Environment, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

ENVIRONMENT-URUGUAY: Activists Worried by Pulp Mills Despite Gov’t Pledges

Raúl Pierri

PUNTA DEL ESTE, Uruguay, May 7 2005 (IPS) - The controversy over plans to build two pulp mills in western Uruguay drew attention from activists and authorities attending the 1st Conference of Parties to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).

The Conference took place Monday to Friday in the eastern Uruguayan resort town of Punta del Este.

The Uruguayan government pledged on Friday that it would be vigilant in ensuring that the two plants, to be built on the shores of the Uruguay River, generate the least environmental impact possible. But activists maintain that if the factories are installed, environmental damage is inevitable.

Speaking at the opening of the final session of the Conference on Friday, Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez reaffirmed his country’s commitment to living up to the Stockholm Convention, but added that it would not give up the “unrenounceable right to development” shared by all of the countries and peoples of the world.

Vázquez said that his government is pursuing “a national project of sustainable productive development,” and recognises its “responsibility to promote a policy of cleaner production in agriculture, stockbreeding, and industry, as an essential part of achieving more efficient use of resources and more competitive production.”

The manufacture of pulp from wood involves a bleaching process, and when chlorine or related chemical compounds are used for this purpose, they create highly toxic by-products like dioxins and furans, two of the 12 pollutants singled out in the Stockholm Convention.

The international treaty is aimed at phasing out 12 specific POPs: nine pesticides (aldrine, chlordane, DDT, dieldrine, endrine, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene, mirex and toxaphen), two unintentional byproducts of chemical production and the burning of chlorinated substances (dioxins and furans), and a group of industrial pollutants known collectively as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

These chemicals, which are highly toxic to animals and humans, are stable and persistent, lasting for years or decades before degrading into less dangerous forms; travel widely through the air and water; and accumulate in the fatty tissue of living organisms – which means they can be passed along the food chain.

Exposure to these 12 toxins has been shown to weaken the immune system and increase the risk of cancer, hormonal imbalances, neurological disorders, infertility and diabetes.

Activists have criticised the government’s intransigence in its support for the two pulp mills, which are to be built by foreign companies: Botnia of Finland and ENCE of Spain.

While the green light for the two projects was given by the conservative administration of former president Jorge Batlle, whose term ended Mar. 1, the new leftist government has refused to revoke the permits, arguing the need to attract investment and create employment.

The two European companies involved say the mills will generate 4,000 new jobs and represent 1.5 billion dollars in investment.

The proposed sites for the pulp mills are near the town of Fray Bentos on the Uruguay River, which runs along the border between Uruguay and Argentina. This has sparked concern on the part of both environmental organisations and government authorities in the eastern Argentina province of Entre Ríos, located on the other side of the river.

The Vázquez administration strove to ease those concerns during the Conference in Punta del Este.

“We have held an official meeting with representatives of the Finnish government, and it is committed to ensuring the people of Uruguay and Argentina that the same controls used in the close to 30 plants operating in Finland will also be used here,” Uruguayan Environment Minister Mariano Arana told the press on Friday.

He added that the Finnish authorities also offered to send technical specialists to Uruguay, to help guarantee the necessary controls for protecting water and air quality in the area surrounding the plant.

But environmentalists continue to have serious doubts about whether the Finnish government and Botnia will actually live up to these promises, basing their mistrust on the “vague” wording used by the authorities.

In an interview with IPS, María Cárcamo, a Uruguayan representative of the Latin American branch of the international Pesticides Action Network (RAP-AL), explained that there are three methods of pulp production, only one of which does not lead to the emission of dioxins.

“I personally don’t think there should be any pulp mills at all, but in keeping with the Stockholm Convention, we hope that they will at least use a TCF (totally chlorine free) process,” which does not create dioxins, she said.

The two companies are in fact planning to use an ECF (elemental chlorine free) bleaching process, and while it is not the most polluting of all, it still leads to the release of a significant amount of dioxins, according to the Uruguayan non-governmental group Guayubira.

“They have promised us that they will use methods approved by the European Union, but we don’t find that very reassuring, because they use ECF processes there,” remarked Cárcamo.

In an open letter sent Thursday to the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Klaus Toepfer, 23 non-governmental organisations and community groups maintained that “in a research study on air emissions at a Finnish mill that uses an ECF bleaching process (which involves the use of chlorine dioxide, and would also be used in Uruguay), high levels of various dioxins and furans were detected.”

“The same study revealed that levels of the main furan found in the air were higher in the bloodstreams of a group of workers at the pulp mill than in the local population at large,” the letter added.

Environmental groups in Argentina and even the governor of Entre Ríos, Jorge Busti, have called on the Argentine government of President Néstor Kirchner to attempt to dissuade Vázquez from allowing the construction of the mills.

Nevertheless, during a visit to Buenos Aires Thursday, the Uruguayan leader reiterated that the work on the Fray Bentos mills will be going ahead, while pledging that all necessary measures will be taken to prevent pollution.

Vázquez and Kirchner agreed to set up a bilateral commission to study the environmental risks posed by the projects.

On Apr. 30, Argentine and Uruguayan activists joined forces in a major demonstration against the pulp mills. Over 15,000 protesters blocked the bridge over the Uruguay River that links Fray Bentos and the Argentine town of Gualeguaychú.