Essential Action Update - May 1, 2000

As you may have heard, the last month brought a significant victory in the
campaign to bring home Philadelphia's ash from Haiti. The ash left Haiti on
April 5th. This is a tremendous victory for the people of Haiti. Please see
the Haitian government's press release celebrating the departure of this
ash for more information.

However, the story is not over yet on our side. Philadelphia has still not
agreed to take the ash and it is now sitting on storage barges off the
coast of Florida. Waste Management - which recently bought the company
connected to the original dumping in Haiti - is currently deciding which of
its many landfills will accept the ash. To date, a disposal site has not
been identified and we do not know where the ash may go. Of course, we have
always called for it to be returned to Philadelphia, the City which
produced and exported it and which failed to take responsibility for it all
these years. 

We thank the NYC Trade Waste Commission and the members of Project Return
to Sender for all their hard work to bring the waste back from Haiti. We
note that it was removed from Haiti NO THANKS to Philadelphia, which
refused to accept it and contributed only a fraction of the funds it saved
years ago when the waste was exported.

We will post additional updates as we have news.