GREENPEACE: DECISION OF THE NATIONAL PROPERTY FUND CONCERNING SPOLANA'S DIOXIN DECONTAMINATION HAS TO BE REVIEWED BY THE ANTI-MONOPOLY OFFICEPraha, 4 November 2002 – Greenpeace today requested the Czech Office for the Protection of Economic Competition to investigate the commissioning of the dioxin decontamination at the Czech chemical company Spolana Neratovice (1). The National Property Fund (FNM) commissioned the task without open tender to the waste firm SITA Bohemia, part of the French SITA group. With this, FNM did not only prevent access to this project for competing firms, but also prevented proper proof that the chosen solution for the liquidation of the dioxin contamination is indeed the best from the point of view of health and environment. “According to Greenpeace, the Fund abused regulations in the law on public tendering and adjusted the conditions in the commissioning procedure so that only one on beforehand chosen firm could comply with them. Therefore Greenpeace requested an investigation to find out whether the Fund did not violate the rules for tenders,” announced Greenpeace's toxic expert Dr. Miroslav Suta (2). >From an environmental point of view as well as from an economic one, the procedure taken by the FNM is not acceptable. The choice of one technology without proper comparison with other similar ones in this case predetermined one concrete firm, receiving an uncompeted hundred million Euro order. “We do not want to exclude that the chosen technology is suitable, and we have no interest in a specific technology or firm. We criticize, however, the fact the Fund only worked out documentation that factually promotes the BCD technology, so that it could skip the necessity of an open tender,” explained Suta. The dioxin contamination at Spolana was caused in the 1960s and its liquidation will still take several years. It is therefore controversial that a possible delay because of a transparent open tender process would cause such a dangerous situation, that the Fund should choose a non-standard procedure. The BCD technology that was choosen by the National Property Fund belongs according to experts to the so called alternative destruction methods that indeed can be used for the liquidation of dioxins. Besides this one there are other non-incineration technologies that are capable of effective removal of these extremely toxic substances, like e.g. the Canadian GPCR (Gas-Phase Chemical Reduction) or the American SET (Solvated Electron Process). An open competition procedure was also used by the United Nations for the commissioning of several decontamination model projects in Slovakia and on the Phillipines. For use in United Nation projects dealing with persistent organic substances (such as DDT, PCBs and dioxins), Greenpeace experts several years ago already prepared a list of all commercially availble technologies in the world that can be used for dioxin decontamination (3). Greenpeace pointed out these techniques to the FNM and the Czech Environmental Ministry already last March. Representatives of the FNM, however, denied this. The Fund furthermore denied Greenpeace access to information concerning the contracts and tender procedures around the liquidation of the dioxin contamination at Spolana. Greenpeace then sued the FNM for an infraction of the Law on Access to Information and filed a complaint at the Town Court in Prague (4). Greenpeace demands already from spring 2001 containment of the dioxin pollution at Spolana Neratovice, and a fast consecutive sanitation. Greenpeace warned Spolana and all responsible authorities several times of the risks involved. FURTHER INFORATION: Dr. Miroslav Suta, (Czech, English) Greenpeace toxic expert, mobile: +420.603 443 140, tel.: +420.224 319 667, +420.233 332 289, e-mail: miroslav.suta@cz.greenpeace.org Ir. Jan Haverkamp (English, German, Dutch, Czech), Greenpeace Campaign Director in the Czech Republic, mobile: +420.603 569 243, e-mail:jan.haverkamp@cz.greenpeace.org Mgr. Tomas Tetiva , (Czech, English) Greenpeace media assistant, mobile: +420.603 414 739, e-mail: tomas.tetiva@cz.greenpeace.org Internet:
NOTES FOR THE EDITOR: (1) On 4 November 2002, Greenpeace handed the request via the law firm Krejcik and Vlk to the Office for Economic Competition in Brno. (2) FNM commissioned the dioxin sanitation project at Spolana only to one interested firm under paragraph 50 of Law no. 199/1994 Sb. concerning public commissioning. This is only possible, in case there is a serious danger to human life or for considerable damage. See further the Internet pages of the FNM: http://www.fnm.cz (3) The worldwide agreement to ban 12 persistent organic substances was signed under the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) in May 2001 in the Swedish capital Stockholm. The Czech Republic belongs amongst over 100 signatory countries and Czech Parliament ratified the convention last year. It concerns the following substances: aldrin, DDR, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, chlordane, mirex, toxafen, hexachlorbenzene, polychlorinated bi-fenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated di- benzodioxins (PCDDs) and di-benzofuranes (PCDFs). (4) Greenpeace filed a suit against the National Property Fund (FNM) at the Town Court in Prague on 3 September 2002. In January 2002, Greenpeace demanded access to information on the liquidation of toxic contamination at Spolana under Law 123/98 Sb. on the Right on Environmental Information and Law 106/99 Sb. on Free Access to Information. FNM refused this on the grounds that neither of these laws has a relation to FNM. An appeal against this decision was then dismissed by FNMs president. Further information can be found in Greenpeace's press release of 16 September 2002. |
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