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Switchboard, from NRDC › Susan Egan Keane's Blog tag:switchboard.nrdc.org,2015:/blogs/skeane//198 2015-10-06T02:02:15Z Movable Type Pro 6.0.7 Mending our Ways: A Conversation on the Environmental Impacts of the Fashion Industry tag:switchboard.nrdc.org,2015:/blogs/skeane//198.19070 2015-10-05T13:10:47Z 2015-10-06T02:02:15Z Susan Egan Keane
Susan Egan Keane, Senior Environmental Analyst, Washington DC

On Monday morning, at the gathering of environmentally-minded business leaders known as SXSW Eco, I'll be leading a panel discussion on how to reduce the impacts of the fashion industry on the global environment. The globalization of apparel manufacturing means that many clothes are made in regions where environmental protection is weak. Apparel companies who choose to outsource to these regions, and who benefit from those lower costs, must take on the ethical responsibility of ensuring that their clothing is produced in an environmentally sound way, throughout their supply chain.

 NRDC has stepped in to help multinational apparel retailers and brands improve the sustainability of their supply chains, through our Clean By Design program. The program helps suppliers of multinational companies to reduce water, energy, and chemical costs through a set of ten best practices, so that factories can save a lot of money while while saving the environment. (See our infographic summarizing savings here When we started Clean by Design, we believed that demonstrating these substantial cost savings would be a strong incentive for the factories to adopt these cleaner practices. However, from a supplier point of view, there are more familiar ways to increase the bottom line (such as by simply increasing production), and many will gravitate to those well-known methods rather than take on the unfamiliar challenge of making environmental improvements. We've seen that these factories need the extra push of their multinational buyers, who need to make environmental performance a clear and critical part of their business relationship with their suppliers.

 Consumers can also play a role in pushing for better practices. Customers can choose clothes made from raw materials that are renewable and sustainably sourced (such as organic cotton) but this only tells part of the story, since the manufacturing process is where a lot of the environmental impact occurs. Consumers should educate themselves on the overall approach of their favorite brands toward environmental responsibility. This can include looking for real reporting and transparency about supply chains, and supply chain policies, not just fluffy "Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)" reporting, on their websites. Be skeptical of CSR pronouncements, as detailed with gusto in latest blog by my colleague, Linda Greer. Email/write to companies to express your interest in more consumer-facing information about their environmental efforts. Companies will respond to consumer demand, even beyond the dollars you spend. Your buying choices are some of the most powerful environmental weapons at your disposal - use them well.

 http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/skeane/mending_our_ways_a_conversatio.html Time to Roll up our Sleeves and Tackle Toxic Mercury Use in Small-Scale Gold Mining tag:switchboard.nrdc.org,2015:/blogs/skeane//198.18121 2015-03-16T19:50:00Z 2015-03-17T14:30:20Z Susan Egan Keane
Susan Egan Keane, Senior Environmental Analyst, Washington DC

[Artisanal Miners in Medellin, Colombia/photo credit: Marcello Veiga]

The last decade has witnessed a boom in the artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) business. About 10 million people are directly engaged in ASGM, and about 100 million people rely on ASGM for their livelihood, including those involved in the secondary economy that provides goods and services to the sector. However, many of these artisanal and small-scale gold mining operations use mercury - about 1600 tons of it every year, making it the leading source of mercury pollution in the world. The MercuryWatch website, which tracks mercury use in ASGM, has data here. The use of this poison can cause devastating local effects on miners, their families, their communities and their local environment, but it also contributes substantially to the overall pool of global mercury pollution, which threatens fish stocks worldwide. In a process that is centuries old, miners mix mercury with gold ore. The mercury sticks to the gold, separating it from other minerals in the ore. The resulting mercury-gold mixture (called amalgam) is then burned, releasing mercury vapor into the air. The process can also generate a substantial amount of mercury-contaminated waste and water pollution. This is the same practice that was used during our own gold rush in the United States in the 1840s and 1850s, which resulted in mercury pollution that persists to this day in some mining areas in the West.

The global community has recognized the dangers of using mercury in ASGM, and the need to replace mercury use with less-toxic processing options. The new Minamata Convention on Mercury, signed in 2013, includes a stand-alone article that requires that countries with small-scale gold mining take steps "to reduce, and where feasible eliminate, the use of mercury and mercury compounds in, and the emissions and releases to the environment of mercury from" those operations (My previous blog about the implications of the treaty for artisanal and small-scale gold mining has more information).

NRDC and our colleagues in the Zero Mercury Working Group were instrumental in advocating for this strong focus on artisanal and small-scale mining in the Convention. But getting strong language in the Convention was only the first step. Now we have to work to turn this global commitment into decisive and meaningful action.

