field Gas Recovery and Utilisation Project, designed to prevent the flaring of natural gas from the Al-Shaheen oil field, which is operated by Maersk Qatar Oil. A month later, Qatar became the first country in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) to successfully register a project under the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism, a scheme under the Kyoto Protocol which allows developed countries to meet emissions targets by funding clean energy projects in developing nations. The project will prevent an estimated 2.5 million tonnes a year of greenhouse gas emissions until 2014.
The UN Framework on Climate Change has issued over 50 million certified emissions reduction credits, each equivalent to the reduction of one tonne of carbon dioxide, to 684 different projects in over 40 countries.
International: Vietnamese Lawsuit over Agent Orange
During the Vietnam war, the American military made extensive use of a toxic defoliant known as Agent Orange to destroy jungle cover. Its name came from the orange markings on the drums in which the chemical was shipped. The main component was the synthetic plant hormone 2,4-D, a dioxin. The substance became notorious for causing teratogenic birth defects and severe mental and physical problems in the offspring of those living in areas where it was sprayed. According to Vietnamese sources, the herbicide created a legacy of at least three million disabilities and birth defects.
In 2005, a US federal court ruled in a lawsuit brought on behalf of Vietnamese plaintiffs that there was no proof that Agent Orange caused ill-health or caused genetic defects. The Vietnamese were seeking compensation from 37 American companies that manufactured and supplied Agent Orange, including Dow Chemical and Monsanto, alleging that the companies knew the herbicide contained a harmful dioxin and knew how it was going to be used, but did nothing to prevent disastrous consequences.
In June 2007, a higher US court began hearing an appeal by the plaintiffs. It is within the power of the judges to overturn the earlier federal court ruling, but their decision could take several months.
Recent studies have found that dioxin contamination at former storage sites in Vietnam is many times higher than internationally accepted limits. The USA has offered money to clean up contaminated sites and has also spent $43 million on helping Vietnamese with disabilities.
Norway: Carbon Dioxide Emissions to be Slashed, Maybe
To a somewhat sceptical reception, the Norwegian Government announced on 22nd June 2007 that it expects its domestic reduction in carbon dioxide emissions to be between 13 and 16 million tonnes by 2020, representing around half and two-thirds of its planned reductions as it seeks zero net emissions of CO2 by 2050. The country is an oil and gas exporter and had used somewhat unorthodox calculation methods to find its numbers. They did not count cuts in emissions from historic levels in 1990, as is the case in the Kyoto Protocol and similar targets set by the EU. They had also offset emissions by counting absorption of CO2 by Norwegian forests, a factor excluded under Kyoto. They propose to reach zero net emissions of carbon dioxide by 2050 through a mix of cuts at home, development of renewable energy, green investments abroad and purchases of CO2 permits.
In reality, Norway (like the UK) is behind on its Kyoto commitments to limit CO2 emissions to about 51 million tonnes per year in 2012. At present it produces some 55 million tonnes per year.
Zambia: State Prioritises Water Services
The Zambian Government announced in June 2007 at the commissioning of the Kanyama water supply project in Lusaka that it has made water supply and sanitation a priority in its Fifth National Development Plan. The initiative by the water utilities to improve water supply and sanitation services in low income and semi-urban areas is aimed at the eradication of water-borne diseases, such as cholera and dysentery. Local authorities were called upon to safeguard water and sanitation infrastructure from vandalism, especially encroachment by both unplanned and planned building developments.
The National Water Supply and Sanitation Council said that a total of K42 billion had been committed to the Devolution Trust Fund by co-operating partners and the European Union for financing implementation of projects by water utilities for the next three years.
International: Outlook for Global Energy Use Growth
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy published its annual report, International Energy Outlook 2007, on 25th June 2007. Their main projection is that by 2030 the world will be consuming 57% more energy than it does today, with a growing thirst for fuels in developing countries, particularly in Asia.
