By Ben Pangelinan
For Variety

THIRTEEN years after I first filed suit to stop the incinerator and the “sweetheart” contract, we filed our appeal briefs in the Supreme Court yesterday. Our battle is turning out to be the longest public interest court case in Guam history. And as usual, when it comes to court cases dealing with protecting the public interest, Mike Phillips is on our side. In this particular case, right alongside us is the ever staunch Santa Rita Mayor Joseph Wesley.
Of course, I am talking about Pangelinan vs. Wesley vs. Gutierrez, the attempt to build an incinerator in Santa Rita and the sweetheart contract that is a financial bonanza for the developers and what we believe is an economic and environmental fiasco for the people of Guam.
Other island leaders and many supporters in the community joined us in our effort to stop the incinerator and the contract. Former Senator Lou Leon Guerrero sponsored a series of community debate by experts of each side to inform and educate the public on incineration. We had industry experts from the incinerator proponents and off-island expert Dr. Paul Connet, professor of Chemistry at St. Lawrence University in New York, and local scientist Dr. Robert Richmond presenting their learned opinion and scientific evidence on the harmful effects and byproducts of municipal solid waste incinerators.
On the legal and financial aspects of the contract, we had the help of former Speaker Don Parkinson who had the contract reviewed by a national legal institute that specialized in reviewing complicated contracts and determining their validity. In their opinion, it was not. Former Senator Joanne Brown, who, in hearings before the Legislature, exposed that members of the GEDCA board never read the contract and were not aware of its provisions before approving it and the admission by then Lt. Gov. Madeleine Bordallo that she signed the contract without reading a single line and not knowing the terms and conditions. They told me to sign it and I did.
If she did, she would have found out that the project started out as a contract to produce energy or electricity by ocean thermal energy conversion. No mention of incineration. Then when connected interests took a hold of the rights, it changed to the building of a municipal incinerator and we must pay them even if we do not use the incinerator. And pay we will through the hole in our pockets that this contract will tear. A new addition was included that gave the company the exclusive right to develop a new landfill. They had to approve if we wanted to build one using a competitive process to save the people money. The contract then was expanded to give the right to the incinerator people to build a regular 40-megawatt base load power plant with the government buying their power they produce. Later, we found that the company, without any general public notice and awareness, was given a license by the Chamorro Land Trust to over 25 acres of Chamorro Land Trust Commission property.
And what of incineration itself? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found medical and municipal waste incineration to be the primary source of dioxins and a major source of mercury and other toxic substances.
Dioxins and related compounds are extremely potent toxic substances that produce a remarkable variety of adverse effects in humans and animals at extremely low doses. These compounds are persistent in the environment and accumulate in magnified concentrations as they move up the food chain, concentrating in fat, notably in breast milk. They are distributed globally and are present in every member of the human population. Dioxins are known to cause cancer. Developing organisms are particularly susceptible in all species studied, and very small fetal exposures to dioxins frequently have permanent, life-long effects.
Mercury is also bioaccumulative and is toxic to the kidneys and nervous system, interfering with normal brain development.
And people wonder why I won’t give up.
(Ben Pangelinan is a Senator in the 29th Guam Legislature and a former speaker now serving in his seventh term in the Guam Legislature. He can be reached at: senbenp@guam.net or ctzenben@ite.net.)