the toxic truth - Greenpeace

146 Amnesty internAtionAl And greenpeAce netherlAnds
Chapter 12
The clean-up and decontamination work led to
further distress amongst people in the affected
sites, as the movement of the waste brought
a return of the smell. 630 Commenting on the
decontamination effort in October 2006, the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) noted that: “The sites of Akouédo 1 and
2, Abobo Veneers and MACA have been treated.
Despite the end of works on certain sites, odours
persist forcing local residents to flee.” 631
As work progressed, it became clear that
the volume of polluted material that required
removal was far greater than the 2,500
tonnes originally provided for under the
contract agreed between Tredi and the state
of Côte d’Ivoire. The contract was amended
to take account of the larger quantities
of contaminated material that required
removal. 632
By February 2007 Tredi had removed some
9,322 tonnes of contaminated material from
affected sites in and around Abidjan. 633 In
March 2007, part of the waste was exported
by ship to the French port of Le Havre and
transported to the French town of Salaise-sur-
Sanne in France, where it was incinerated at
Tredi’s facilities. 634 The state of Côte d’Ivoire
conducted the export in accordance with the
terms of the Basel Convention. 635 However,
not all of the contaminated material recovered
by Tredi was exported to France, and it is not
clear where the remaining material was taken,
or how it was treated. Although Amnesty
International and Greenpeace asked the
government of Côte d’Ivoire to explain how
the waste had been dealt with, no answer had
been received at the time of writing.
However, even with the removal of more than
9,000 tonnes of contaminated material,
decontamination was not complete, and
several sites required more work. In March
2007 Tredi reportedly submitted a new
proposal to deal with remaining polluted
sites along Route d’Alépé near Djibi village.
However, a new contract was never agreed by
the Ivorian state, 636 and the decontamination
work carried out by Tredi effectively
stopped. Speaking later, in October 2007, a
spokesperson for Tredi commented that more
than 6,000 tonnes of heavily polluted material
was still present. 637
The settlement and Trafigura’s involvement
in the decontamination process
The reasons for suspending the Tredi cleanup
have never been made clear. 638 However,
it appears to be related to the out-of-court
settlement reached between Trafigura and
the Ivorian government on 13 February 2007
(see chapter 11). 639 Under the settlement,
of the CFA95 billion (approximately US$190
million) that Trafigura agreed to pay, CFA22
billion (approximately US$44 million) 640
was designated for costs related to the
decontamination. 641
The settlement also specified that Trafigura
was responsible for identifying any other
sites that might still contain waste as a
result of the dumping, and the supplementary
decontamination of those areas. 642 To that end,
both Trafigura and the Ivorian government
agreed to commission an audit of the
progress made under the Tredi contract. A
French company, Burgéap, was hired by the
state 643 to conduct the audit, which was to be
carried out in three phases:
» Phase 1: Collection of existing documents
and preparation of a plan for further
investigations.
» Phase 2: Further investigations at the sites.
» Phase 3: Definition of further work to be
done regarding decontamination.
Phase 1 of Burgéap’s audit was concluded
by July 2007, at which point the government
and Trafigura decided not to proceed with
the planned Phases 2 and 3. 644 Instead,
the parties reached an agreement to clean
up dumping points at one site on the Route
d’Alépé. 645 This decision was reportedly based
on Burgéap’s initial investigations at two