The report predicts that coal will be the fastest-growing energy source, while petroleum consumption will increase by more than 30%. Liquid fuels produced from biomass, coal, and natural gas are expected to provide 9% of the global liquid fuels supply by 2030. In contrast, renewable energy sources will grow from the present 7% share to around 8% in 2030.
The EIA reference scenario does not include greenhouse gas constraints and in consequence global greenhouse gas emissions increase nearly 60% by 2030.
Developing countries produced more greenhouse gas emissions than the industrialised countries in 2004, and the gap is expected to widen in the future. By 2030, developing countries are predicted to generate 57% more greenhouse gases than the present industrialised countries.
China: State Ban on Production of Chlorofluorocarbons
On 27th June 2007, the Chinese State Environmental Protection Agency posted a notice on the official Government website, stating that the production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) had been banned in line with global agreements to phase out the use of ozone-layer-depleting substances. Barring raw materials and aerosols used for medicinal purposes and other exempted uses, the production of CFCs would be banned from 1st July 2007. Manufacturers were ordered to demolish equipment involved in the production of CFC substances by 15th August 2007. Offenders would be punished according to the law.
CFCs were once commonly used as refrigerants, aerosol propellants and in fire- extinguishing media, but the chemical action of chlorine and bromine released by decomposition of artificial CFCs is known to cause damage to the ozone layer, which blocks harmful ultraviolet rays from reaching the planetary surface.
The Chinese order was issued in accordance with the Montreal Protocol and national plans to eliminate industrial production of CFCs. The 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer commits signatory nations to progressively ban the use of products which damage the ozone layer, and threatens trade sanctions for non-compliance. China signed the Montreal Protocol in 1991 and gradually reduced industrial production and use of CFCs from 1999, with a total ban coming into effect in 2010.
International: Safety Warning on Unspent Aircraft Oxygen Generators
Following an investigation into a disastrous fire at the Environmental Quality Co. Carolina hazardous waste plant in Apex, North Carolina on 5th October 2006, which forced the evacuation of half the population of the town, the US Chemical Safety Board issued an urgent recommendation concerning the dangers of transporting and handling unspent aircraft chemical oxygen generators. (See item in the Autumn 2006 International edition of the RRC e-Newsletter, "USA: Town Evacuated after Chemical Waste Plant Explosion".)
Chemical oxygen generators are used widely in commercial aircraft to supply supplementary oxygen to passengers in drop-down masks should the cabin depressurise at height. (They contain sodium chlorate, activated by a small explosive charge to produce oxygen gas in an exothermic reaction; the containers can reach a temperature of 500°F during discharge.) Because they are safety-critical equipment they have a limited useful life and must be replaced periodically. In the past there have been onboard fire incidents started by such masks, including one in 1996 which caused an NTSB ValuJet aircraft to crash in Florida. Following an investigation into that incident, the National Transportation Safety Board stated that expired but fully functioning chemical oxygen generators should be expended before being transported.
The devices that contributed to the Apex plant fire were past their projected service life but remained fully charged and hazardous. They originated from an aircraft maintenance facility in Mobile, Alabama, where the contents were not expended prior to transport as legally required. Their shipping documents did not identify them as unspent chemical oxygen generators, also a requirement of the Department of Transportation regulations. In Apex, the devices were misidentified as general oxidiser waste and were stored in the area where the fire is believed to have originated. They were activated by heat, releasing oxygen, which accelerated and intensified the severity of the fire.
International: The Impossible Economics of Nuclear Power Generation
A report published in late June 2007 by the Oxford Research Group, Too Hot To Handle - The Future of Civil Nuclear Power, demolishes many of the arguments presented in favour of nuclear-generated electricity as a solution to global climate change, as advocated by the World Energy Council. For a start, nuclear power plants must be built at the unachievable rate of four per month from now on if nuclear energy is to make a significant contribution to the control of climatic degradation. Not only is this construction rate beyond the capacity of the nuclear industry to deliver, but it would also stretch to breaking point the capacity of the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor and safeguard civil nuclear power.