Tomorrow I will join Brian A. Nichols, US Ambassador to Peru; Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Minister of Environment for Peru; and other government and civil society representatives from Brazil, Columbia, Ecuador and Peru for a three-day intensive workshop in Lima, Peru, to encourage these nations to implement plans to reduce mercury in the small-scale mining sector, and to find ways to support each other in these efforts. ASGM is an especially important issue in the Latin America/Caribbean region, not only because the practice accounts for over 70% of overall mercury emissions in the region but also because some illegal small-scale mining practices have resulted in significant deforestation and loss of habitat and biodiversity, especially in the Amazon region.

During the three-day workshop we will be encouraging our colleagues from these nations to reduce their mercury use and instead implement safer alternative processes, including methods that use gravity alone to separate gold from other minerals in ore. More details on the alternatives can be found here.

We also will explore ways to better manage the trade in commodity mercury in order to control its use in the ASGM sector. Finally, we will discuss increasing scientific capacity in the region to allow countries to better monitor mercury pollution, and to better measure progress in reducing this pollution.

We hope the workshop will generate proposals for specific actions these countries can take to reduce mercury consumption among artisanal and small-scale miners. It's a great chance to deliver on our global promise to phase down (and eliminate, if possible) the use of this toxic metal, and replace it with cleaner, less toxic and more efficient alternatives.

 http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/skeane/time_to_roll_up_our_sleeves_an.html The US Joins the Mercury Convention tag:switchboard.nrdc.org,2013:/blogs/skeane//198.15785 2013-11-07T21:47:54Z 2013-11-08T16:39:43Z Susan Egan Keane
Susan Egan Keane, Senior Environmental Analyst, Washington DC

On November 6, in a bold and surprising move, the United States became the first nation to officially join the Minamata Convention on Mercury. By being the first country to take the final steps necessary to join the Convention, among the 93 countries that initially signed on, the US has seized global leadership in tackling one of the most dangerous toxic pollutants in our environment. Fifty countries must join the Convention before it can take effect (or "enter into force," as the lawyers say). Now that the US has started the ball rolling, let's hope other countries are suitably impressed, and inspired to follow suit very quickly.

The Minamata Convention is critically important because it creates the foundation for international cooperation on mercury pollution, a problem no one country can solve on its own. That's because mercury is a global pollutant – it can travel through the atmosphere to locations thousands of miles away from where it is emitted, without regard for national boundaries. The Minamata Convention comprehensively addresses all the major sources of mercury pollution including mercury released from coal-fired power plants, as well as mercury intentionally used in industry (mining, chemical manufacturing, etc.). It also phases out mercury-based products such as measuring devices and switches. Finally, the Convention also controls the supply and trade of mercury. (A blog by my colleague David Lennett gives more detail about what the Convention does and doesn't cover.)

NRDC, together with our international NGO coalition, the Zero Mercury Working Group, has been laboring for almost a decade to make a global agreement on mercury a reality. As the Convention is now closer to entering into force, thanks to the US action, we are turning our attention to implementation – to make sure the agreement on paper translates into strong and committed action by all countries. We are already pressing key countries to take action immediately in the most urgent areas covered by the Convention, even before it enters into force. (You can download the ZMWG Action Challenge here.) And we'll keep up the pressure for other countries to follow the US example and officially join the Convention as soon as possible, so that we can begin the final journey to our mercury-free future.

 http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/skeane/the_us_joins_the_mercury_conve.html Mercury-free gold mining takes hold in Northern Philippines tag:switchboard.nrdc.org,2013:/blogs/skeane//198.15109 2013-07-19T16:46:56Z 2013-07-19T21:06:44Z Susan Egan Keane
Susan Egan Keane, Senior Environmental Analyst, Washington DC

Amid the spectacular beauty of the northern Philippines, I recently attended the 1st summit on Artisanal and Small Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) in Kalinga province. On its face this meeting was a modest local gathering about small scale mining in the region, but in fact it is a harbinger of important changes coming to small scale gold mining not only in the Philippines, but throughout the world, as small scale gold mining takes on the challenge of going mercury-free. In the Philippines, a new Executive Order (EO 79) recently banned the use of mercury in small scale gold mining. Further, should the Philippines sign onto the new Minamata convention as expected, the country's commitment to reduce or eliminate mercury in the small scale mining sector will become a matter of international law. The Kalinga summit brought together stakeholders to discuss the challenges of making this transition. But as usual, the summit revealed that the issues facing small scale gold miners go well beyond the technical issue of mercury use. The new executive order also limited areas open to small scale mining (called Minahang Bayan or People's Small Scale Mining Areas), and to the dismay of many small-scale miners, it upheld the mining law that (in their view) favors large-scale mining. EO 79 also pushes for putting provincial or city mining regulatory bodies into operation, bodies that many small scale miners perceive as biased toward large scale mining interests. The summit reinforced the lesson that the problem of mercury use in small scale mining cannot be solved in isolation from the broader issues touching the legitimacy of the small scale mining sector overall.

