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Greenpeace to visit Saipan
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Posted on Jul 31 2000
The Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior II, will be arriving on Saipan this week as part of the environmental organization’s continuing information campaign to assist Tanapag village which has been contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB).
“We want to make sure that the planned remediation in Tanapag will be done properly,” said Maureen Penjueli, toxics campaigner.
Rainbow Warrior II left Japan last week and expected to stay on the island for four days. Greenpeace representatives plans to meet with Tanapag residents, government officials and private sector representatives to explain their campaign.
This is the first time for Rainbow Warrior to visit the island. Rainbow Warrior has extensively traveled around the world, including the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Cook Islands and French Polynesia.
Dr. Luscombe, toxics campaigner and specialist on the low temperature thermal desorption process, is set to arrive here to explain to the people the technology that will be used by the U.S. Army Corps to clean up Cemetery No. 2.
ECC has successfully cleaned up much larger U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site in Wallington Borough, N.J. using the same technology.
The equipment will be shipped to Saipan early next year since the company will have to produce a smaller model for the amount of work to be done in Tanapag.
The Army Corps has signed a $3.1 million contract with Environmental Chemical Corp. to handle the cleanup of PCB-contaminated area. The contract will have two phases: the first will include the excavation and stockpiling of the estimated 5,000 tons of PCB-contaminated soil and the second phase will cover the treatment of soil to remove PCB.
Greenpeace has earlier declared Tanapag a toxic hotspot and demanded that the U.S. government clean up the village and the cemetery.
The environmental activists are highlighting Tanapag as a global hotspot in an effort to bring world attention to the issue.