At present, nuclear power generates around 16% of world electricity demand, a rate expected to increase in pace with the growth in population. By 2075, nuclear power generation would have to provide one-third of electricity if it is to play a part in controlling greenhouse gas emissions, which means the construction of four new nuclear plants per month, every month for the next 70 years. If the 2075 nuclear scenario came about, there would be 4,000 tonnes of plutonium being processed into reactor fuel each year, representing 20 times the current military stockpile.
At present only France generates most of its electrical power from nuclear plant; they have 59 reactors producing 78% of total electricity. Elsewhere, there are 429 reactors in operation, ranging from 103 in the United States to one in Armenia, with 25 more under construction, 76 planned and 162 proposed. In contrast, China is already building two new coal-fired plants every week.
There would also be a foreseeable constraint on supplies of uranium ore, leading inevitably to the exploitation of lower grade ores and therefore more carbon expended on extraction and refining.
Nuclear advocates stress the development of fast breeder reactors, which produce more radioactive fuel than they consume, but at the same time create a security nightmare leading to nuclear weapons proliferation.
Europe: Wine Lake into Biofuel
One of the less than rational mechanisms invented by the European Union is the creation of "mountains" of edible but unwanted food, and "lakes" of potable but unwanted drink, all the result of protective government subsidies which promote excess production by inefficient industries. The European Union currently spends ?1.3 billion (US$1.75 billion) each year subsidising the wine industry, of which ?90 million is used to pay for 'crisis distillation', a scheme under which 45 million litres of poor quality wine is distilled into ethanol for use as fuel. As a basic raw material for biofuels, ten litres of wine yields one litre of pure alcohol, so the entire process is a highly inefficient disposal route. Crisis distillation has occurred in four of the past six years.
In June 2007, the European Commission put out a tender for the opportunity to turn 200 million litres of excess wine into bioethanol, claiming that this would be the last time it pays for such a move. Crisis distillation would now be abandoned in favour of stopping excess production. However, their new strategy is based not upon economics but on preventing competition between fuel and food crops.
Finland: European Nuclear Industry Makes Slow Progress
Construction of the first new nuclear power station in Europe since 1991 was completed in late June 2007. Building of the European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPWR) at Olkiluoto, Finland, by a consortium led by the French company Areva and the Germany company Siemens for the utility Teollisuuden Voima started in August 2005. The Finnish nuclear regulator, STUK, reported that it found a series of "safety deficiencies" in the manufacture and design of the plant, a setback which caused the project to fall 18 months behind schedule and about ?700 million over budget.
The EPWR, which represents the design favoured for future reactors in the UK, is not scheduled to operate commercially before 2011. The 1,600-megawatt Olkiluoto 3 reactor will be the world's largest single unit when it comes on line and is seen as a test-case among the older EU member states wary of returning to nuclear power projects.
Russia: River Neva Turns Toxic
In 2005, the St Petersburg City Hall annual report claimed that only 25% of the untreated sewage and industrial waste produced in the city was being pumped into the River Neva without treatment; but according to a recent City Hall report, in 2006 the amount of untreated waste being pumped directly into the Neva and its delta in the Gulf of Finland had risen to 40%, the highest level during the past 15 years. The figure does not include numerous illegal discharges. The blame was laid on a shortage of waste treatment facilities.
Before 1978, the city had no water-treatment facilities at all. There are now two water-treatment centres maintained by Vodokanal, the city's water and sewage-treatment monopoly. City Hall stated that there are currently 375 drains channelling untreated industrial discharge within the city limits, and more than 1,000 sewage dumping points. Many of these are located in tributaries of the Neva, with the River Okhta being the most polluted.
The South-West Water Treatment Plant was inaugurated in September 2005 with $36 million in foreign investment, when it was claimed that the new facility would filter out 85% of the city waste. Since then, no steps have been taken to control companies that discharge pollutants illegally into local waters, and no further water-treatment facilities have been built. Official corruption has been blamed as the cause of increased unauthorised industrial discharges.