After the summit concluded, I was invited to visit the Ga'ang mining area, in Balbalan municipality, where the use of mercury in small scale mining was recently prohibited by local authorities. The site has now nearly completely converted to mercury-free methods. The mining area is controlled by a tribal group called the Banao Bodong Association, which has asserted its rights as an indigenous people to control the exploitation of natural resources in the tribal area. And control it they do. The area is very tightly administered. Mining is limited to tribal members and to residents of three "privileged" local communities. Miners must have a permit to enter the site; miners must pay a fee for each tunnel they exploit and for each rod mill they operate; no youth are allowed in the area except during school vacations; and no alcohol is permitted in the mine area. And now, no mercury use is allowed. There are stiff penalties for anyone caught using it.

I was excited to see this mercury-free operation in action, but I had to work for the privilege. To reach the mine site, we had to make a steep and treacherous trek 4.5 miles up the side of a mountain – a very challenging and in some places frightening ascent for me, but one that is easily navigated several times a day by the local haulers that carry all goods to the mining area from the closest local village, Sesec-An. Everything must be hauled in by hand, from soda pop and soap to large steel rod mill drums.  I asked why the local authorities do not improve the passage, to make it easier and safer for the miners and their suppliers to reach the mining site; the best speculation is that the elders and leaders want to intentionally keep the site remote and difficult to access, in order to maintain control over the site. As we hiked through the forest, our host and guide, Ms. Juliet, was quietly whispering to herself, and later told me that she had been whispering to spirits who live there, asking for our safe passage. "You cannot ignore them" she said and I believed her. I definitely needed all the help I could get to finish the journey.

 Emerging from the forest after our long hike, we came upon a mining camp that was completely different than any I had seen before. I was struck by how cozy and almost pastoral it seemed. The mining tunnels were unobtrusive and sometimes even hard to spot, dug into the side of the mountain, hidden by the lush greenery. The mining camp itself, with processing areas, small shops and living space, consisted of a series of small structures tightly hugging the side of the river. Most impressive was that nearly all of the operations were run by hydropower, using water diverted from the river. Waterwheels made from old tires were used to turn to the rod mills. The dominant sound in the mining area was the soft thwap thwap thwap of water wheels turning and splashing water as scores of rod mills positioned along the river quietly ground tons of ore. I've never seen a camp appear more tidy and well-ordered, decorated both with natural flower gardens and with plastic flowers crafted from recycled soda bottles. As one friend put it, it was as if the mining camp had been built by the Swiss Family Robinson.

Later that day, we were able to visit processing operations and talk to the miners. (I was not allowed to visit the digging operations, because it is considered bad luck for women to go into the tunnels.) Until this year, the miners used a process that involved a minimal amount of concentration achieved by washing the ore with a hose on an inclined plane, a process which concentrated the coarse gold but undoubtedly lost a lot of fine gold to the wash water. The resulting washed ore was then amalgamated with a large quantity of mercury. In contrast, with the new mercury-free set up, coarse gold is still separated with an initial wash but the wash water is then flowed over a carpet-lined secondary sluice to capture finer gold. Also, the tailings from this process are sometimes retained in a pond to be reprocessed (although ultimately water and tailings are discharged into the river, as attested by the river's milky white color). The resulting concentrate is then panned by hand, and then directly smelted to about 14 to 16 karat gold. Overall, the operations I saw seemed efficient, well-run, clearly profitable and blessedly mercury-free.

A number of reinforcing factors have likely contributed to the near-elimination of mercury from this mining site. First, my colleagues at the Filipino environment group Ban Toxics! provided intensive education and campaigning about the negative health and environmental impacts of mercury in the community. This outreach clearly made a big impression: ask any miner now in Ga'ang about mercury and he or she will recite the litany of its dangers. Second, the price of mercury has skyrocketed locally in the past few years. Mercury is currently sold locally at US$728 per kilogram (world market price is currently around US$50 per kilogram). So, the idea of no longer having to buy mercury certainly has its appeal. But maybe most importantly, the folks at Ban Toxics! also provided education on the use of mercury-free techniques, emphasizing enhanced gravity methods. They teamed with a group of miners from nearby Benguet province, who had already converted successfully and profitably to mercury-free methods, to help demonstrate the techniques. Critically, these alternative methods actually yielded more gold than the old mercury-based techniques. More gold makes a big impression, too (obviously). So, in summary: the miners had the opportunity to switch to a process that gives them more gold, without having to buy an expensive input like mercury, and without having to expose themselves to a highly toxic chemical. A "no-brainer" if there ever was one.

