ALCOA er besti vinur barnanna

NEWS: ICELAND UNDER ATTACK. THREATENED PROTESTORS RAISE STAKES, CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL PROTEST.

[ALCOA (Aluminium Company of America)] has a long-term track record of toxic pollution and social destruction.

•In 2003, it was found guilty by the United States Justice Department and the EPA of violating the Clean Air Act at its Rockdale Aluminum smelter near Austin, Texas. The Rockdale smelter was producing 260,000 tons of aluminum a year, while emitting the largest amount of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide of any single source in the country, with the exception of electric utilities. One hundred and four thousand tons of emissions (calculated from Alcoa's own estimates) were pouring annually from the plant; including 40,000 tons of smog-producing nitrogen dioxode and 60,000 tons of acid-rain-generating sulphur dioxide, as well as highly toxic metals such as mercury, copper, lead, and others, which eventually accumulated in Texas lakes and rivers.

•Alcoa's aluminium smelter at Massena, New York, was one of three plants which poisoned the St Lawrence river - a river which for centuries sustained the Mohawk indigenous community of Akwesasne. After being used as a dumping ground through much of the twentieth century, the river and its ecosystem became so contaminated that in 1986, the Mohawk community was advised to eat a minimal amount of fish from the river. Their traditional economy collapsed.

In addition, the PCBs, dioxins, heavy metals, and other pollutants left the Mohawk community with birth defects, miscarriages, and cancer. Mothers are advised not to breastfeed their children because of industrial contaminants in the food chain.

The slow process of environmental litigation and cleanup eventually revealed some of the scope of corporate abuse of the St. Lawrence. The Alcoa refinery eventually received a $3.75 million fine, the largest criminal penalty ever assessed in the history of the United States, for a hazardous waste violation.

•In the period between 1987 and 1999, more than 47 Alcoa facilities were cited by US state and federal anti-pollution regulators. In March 1999, Alcoa agreed to an $8.8-million settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency after being charged with illegally discharging inadequately treated wastewater from its Warrick County plant into the Ohio River between 1994 and 1999. In September 1999, Discovery Aluminas Inc., an Alcoa subsidiary, agreed to plea guilty to similar discharge violations and to pay more than $1 million in fines.

•On May 2, 2002, it was reported that Alcoa Inc. had offered to pay nine Australian workers $A350,000 each (US$187,337) in compensation for injuries allegedly caused by exposure to pollutants while working at the firm's Wagerup plant. The workers allege that their illnesses were caused by exposure to heavy chemicals and chemicals while working at the facility. Injuries alleged include multiple chemical sensitivity, reactive airways dysfunction and renal failure. Alcoa offered the settlement on the condition that the workers drop their lawsuits seeking compensation and damages. Eight of the workers accepted the settlement offer.

•In November 2004, Alcoa reported the eighth waste spill at its Western Australian Kwinana refinery in the space of five months.

•In Surinam, 6,000 people were recently forced to move from their ancestral communities in the tropical rainforest to make way for an Alcoa/Billiton dam and smelter. A proposed new dam for a smelter in Sarawak, Malaysia, could force the resettlement of 10,000 indigenous people. Dr. Kua Kia Soong, head of a non-governmental coalition in Sarawak asks: "Why do we want toxic and energy-hungry industries such as aluminum smelters? Aluminum smelting is one industry that the developed countries want to dump on suckers like us because it is environmentally toxic and it consumes voracious amounts of energy."

Æði.