Now, for the first time in ten years, there is a fighting chance that the toxic waste dumped in Haiti will finally be coming home. But we need your help to make it happen.Joseph Paolino, an official from the company which originally dumped the waste in Haiti, applied to the New York City government for a NYC trash hauling license. The NYC Commission which grants such licenses, wants to help bring the ash home. It negotiated a deal with Paolino; he could get the license only if his company provided landfill space worth $250,000 for the ash and contributed $100,000 toward the costs of shipping it to the United States. Paolino, anxious to get the lucrative NYC trash license, agreed to the deal.
Unfortunately, the total clean up cost exceeds $300,000. And the agreement expires in May 1988. We need to obtain another $200,000 fast. So far, Philadelphia is refusing to help. Essential Action, Greenpeace and several Haitian environmental groups have launched an emergency campaign to pressure Philadelphia to contribute to repatriate the waste.
We believe the City of Philadelphia should contribute the remaining funds to finally solve this 10-year environmental crime because:
- It is their waste.
- Philadelphia never paid for the original disposal of the waste. The City refused to pay the waste hauler because the waste was disposed of improperly, saving the City budget over $600,000 according to Greenpeace.
- The City of Philadelphia had a $130 million budget surplus last year. A contribution of $200,000 is only 0.008 percent of Philadelphia's annual budget, a small price to pay to remove this toxic threat from Haiti and win a victory for international environmental justice.
- If they don't pay now, we lose Paolino's contribution worth $350,000 and the City will be stuck with the entire bill in any future clean up attempts.
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