What can the rest of the world learn from Ga'ang? Is this place a special case, or are there lessons here that can be applied to small scale gold mining sites in other locations? No doubt there are distinctive features about Ga'ang that have supported the widespread adoption of mercury-free techniques, such as strong social cohesion, clear control by the local tribal association, a successful awareness campaign about the toxicity of mercury, and the very high local mercury prices.

But my hunch is that it all comes down to the gold. The Ga'ang miners simply get more gold now than they did before, and that is strong motivation to change. But it is critical to understand that the mercury-free process adopted in Ga'ang works well because of the nature of the gold ore found there. When the initial concentration of gold in the ore is relatively high to begin with (about 1 g gold per 50 kg sack of ore in Ga'ang), it is feasible to use rudimentary (but effective) gravity-only techniques to further concentrate the ore to a level high enough to be smelted directly. And I can personally attest that these miners are able to produce a lot of gold this way. We got an eye-popping demonstration of this high productivity when we visited some miners who were busy smelting the fruits of two weeks of labor. They estimated they would get around 500 g (half a kilo) of gold from one tunnel for the two week period. While it is true that this effort involved a big team (about 40 people) producing the ore, still. Wow. They let me hold the gold ingots they had produced so far - about 250 g. There I was, staring at around $10,000 worth of gold resting heavily in the palms of my hands, and they were only half way through. With results like that, it shouldn't be very hard to convince people to change processes.

Nonetheless, for some miners, change is still hard. The miners I spoke with admitted there is still surreptitious use of mercury in Ga'ang. They speculated that those still using mercury are short-term miners looking for quick cash – they are not concerned with getting the most gold they can get from ore, but rather getting gold fast, even if they leave some behind. But miners with longer term interests see things differently. For those of us looking to help miners transition away from mercury, it is worth remembering that this is an ongoing process, even in the best of circumstances like in Ga'ang. Changing attitudes and habits will not happen overnight.

And there are other troubles on the horizon for the tribe, beyond mercury. I was not surprised to learn that this gorgeous terrain overlaps with the Balbalasang-Balbalan National Park – another typical conflict that often arises between local people and national-level interests, who want to develop the tourism potential of the region. The Philippine government must find a way to balance its aims in establishing a national park with the rights of the tribe in their ancestral domain. Unfortunately, it seems this issue will play out long after the mercury problem in the area is over.

The story of Ga'ang's transition to mercury-free mining may offer an inspiring blueprint for other similar mining sites, but given the particular confluence of fortunate conditions that have favored the mercury-free transition there, I don't think it offers a one-size- fits-all-solution. But the experience does prove, without a doubt, that when there is deep understanding of the local situation (including the technical and social environment in which miners are working), and when solutions are tailored to fit those local circumstances (including mobilizing miners themselves), the results can be astonishing.

 http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/skeane/mercury-free_gold_mining_takes.html The Minamata Convention - what it means for Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining tag:switchboard.nrdc.org,2013:/blogs/skeane//198.14314 2013-03-04T13:10:11Z 2013-03-04T21:54:33Z Susan Egan Keane
Susan Egan Keane, Senior Environmental Analyst, Washington DC

It has been over a decade since the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) first sounded the alarm about the transboundary nature of mercury pollution, and four years since the nations of the world started negotiating a treaty to tackle this global problem. Finally, this past January, in the wee hours of a snowy morning in Geneva, the 140+ member countries of UNEP finally agreed on the text of an agreement, to be named the Minamata Convention once it is officially signed in that Japanese city in October.

The very existence of a multilateral environment agreement of any kind, in this age of global discord, is itself a minor miracle. Also notable is the fact that mercury use in artisanal and small scale gold mining (ASGM) merited its very own Article in the treaty. This tacit acknowledgment of the importance of ASGM in the global mercury picture is a far cry from UNEP's 2002 Global Mercury Assessment (GMA) which barely mentioned ASGM. In contrast, UNEP's 2013 Global Mercury Assessment estimates that ASGM is now the largest source of mercury emissions and releases in the world. People can (and do) argue about the reasons why the ASGM emissions and release estimates have risen dramatically over the past few years, but whatever the numbers "really" are, there is little dispute that ASGM is a major source of mercury pollution that directly affects millions of miners and their families, nearby communities and the global environment.

Under the new treaty, countries where ASGM takes place will have to reduce, and where feasible, eliminate mercury use in the sector. The treaty does not require an outright ban of mercury use (contrary to some early erroneous reports), although restrictions on the supply and trade of mercury will likely make it more expensive and harder to find. Given that ASGM is now estimated to be the world's largest source of mercury pollution, this approach may strike some observers as too flexible and even weak. If ASGM is such an important mercury pollution source, why not go all out and ban mercury use in ASGM immediately?

