Gypsy families in Kosovo on toxic land

NORTH MITROVICA, Kosovo No one seems to care about the gypsies.

Displaced by conflict and stranded by bureaucratic inertia, dozens of gypsy families remain on toxic land 10 years after they were relocated there by the United Nations after the Kosovo war.

Lead blackens the children's teeth, blanks out memories and stunts growth. Other symptoms of lead poisoning include aggressive behavior, nervousness, dizziness, vomiting and high fever. The children swing between bursts of nervous hyperactivity and fainting spells. Some have epileptic fits.

The two resettlement camps — the Osterrode and Chesmin Lug — were established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1999 for gypsies, or Roma, as they are more commonly known in Europe. A traditionally nomadic people, the Roma share a common heritage that sets them apart as an ethnic group, with their largest populations in Central and Eastern Europe.

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Gypsies relocated by UN remain on toxic land

Refugees from Kosovo conflict have developed severe health problems after decade on contaminated land.

By J. Malcolm Garcia - Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Published: April 14, 2009 21:02 ET
Updated: April 14, 2009 22:21 ET-A

NORTH MITROVICA, Kosovo — Displaced by conflict and stranded by bureaucratic inertia, dozens of Roma families remain on toxic land 10 years after they were relocated there by the United Nations following the Kosovo war.

Osterrode Camp and Chesmin Lug Camp were established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1999 as a temporary measure, when the 9,000-member Roma or gypsy neighborhood on the southern shore of the Ibar River was burnt down by Albanians in the dying days of the Kosovo conflict. The Albanians had accused the Roma of collaborating with the Serb army, a charge the Roma dismiss as unfounded.

Whatever the truth behind the charges and denials, almost everyone agrees that moving Roma families near the now closed Trepca mining and smelting complex, onto land highly contaminated with lead, zinc, arsenic and other metals, has resulted in severe health problems in the community.

When the World Health Organization tested the Roma's blood for lead in 2004, the readings for 90 percent of the children were off the scale, higher than the medical equipment was capable of measuring. Such children fall into the category of "acute medical emergency" and require immediate hospitalization.

Instead they have remained in the camps, ingesting lead through the air, the dirt they play in and through their clothes dusted with lead tailings while drying on laundry lines. Even before their birth, lead enters their bodies from drinking water consumed by their mothers.

According to internationally accepted benchmarks drawn up by the United States Center for Disease Control, 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter causes the beginning of brain damage.

The measurements from the camps were much higher than in the surrounding population and at levels that exceeded any region WHO had previously studied. Twelve children had exceptionally high blood lead levels, greater than 45 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, more than four times the amount that causes brain damage.

"The Roma are victimized by lead," said Thomas Hammarberg, European commissioner for human rights. "It is sad the international community has not found a solution 10 years later. It is the single most major environmental disaster in Europe."

Zoran Savich, a pediatrician with the Health Center of Kosovo Mitrovica, saw more than 300 patients in Osterrode and Chesmin Lug between 2005 and 2008.

In that time, Savich said, 77 people died of lead poisoning, many of them children.

"I treated as many I could but they were living in the same conditions and absorbing lead,” Savich said. “When the treatments stopped, their levels went back up. It was useless."

Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since June 1999, after the NATO bombing campaign on the troops of then-president Slobodan Milosevic, aimed at halting Belgrade's repression of the majority ethnic Albanian population seeking independence.

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Gypsy site safety fears for young

Monday, February 02, 2009, 07:00

CHILDREN of gypsy and traveller families face serious health risks if they are to be housed on a former North Lincolnshire tip, protestors fear.

North Lincolnshire Council has proposed building a permanent gypsy and traveller site on land at Caistor Road, Barton-upon-Humber.
But the controversial scheme has met with stiff opposition from local residents, who maintain the site is unsuitable.

About 60 concerned townsfolk attended a consultation meeting at Barton's Assembly Rooms on Friday night.

And the speakers included Cleethorpes MP Shona McIsaac, whose constituency includes Barton.

Mrs McIsaac said: "This site has been a landfill site."

She said, because of its previous use, there could be hazardous materials in the ground and there was potentially a further danger from methane gas seeping through the soil.

"As far as I am aware, nobody has ever done any tests on that land to find out exactly what is in there. Nobody has done any proper chemical analysis," she said.

Bob Moore, one of organisers of the protest group and an industrial chemist, said there was evidence of methane gas permeating through the soil, which would still come to the surface even if the top was removed.

"It's explosive," he declared, adding exposure to the gas could also lead to brain damage.

Neither Coun Mick Grant, North Lincs Council cabinet member for housing and planning, nor any other members of the lead Labour group attended the meeting.

Coun Grant, however, later said: "The council is currently consulting on proposals for gypsy and traveller sites and I would urge people to have their say through the official channels.
"The council will consider all views before making any further decisions."

