This project takes the first steps to initiate the clean up of the most polluted region of Senegal – Hann Bay. The bay wraps around the industrial zone of the city of Dakar, Senegal. It is highly populated area, with local residents bathing in the water, and numerous fishing boats along the crowded shore. Industrial pollution along the banks from 1968 – 1997 has rendered the bay exceedingly toxic. This work will fund and support a group both within the Ministry of Industry and Ministry of Environment to create a credible implementation plan that will install an industrial waste treatment plan for the factories of the Hann region. Once the effluent treatment plant is in operation, work can begin to remediate legacy contamination from historical toxins.

Mikocheni, a neighborhood in Dar es Salaam, is home to four heavily polluted streams that run directly into the Indian Ocean. Untreated industrial and domestic waste is dumped into the waterways upstream, or into storm drains. Environmental Management Trust (EMT) is undertaking a project to monitor and stop this pollution of marine habitats and breaches. The project goals are to make wastewater treatment mandatory for all polluting industries, to stop residential houses from releasing waste from septic tanks into streams, and to ensure that sewers, storm drains and pumping stations are properly maintained to prevent leaks into the stream.

The Lawyers Environmental Action Team (LEAT) works in Mwanza and surrounding regions with community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, and the Mwanza City Council to identify problems and educate both polluters and victims of pollution about environmental laws. LEAT also conducts public interest litigation to force the cessation of polluting activities by both local factories and Mwanza City authorities. And LEAT works with surrounding towns and villages affected by polluting industries. Village and municipal leaders and residents have been educated about existing environmental laws used to combat environmental pollution, and they have been briefed on the Village Land Act of 1999 which stipulates rights of villagers regarding their land and other natural resource laws.

Zambia is a land-locked country in Central/Southern Africa with a population of about 10 million people. About 1.25 million people inhabit the capital, Lusaka, with another 2 million in the northern Copperbelt region. Major pollution-related problems are due to mining and industrial waste. In 2001, Blacksmith Institute helped to found ARE, an NGO focusing on a heavily polluted industrial area on the Kafue River. The Kafue River, part of the Zambezi basin, is a source of potable water for over forty percent of Zambia's population. It is also host to wildlife and birds. For decades, industries such as copper mines, metallurgical plants, textile plants, fertilizer factories, sugar processing plants, cement factories, various agricultural activities, and the Kafue Sewage Treatment Plant (KSTP) have polluted the river. Mineral deposits, chemicals, and suspended solids have led to overgrowth of aquatic weeds, choking river life. The continuous discharge of raw sewage into the Kafue River from the KSTP has contributed to the steady supply of nutrients (ortho-phosphates, nitrates, ammonia, etc.) ensuring the proliferation of various types of weeds, like the Salvina molesta, thereby causing eutrophication. Both aquatic life and human health are in danger. High incidences of environmentally mediated disease, such as gastro-enteritis, intestinal worms, and diarrhea diseases mostly in children have been reported from communities around the river and have been linked to drinking water from certain parts of the river. The raw sewer pollution of Kafue River could inadvertently lead to outbreaks of epidemics like cholera.

Bata Tannery uses various chemicals in tanning animal skins. Amongst these chemicals is chromium sulfate, which can easily be converted to either hexavalent or trivalent chromium. The effect of these chemicals on human and aquatic life is potentially lethal. Equally, the yeast production from Lee Yeast results in high concentrations of both chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) in the wastewater. The net effect is the reduction in the river system's oxygen concentration, leading to toxic anaerobic conditions.

A once-secret manufacturing center of the Soviet Union's defense industry, Dzerzhinsk (population 300,000) has hosted many chemical factories, including production facilities for Sarin and VX nerve gas. Lead additives for gasoline, mustard gas, munitions, and other highly-polluting products can also claim this city as their birthplace. While many of these factories are now closed, the chemical industry still employs over a quarter of local residents. The groundwater and soil around the city, about 250 miles east of Moscow, remain severely polluted with phenol, arsenic, dioxins, heavy metals, and a host of other toxins. Indeed, a dominant ecological landmark in the area is the “White Sea”, a 100-acre-wide lake of toxic sludge discharged from nearby factories.

Clearly, Dzerzhinsk faces huge challenges in managing this legacy of toxic wastes. It holds the ignominious title of "The Most Chemically Polluted Town" in the world. Greenpeace claims that the average life expectancy of city residents may have shrunk to a mere 45 years. The city's annual death rate, 17 per 1,000 people, is much higher than Russia's national average of 14 per 1,000. And, according to researchers at the Nizhny Novgorod Research Institute of Hygiene and Occupational Pathology, rates of reproductive health disturbances affecting women and fetuses, as well as rates of respiratory and pulmonary diseases in children, are dangerously high. In study after study, the health impacts of these chemicals continue to dampen enthusiasm and drain resources needed for economic and social recovery in Dzerzhinsk.

While there are many pollution-related issues that cry out for investment and remediation in the city, water quality is of paramount importance. The Dzerzhinsk Committee of Environmental Control, a local government agency dedicated to finding solutions for pollution-related problems, has highlighted the degree to which the quality of drinking water in some residential areas of the city, damaged by years of discharge of as many as 150 separate toxic chemicals, does not come close to meeting safety standards. Despite this assessment, the city still draws its drinking water from the same aquifers abused by toxic wastes and unused products over many years.

One area of particular concern is the residential sector of Gavrilovka (population 1,000), about 2 miles away from a former tetraethyl lead production facility. Environmental testing conducted in 2002 by a Russian laboratory identified elevated levels of metals (e.g., lead, arsenic) and toxic organic compounds in the groundwater that serves as the primary source for residents' drinking water. Industrial wastewater discharges and solid waste leaching were identified as primary sources of groundwater contamination.

In another city in the north east of India, Shillong, we are supporting the development of a project to clean up an extremely polluted stretch of the Wah-Umkrah River. This city has no sanitation treatment, and all the sewage from the town flows into the river, along with most of the garbage and factory pollution.

The lack of solid waste management in Cambodia is a widening crisis, and Kirirom National Park suffers acutely from such poor management. As the only national park within easy traveling distance from Phnom Penh (85 km), it is a major destination for tourists and local residents. In addition to prolific bird life, Kirirom Park also houses some unique flora, such as Sumatran Pine, the only pine occurring south of the Equator. The Ministry of Environment and the Department of Nature Conservation expressed their desire to address the litter problem, but they lacked the funding needed to organize waste collection and provide public education.

Significant industrial waste is haphazardly dumped into the Meycauayan River, a source of domestic and agricultural water for 250,000 people living in and around Manila. Substantial contamination comes from small scale lead recycling facilities along the river at Marilao, and from the many tanneries that dump untreated hexavalent chromium into the river. This river also feeds directly into the Manila Bay, and its effluents contaminate shellfish in commercial fishing areas.