The short answer: that approach has been tried – and has failed. Even before the era of the mercury treaty negotiations, a number of countries with burgeoning ASGM populations recognized mercury pollution as a serious problem and responded with stringent laws banning the use of mercury in ASGM, essentially criminalizing the activity. Yet today, these same countries have flourishing ASGM sectors with continued widespread use of mercury. That unfortunate experience shows that it's not enough to simply say "illegal" without addressing the root problems - and opportunities - that ASGM presents. Miners are not going to readily abandon their livelihoods without viable, profitable alternatives. Laws that criminalize miners run the risk of simply further marginalizing the sector and creating thriving black markets for both mercury and the gold it produces. This can severely undermine legitimate efforts to help miners transition away from mercury usage. In fact, I have heard anecdotes about such laws having the perverse outcome of increasing mercury exposures, because some miners choose to burn amalgam indoors, in their homes, away from the eyes of the law, but exposing themselves and their families to more mercury in the process.

The treaty suggests a different, and hopefully more successful, approach that recognizes the need for a period of transition during which miners must be given assistance, knowledge and training to convert to lower mercury, and ultimately non-mercury, processes while still reaping the economic benefits that ASGM can yield. The annex of the treaty, which guides countries on creating their National Action Plans, sheds some light on how UNEP expects countries to undertake this daunting task. Among other requirements, countries must develop strategies to eliminate some of the worst practices associated with ASGM including whole ore amalgamation, an intensive use of mercury causing some of the worst pollution. This focus on elimination of worst practices will help countries set priorities to deal with the largest and most dangerous uses of mercury first. Another element of the annex that may seem out of place in an environmental treaty: directing countries to develop strategies to formalize ASGM. Including formalization as a required part of the National Action Plans reflects the recognition that mercury cannot be effectively outlawed by the stroke of pen, but rather by addressing the root economic causes that underpin mercury use and ultimately by bringing the ASGM sector into the formal economy, where the use of mercury can be replaced with better technologies.

What does this all mean, in practical terms, for artisanal and small scale miners? Given the flexibility of the treaty, it is hard to predict the exact path that any given country will take. However, to fulfill its intended promise, the treaty should result in less mercury in the environment, better health and more profits for miners. Putting aside its environmental sins, mercury is often a poor way to extract gold when compared to other methods; helping miners adopt more effective, low/non-mercury techniques will mean less mercury exposure and more gold (and thus more money) for the miners. A technical document created for the Global Mercury Partnership describes these alternatives in more in detail. I also hope that the treaty leads to better recognition of ASGM as a legitimate part of a country's economy, and that governments will use the mercury treaty as a window of opportunity to help miners more broadly by improving their practices, enhancing profits, and reducing health and environmental impacts generally (i.e. not only the impacts from mercury). Other stakeholders such conservation and environmental protection groups can seize this unique moment to engage miners in a more comprehensive dialogue about the proper balance between economic development from mining and the need to protect special and valuable natural resources and places.

Lastly, the treaty language encourages governments to involve a wide range of stakeholders in the process of designing and carrying out their mercury transition strategies, so the most important practical message for miners is: get involved, as quickly and vocally as possible, to make your voices heard.

 http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/skeane/the_minamata_convention_-_what.html A New Global Picture on Mercury in Fish tag:switchboard.nrdc.org,2012:/blogs/skeane//198.13782 2012-12-04T15:11:03Z 2012-12-04T15:37:45Z Susan Egan Keane
Susan Egan Keane, Senior Environmental Analyst, Washington DC

Most people have heard warnings to limit or avoid eating certain kinds of fish that may have relatively high levels of mercury. Today the Biodiversity Research Institute released a new report, compiled from scientific studies around the globe, that paints a more comprehensive picture than ever of widespread mercury contamination in fish and other marine life, including species that are popular on our dinner plates.

But complicating this picture is the fact that fish is a very healthy food – a source of lean protein and heart-healthy omega 3s – so it's smart to make fish a regular part of your diet. To balance the benefits with possible mercury risks, people are often told to eat more fish but to choose low-mercury varieties.

While this is good advice, it frames the issue in the wrong way. Instead of balancing mercury exposure against the nutritional benefits, how about we stop polluting fish with mercury in the first place! Thousands of tons of mercury pour into the global environment every year, with big contributions from coal-fired power, metal mining and processing (especially small scale gold mining), and cement production. Mercury is also still found in some consumer products and in old-fashioned industrial processes. (Remember mercury thermometers? They're hard to find now in the US but still popular in developing countries).