Fish taken from the Neva and analysed were found to contain high concentrations of such toxic substances as arsenic and polychlorobiphenyl, according to recent research carried out by the international environmental pressure group Greenpeace. The research also revealed that levels of copper in the city main waterway exceeded the norm by 73 times, and levels of manganese by 26 times. Fish from the river is sold regularly in city markets; but if it had been caught within the European Union, its sale for human consumption would be stopped immediately.
China: Drinking Water Pollution Incidents Continue
The Chinese state media reported on 5th July 2007 that water supplies to 200,000 residents of Shuyang County in the eastern province of Jiangsu had been halted after a spillage of ammonia and azote from a chemical plant leaked into a nearby river. A few weeks ago, an algal bloom fed by pollution in Taihu Lake, also in Jiangsu, cut off drinking water to Wuxi City for some days.
On its web pages, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) blames industrial pollution incidents on some local officials, who are in league with local businesses seeking windfall profits. Last year around 26% of the length of the country's seven main river systems had pollution of grade 5 or worse, making the water unfit for human contact. Seven of nine major lakes monitored had equally bad pollution. SEPA stated that it would not approve any projects proposed by accused polluters for three months, other than treatment plants and recycling facilities.
According to recent figures from a World Bank research project, an estimated 460,000 Chinese die prematurely each year from breathing polluted air and drinking dirty water.
Australia: Flawed Electrical Design Caused Gas Rig Fire
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau reported in July 2007 that its investigation into a fire on the accommodation platform of an oil and gas rig in Bass Strait two years ago found that the fire was caused by the faulty design and construction of the electrical system. The Bureau found that the accommodation platform was badly designed and plagued by electrical problems.
The self-propelled rig, the "Safe Concordia", had two electrical fires in its propulsion system when it entered Bass Strait in 2005. The platform was intended to be part of the Origin Energy Bass Gas project, but the fire caused significant delays to the development.
It was also found that the "Safe Concordia" breached its obligations by not allowing for safe fire-fighting and by not notifying the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority of the problems. The Bureau recommended that safety checks on American-built platforms should be improved to prevent similar fires in the future.
USA: Pathogen Laboratories Closed for Safety Failings
In July 2007, officials from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, suspended all research on dangerous pathogens (known as "select agents") at Texas A&M University (TAMU) in College Station for not complying with federal safety rules after the university failed to report two cases of exposure last year.
The incidents involved the bacteria that cause brucellosis and Q fever, livestock diseases that can infect humans and are on the federal list of potential bioweapons. Such pathogens are studied in highly secure laboratories with oversight by the CDC. The first exposure at TAMU occurred in February 2006, when a laboratory worker cleaning a chamber containing brucella bacteria in a biosafety level-3 laboratory developed brucellosis (reported in the journal Science, 20th April, p. 353). One month later, three other workers tested positive for antibodies to Coxiella burnetii, the bacterium that causes Q fever, but they did not develop clinical symptoms.
TAMU admitted to CDC in April 2007 that it had failed to report both incidents, and following a CDC safety inspection in June the agency told the university that research on select agents must be halted immediately. This was the first time that a university's select agent work had been suspended. The university could also face fines following a more detailed review. Five laboratories, staffed by 120 workers, have been closed, and the principal investigator in charge of the university brucella project has been suspended.
The incidents gave rise to concern over the 400 sites around the USA in which some 20,000 people work on putative bioweapon organisms. There have been other unreported university biosafety accidents involving dangerous agents, including a worker at the University of New Mexico who was jabbed with an anthrax-laden needle, and another employee with a syringe containing an undisclosed genetically engineered microbe. At the Medical University of Ohio, workers were exposed to and infected with Valley Fever. At the University of Chicago, there was another puncture with an undisclosed agent normally requiring heavy containment, thought to be anthrax or plague. At the University of California at Berkeley, workers handled the dangerous Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, which is an airborne agent, without containment because it was mislabelled as harmless. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, workers were exposed to tuberculosis when containment equipment failed. The excuse for these accidents going unreported until now was that there were no serious outcomes, but clearly there is a problem with the stringency o