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Fluoridating Elsewhere
According to the
American environmental scientist, Philip Fearnside:
‘It’s a question of who is profiting.
If that profit, and the costs, were evenly distributed,
it wouldn’t be happening. It wouldn’t
be worth the candle for anyone individually. The fact
is that influential people are making money and poor
people are paying the price. It’s all perfectly
logical - from the point of view of the people who
are making the money.’
MOHAWKS-
New York
The
Akwanesasne Nation
Over the past forty years, General
Motors, Reynolds Metals Company, and the Aluminum
Company of America (ALCOA), on the American banks,
have economically thrived from the low-cost electricity
produced by the hydro-electric project. In the process,
Akwesasne, the first community down-river from them,
has born a disproportionate share of environmental,
socio-cultural and economic impacts resulting from
pollution from these industries. Many toxic substances
including PAHs, PCBs, dioxins, dibenzofurans, metals,
cyanide and styrene have been discharged into the
air, land or water in and around Akwesasne. All three
companies used polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), human-made
chemicals that were ideal for industrial purposes,
in their plants. PCBs would eventually be banned by
the EPA in 1978 as the chemical was found to be toxic
to both human health and the environment. The PCBs
at these three plants eventually ended up in the environment
through industrial wastewater discharges, spills,
and illegal dumping into the Racquette, Grasse, and
St. Lawrence Rivers. In addition, emissions of pollutants
such as fluoride, PAHs and other toxic substances
from ALCOA and Reynolds contaminated the air in and
around Akwesasne. Mercury and mirex were discharged
by Domtar, a pulp and paper mill located on the Canadian
side of the river.
Within five to ten years of the
construction of the hydroelectric project, Mohawks
began noticing impacts to their environment. By the
early 1970s, cattle began showing signs of flurosis,
brittle teeth and bones, birth defects, low milk production
and shortened life spans. By the mid-1980s, the Mohawk
community had issued a fishing advisory limiting fish
consumption in the community and warning women of
childbearing age, infants, and children under the
age of fifteen eat no fish from the St. Lawrence Rive
due to the PCB contamination of the fishery.
By the late 1980s, the amount of
PCBs found in fish and wildlife at Akwesasne was astounding.
Snapping turtles (the Haudenosaunee consider the turtle
to be the foundation of the earth), frogs, shrews,
and fish were all found to be contaminated, some with
levels that would make them hazardous waste. Backyard
gardens were abandoned as residents in the Racquette
Point area (the closest to the contamination) feared
the airborne contamination of their vegetables.
As fear grew into rage and
rage into action, the battle to confront the polluters,
enlist the help of the EPA and the NYSDEC, and mobilize
support from the community strengthened in the late
1980s and into the 1990s. It has resulted in stricter
environmental controls, cleanup, and scientific studies.
The battle continues today as Mohawks find more than
just the environment is being impacted by the pollution.
Cultural and traditional practices that require healthy,
unpolluted natural resources have been impacted as
well. Recognizing this, the Mohawks have embarked
on a courageous path to rejuvenate the environment
and support cultural practices to ensure there will
be a seventh generation.
ICELAND
In
Iceland, work has already begun on a colossal $1bn
dam which, when it opens in 2007, will cover a highland
wilderness - and all to drive one US smelter.
Corporate Watch
January 26th, 2005
"Nobody
can afford to allow the divine Icelandic dragon of
flowers and ice to be devastated by corporate greed"
People in Iceland are calling for
an international protest against the building of a
series of giant dams, currently under construction
in the eastern highlands of Iceland. The dams are
designated solely to generate energy for a massive
aluminium smelter, which will be run by the US aluminium
corporation Alcoa and built by Bechtel.Not a single
kilowatt of energy produced by the dams will go for
domestic use. Alcoa is seizing the chance to relocate
to Iceland after costs of producing aluminium in the
US soared.
The pristine environment - which
campaigners say should be designated as a nature park
- will be destroyed. Protected areas will be flooded,
and rare and endangered plants and animals will be
submerged and lost. Equally infamous aluminium corporations
such as RTZ are lining up for future hydro-electric
projects.
The Icelandic government is
actively supporting these corporations. Environmentalists
and local people opposed to the dams have been threatened
and professionally persecuted.
ZAMBEZI
Damming
the Zambezi for Aluminum
For a couple of weeks in late September,
sooty plumes of black smoke billowed from the stacks
of the Mozambique Aluminum (Mozal) smelter on the
outskirts of the Mozambican capital, Maputo. A year
after the plant opened, a cooling tower in the treatment
plant corroded and gave way, spewing sulfur dioxide
and toxic fluoride into the air. A company official
admitted that fluoride was in fact being released,
but was quick to claim, "While the black plume
now issuing from the top of the treatment plant is
unsightly, it is not dangerous."
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