The US has come a long way in the past decades to address its own sources of mercury pollution but the US can't solve this problem on its own. That's because mercury is a global pollutant –it can travel through the atmosphere to a location thousands of miles away from where it is emitted, without respect or regard for national boundaries.

Fortunately the world community has come to grips with the global nature of the mercury problem and since 2009 has been negotiating an international agreement to control mercury pollution. So far the negotiations have been slow going. What's the hold up? We already have the technology to manage mercury pollution -- we know how to control mercury emissions, and there are mercury-free alternatives for nearly all mercury-containing products and industrial processes. What's missing is an aggressive and coordinated effort among nations to put these controls and alternatives in place. The final treaty negotiation session, scheduled for January in Geneva, is the last chance for countries to create a strong framework of international law against mercury pollution. Fish lovers everywhere will be watching closely.

 http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/skeane/a_new_global_picture_on_mercur.html How Clean Are Your Clothes? Pollution from China's Textile Industry tag:switchboard.nrdc.org,2012:/blogs/skeane//198.12206 2012-04-11T13:59:20Z 2012-04-16T17:00:53Z Susan Egan Keane
Susan Egan Keane, Senior Environmental Analyst, Washington DC

More than 6000 water pollution violations from apparel factories in China – that is just one revelation in a stunning new account of water pollution from the Chinese textile industry, courtesy of noted Chinese environmentalist Ma Jun and his Green Alliance of activist partners. The violations included serious threats such as illegally dumping untreated toxic wastewater into rivers and streams. And these are the just violations we know about! Given the general lack of enforcement of environmental laws in China, there are likely many more violators out there that simply did not make the official record books.

The IPE report comes on the heels of a well-publicized report by Greenpeace several months ago that also focused on water pollution problems in the textile industry in China.

Clearly, with the publication of these two reports, the days of the '"anonymous" supply chain operations are over.

Retailers and brands can no longer realistically hope that problems at their manufacturing facilities around the world will remain quietly local; the curtain is rising on these operations, and the public is becoming savvier about linking international businesses to the environmental problems they are experiencing from these factories. .

After nearly five years of work on pollution problems in China's apparel industry through NRDC's Clean By Design initiative, it comes as no surprise to me that some of these polluting factories are making clothes for well-known international retailers and brands. Clean By Design is an NRDC effort to work with clothing retailers and brand to improve environment performance of their suppliers. While many companies, including ones we've worked with, have made very public efforts to improve sustainability in their operations, we've seen that their reach into their supply chains is often not as thorough as it needs to be to make real change.

It is common for companies to have a business relationship only with factories at the "end" of the chain, that is, the ones actually stitching together the clothes. They often have little to no contact with factories further "up" the supply chain, that is, the ones who spin, knit, dye and finish the fabric before it becomes a garment. Unfortunately, these factories "up the chain" are where the most serious pollution problems occur, because of their intensive use of water, energy and toxic chemicals. That's where the action is, so that's where any multi-national apparel corporate responsibility program needs to focus.

It's also where business decision-making needs to focus. Sourcing departments in these firms must start to include environmental compliance as one of the factors considered when deciding where to place orders. Without these real business consequences of poor environmental performance, all the sustainability reports in the world will not make a difference.

To protect their brand reputations, (and to make truly sustainable products), international companies must take much more aggressive steps to ensure that the factories that make their goods are not polluting the communities where they are operating. Companies can start by mapping out their full supply chain, and checking for compliance problems by making routine checks of Ma Jun's database of violations and other public sources of information. If the factories have problems, the retailers and brands should require them to inform the public and to work to resolve the problems quickly. Responsible companies need to walk away from places that are in chronic non-compliance with environmental laws. To move even further ahead, the companies need policies that give their suppliers business incentives to go beyond simple compliance, and adopt innovative and efficient ways to make clothes that use less water, have a smaller carbon footprint and use nontoxic dyes and materials.

But requiring basic compliance is the most important first step in the right direction.

 http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/skeane/how_clean_are_your_clothes_pol.html Travels with Mercury II: Using Mercury in Small Scale Gold Mining tag:switchboard.nrdc.org,2009:/blogs/skeane//198.3453 2009-06-03T03:16:24Z 2009-06-13T00:16:22Z Susan Egan Keane
Susan Egan Keane, Senior Environmental Analyst, Washington DC

 In my last post, I described my visit to small scale gold mining operations in Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo. The devastation of the land was stunning, but the truth is, I didn't come to Indonesia see the effects of small scale mining on the landscape. I came for the mercury.

Mercury is a very nasty toxin that damages the nervous system, especially the growing brains of young children. Unfortunately, mercury is also a very common, widespread pollutant - in fact, nearly every state in the U.S. advises against fishing in one or more of its streams or rivers, because of mercury contamination.