Friends of the Earth Blasts Bush Admin Railroad Routing Regs

For Immediate Release

For more information contact:
Nick Berning, 202-222-0748

Contact:
Fred Millar, 703-979-9191
Nick Berning, 202-222-0748


WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Bush administration published new regulations today that allow U.S. railroads to unilaterally select dangerous routes through or around major cities for chemical railcars that the federal agencies call “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder had the following response:

“These regulations are part of President Bush’s failed homeland security legacy. This rerouting policy leaves our cities vulnerable to attacks on trains carrying hazardous rail cargoes. It is an abdication of government responsibility in the face of corporate power that endangers millions of Americans.”

Fred Millar, rail security consultant for Friends of the Earth, said:

"Cities and states will need to protest these new regulations vigorously, and once again Congress will need to re-address the rail routing issue. This Bush administration pretense of regulation must be replaced with real protections for target cities."

OVERVIEW OF THE NEW RULE: SAME AS THE BUSH ADMINSTRATION’S LAST FAILED ATTEMPT

The new rule is nearly identical to the one Bush administration proposed December 21, 2006, and which Congress subsequently found inadequate. The previous rule and the new one allow railroads to pick hazardous materials routes using assumptions and calculations that are kept secret from the public. They also allow virtually no role for state and local officials in these selections and preempt state and local rerouting legislation. Eleven major U.S. target cities, beginning in 2005 with Washington D.C., and including St. Louis, Buffalo and Chicago, and two states (New York and Tennessee) have introduced new rerouting legislation, and many major media reports have shown the easy accessibility to dangerous railcars in cities and railyards.

The new rule utilizes the same flawed regulatory techniques as the last one, ensuring that virtually no protective rerouting will occur:

1. It puts individual railroads (including the 300 or so relatively new shortline railroads which often link major rail lines and the chemical company shippers or final customers for the dangerous rail cargoes) in charge of analyzing their own current routes and alternatives to these “over which they have authority to operate.” The Department of Transportation appeals in the regulation to the “good faith” of the railroads—a flawed approach.

2. Individual railroads are allowed to make the critical decision to “weight” the 27 new “factors” they must consider (in Appendix D) —DOT declines even to rank order the factors.

3. Railroads are told they should “work with” state and local officials, but the latter have no role in any of the important route analyses or selections.

4. The information on analyses and route selections must be “restricted” to those with “a need to know,” and specifically are not to be shared with the public.

5. The federal agencies will not approve route selections, nor set up any kind of new oversight, but leave it to the current cadre of overburdened inspectors.

6. The agency suggests that rerouting will entail increased safety risks and economic costs that will override potential terrorist risks. The example DOT uses for calculating the value of the rule is the accidental release of one railcar of chlorine in the tiny town of Graniteville, S.C.—much larger disasters are possible.

7. Even if a railroad identifies an alternative route as safer and more secure, it may continue to use the one through the target city by implementing some unspecified “remediation and mitigation” measures [p. 20762].

8. The interim final rule is not effective until June 1, 2008, and gives the railroads another full year (until Sept 1, 2009) to implement route analyses and selections.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

As CSXT suggested already in the federal docket, since 9/11 the public has reconsidered what is an acceptable risk:

“The support of the public, and of many policy makers, has greatly eroded since 9/11. Now the railroads are harshly criticized for transporting these [TIH, or “ Toxic by Inhalation” poison gas cargoes] …Our company’s reputation has been assailed…[and] vilified in the media. TIH cannot simply continue to move by railroad indefinitely…Even if the potential for ruinous liability were somehow erased, the widespread social disapproval of TIH transport by rail would remain.” http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf101/456287_web.pdf

In response to public concern, Congress enacted, and President Bush signed on August 3, 2007 a new toxics rail re-routing law that embodies this new bipartisan national consensus: we should protect our target cities by re-routing, wherever possible, the through railcar chemical “security sensitive” cargoes to go around "high consequence areas" onto non-target routes. [See H.R. 1, “The 9/11 Commission Act,” Section 1551,]:

"The Secretary of Transportation shall ensure that the final regulation requires each railroad carrier transporting security-sensitive materials in commerce to annually review and select the practicable route posing the least overall safety and security risk …." The new Bush Administration routing rule, on the other hand, provides the railroads an astonishing total of 27 new “factors” to consider in their routing decisions, and with only minimal federal oversight “in the most extreme cases.” Most of these factors are so entirely non-related to terrorism prevention [such as “safety” and “commercial practicability”] that they are clearly 27 ways NOT to re-route.

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Friends of the Earth (www.foe.org) is the U.S. voice of the world’s largest grassroots environmental network, with member groups in 70 countries. Since 1969, Friends of the Earth has been at the forefront of high-profile efforts to create a more healthy, just world.


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