While mercury is a naturally occurring element, we humans contribute substantially to the mercury that circulates in the global environment. Most of the mercury that we emit comes from burning coal (another entry in the long list of coal's many sins; see also: global warming, mountain top removal, toxic fly ash spills). However, mercury is also routinely used around the world in certain products, like batteries and lighting, and in industrial processes, including small scale gold mining. The miners combine the mercury with gold-containing ores; the mercury reacts with the gold particles to form a mercury-gold amalgam. The amalgam is then heated, to burn off the mercury, leaving behind only the gold. This technique is quick and effective; it is also inexpensive, because mercury itself is very cheap.

Now, you are probably thinking, how much could these small scale miners really contribute to the overall global mercury problem? After all, they are small scale operators, by definition. But consider that there are somewhere between 10 million to 20 million small scale gold miners working in Asia, South America and Africa. It adds up.

A United Nations Environment Program report estimates that up to 1350 tons of mercury are used each year by these miners, making it the single largest use of mercury in the world. And, most of the mercury they use will end up in the environment - either washed into the tailings, or emitted to the air when the amalgam is burned.

My visit to Kalimantan, Borneo, gave me the chance to observe first hand the use of mercury in small scale gold mining. When I arrived at the amalgamation area, there in front of me was a good-sized bottle of mercury, about 300 grams worth (the same amount contained in about 60,000 compact fluorescent light bulbs).

In person, mercury seems placid and harmless. In fact it's downright pretty. It's shimmering and silvery, and looks like a lot of fun to play with. One miner poured out about 100 grams of the mercury from the bottle into a bucket containing the gold ore concentrate. Standing in a small pool built just for this process, the miner slowly poured the contents of the bucket, a little at a time, into a flat pan. The panner carefully swirled the material around, allowing the lighter minerals to float to the top while the heavier mercury-gold amalgam sunk to the bottom. Swirling, swirling, a blob of amalgam finally plumped up from the sand at the center of pan. Guided by the panner's finger, the blob wriggled to the edge of the pan and then plopped back into the bucket, while the waste material was washed into the pool.

This process patiently continued until all of the amalgam had been collected in the bucket and all of the waste material had been washed away. The amalgam was then filtered through a cloth - excess mercury was squeezed out and saved for later use. The remainder was a tiny, pea-sized mercury-gold amalgam ball, which was later sold to one of the gold shops that line the main street of Karengpangi, the nearest town.

All of that work, a full day of digging, sluicing and processing, all for that tiny ball. But imagine how much more work it would be without the mercury. The tedious and inefficient process of panning gold without the help of the mercury would undoubtedly take hours more time and yield much less gold. In this area, the gold yield when using mercury is only about 3 to 5 grams per day; the miners can ill-afford to work all day for less than that.

It bothered me, but didn't surprise me, that the miners' attitude toward mercury was very casual. The miners handled the mercury with ease, mixing and squeezing it with their bare hands. A small crowd, including a few bashful children, gathered around to chat and watch the amalgamation process (and to stare at us, the foreigners), with no regard to the very hazardous material being used in front of them.  To them, it is just a tool of the trade, not a dangerous toxin that threatens their health.

Fortunately, there are efforts underway to educate miners about the dangers of mercury, and to help them find ways to change their practices. In my next post, I'll report on some of the successful measures taken in this community, and in others around the world, to substantially reduce the amount of mercury used and released while mining gold.

 http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/skeane/travels_with_mercury_ii_using.html Travels with Mercury: Small-Scale Gold Mining in Indonesia tag:switchboard.nrdc.org,2009:/blogs/skeane//198.3368 2009-05-17T19:22:00Z 2009-05-27T15:24:02Z Susan Egan Keane
Susan Egan Keane, Senior Environmental Analyst, Washington DC

About a month ago I found myself clinging with both hands to the back of a motorcycle, travelling through what looked like a desert landscape. In fact, I was in Central Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, where the landscape was once unbroken, dense green vegetation, with orangutans swinging through the trees.

Those trees are long gone; instead of dense vegetation, there are unbroken miles of sandy mining waste, the handiwork of thousands of small scale miners, looking for gold. I was riding over the barren lands already worked by the miners, in order to reach the active mining operations.

I had been invited by a local NGO, the Yayasan Tambuhak Sinta (YTS), and by Dr. Kevin Telmer, a researcher from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, to visit these mining sites, to learn first hand about both the economic benefits and environmental consequences of small scale gold mining. Although the name "Kalimantan" means "river of diamonds," it is the promise of gold that has drawn thousands of small scale miners to this region of Borneo over the past decade.

Like millions of small scale miners around the world, these men are irresistibly attracted by the high price of gold, currently around $900 per ounce on the world market. Even if the miners produce only a few grams of gold per day, they can clear about $5 per day, which is about twice the current minimum wage in Central Kalimantan. The gold gives them hope of escape from the intractable poverty that afflicts many, if not most, of the people living on this island.

However, it's astonishing how much land must be cleared, how many tons of soil processed, to extract those few grams, a gold pellet the size of a pea. The miners use water cannons to blast soil from the sides of pits dug into cleared land. The water-soil mixture, or slurry, is pumped down an inclined trough, called a sluice, to separate the heavier particles, including gold, from the rest of the material in the soil. The amount of gold "concentrate" retained in the sluice is tiny compared to the amount of waste material washed away.

The waste material is piled in heaps next to the pits. Once the miners finish with one pit, they move onto another, and then another, and another, leaving a vast, irregular topography of deep pits next to tall waste piles. At just this one site we visited, we calculated that about 4800 hectares (about 50 square kilometers) of land had been disturbed using this practice; I wonder how many more hectares throughout Borneo bear similar scars.

The staggering disruption of land and habitat is only one of the environmental problems caused by small scale gold mining; unfortunately for the miners, their families and the rest of the world, the miners use toxic mercury to extract the gold from the "concentrate". Mercury is a neurotoxin that can damage the nervous system; the mercury endangers not only miners and their families, but can also travel around the globe, depositing in the world's waters and poisoning the global fish supply.

I am an anti-mercury warrior, who spends much of my working life fighting against global pollution from this potent toxin; in my next post, I'll describe what it was like to finally meet my nemesis in person.

 http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/skeane/travels_with_mercury_smallscal.html


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The Missouri Review
Volume 36, Number 4, 2013
p. 144 | 10.1353/mis.2013.0109
In Memory, JTB
By the time you realize how
I've shrunk enough that two
beetles shoulder to shoulder
in the aisles of a cabbage leaf
could give me the what-for
I'll be aweigh on the swells
of night, galley engorged
with slurpings, but light getting
lighter becomes the weighty
nature of an old dragon lady
whose spasms slather the sky
as galaxies glide through my black
holes and I stretch to accept
each spurt of twinkling cloud.
"For a while now I've been playing around with scale, testing how the tight universe of the poem can shift us quickly through the micro and macro. Through the interplay of line and syntax, metaphor and sound, we can scoot, soar and plummet—the way with Google Earth we float above continents, enter the stars and then, with a quick scroll, we're zooming in on our own gray roof among many gray roofs. It takes just another push of the imagination, a stride across a stanza break or the snap of a clause, and we can find ourselves tiny inside the tiny, walking the city of a cell. I've been reading, very casually, about the origin of and evolution of life on earth and speculations that the first cell, the first life, came from reactions between rocks and chemicals on seafloors of acid oceans. One evolutionary biologist has said recently about the origin of life: 'The line between the quick and dead is a little fuzzy.' This fuzziness of the line might look sharp from a distance or like a cloud up close."
Michelle Boisseau received her second NEA poetry fellowship in 2010. A Sunday in God-Years, her fourth book of poems, was published by University of Arkansas Press 2009; the press also published her third book, Trembling Air, a PEN USA finalist, in 2003. Her textbook, Writing Poems (Longman), in its eighth edition, is coauthored with Hadara Bar-Nadav. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. Recent work has appeared in Poetry, Yale Review, Cincinnati Review and Miramar.
T1 - I Ate My Mate, and: Children Visiting Hospice, and: Nothing Is the Most We Ever Know, and: Wax for the Sleigh Runners, and: Head of Steam, and: The Voyage of the Sentence Begins, and: Happy Birthday to You, You Live in a Zoo
A1 - Boisseau, Michelle
JF - The Missouri Review
PB - University of Missouri
UR - http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/missouri_review/v036/36.4.boisseau.html
N1 - Volume 36, Number 4, 2013
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My wife filed for a divorce and then her boyfreind moved into the house that I am paying on. She is seeking alimony, but I read that if she is cohabitating there there is no alimony awarded. Is this coprrect for NYS?
Criminal Defense Attorney
No. That would not be viewed as a compelling reason to deny the spouse temporary maintenance during litigation or maintence after the divorce if she otherwise qualifies.
If you found this "helpful" or "best answer," please click it with my appreciation. My response is for educational purposes and does not constitute legal advice nor creates an attorney client relationship which requires all the details and a personal conference.
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No. If she actually remarries, any spousal maintenance awarded would terminate. But, there is no law in NY that precludes awarding spousal maintenance due to cohabitation.
Divorce / Separation Lawyer
The key trigger condition is remarriage, not cohabitation, as both counsel stated.
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