Common
Press Release of Greenpeace, Arnika and EPS:
CONTAMINATED NATURE RESERVE CERNINOVSKO WILL BE INVESTIGATED BY THE POLICE DIOXIN LEVELS ARE UP TO FIVE HUNDRED TIMES EXCEEDEDPraha/Melnik, 19 May 2003 The environmental organisations Greenpeace, Arnika and the Environmental Law Service (EPS) together with local inhabitants today filed a criminal suit because of the pollution of the Cerninovsko nature reserve with toxic substances. In the sediment of a blind arm of the Elbe River in the direct vicinity of the Czech chemical plant Spolana, the dioxin content exceeded up to 500 times the concentrations considered normal by the Ministry of Environment (1). The concentrations of dioxins in the reserve exceed many times the levels found in other places in and around the Elbe or in important industrial agglomerations. Those substances could very well endanger the animals population in the reservation because they can cause cancer, lowered resistance against illnesses, reproduction possibilities and other harm. Because of the destructive characteristics of these substances for the environment, also the Czech Republic signed the global Stockholm Treaty, which has to stop production of these substances and their release into the environment, explained Dr. Miroslav Suta, Greenpeace's toxic expert in the Czech Republic (2, 3). The contamination of this nature reserve is in our vision a criminal offense by endangering the environment according to paragraph 181b, dumping of dangerous wastes according paragraph 181e and a general threat according to paragraph 180 of the Czech criminal code. According to this law, those found guilty can be punished with up to three years imprisonment, a ban on executing their profession or a penalty, concluded Mgr. Viteslav Dohnal, environmental law expert. In Cerninovsko tens of different kinds of trees are found, a whole group of rare and endangered plants and rich communities of crustaceans, mites and insects. There are endangered birds of prey and also many waterfowl and birds belonging to flood forest, like the forest buzzard, the forest hawk, the sparrow hawk and the kingfisher. Those species are, like humans, on the top of the food-chain, and run therefore the highest risk on becoming poisoned with dioxins or polychlorinatedbifenyls (PCBs), announced Dr. Jindrich Petrlik, leader of the 'toxic substances and waste' programme of the organisation Arnika (4). Environmental organisations already demand for a long time that Spolana secures its contaminated sites against leakage of toxic substances into the environment, and that it decontaminates these areas and buildings safely. During the floods in August 2002, the Elbe River flooded the complete Spolana factory and the company had to admit that thousands of tons of chemical substances had washed into the environment. Greenpeace found in fatty tissue of ducks and in chicken eggs from the neighbourhood of Spolana high concentrations dioxins that several times exceeded the EU limits (5) and Arnika found high concentrations of PCBs in sediments. The Czech Environmental Inspectorate already fined Spolana with 1.400.000 Czech Crowns (around EUR 42.000), but Spolana went into appeal against this decision. The president of the board of Spolana, Ing. Pavel Svarc, received the award for dirtiest person of 2002 (Ropak 2002) because of behaviour that heavily damaged the environment. FURTHER INFORMATION: 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 Dr. Jindrich Petrlik, leader of the 'toxic substances and waste' programme of Arnika, tel.: +420.603 582 984. e-mail: jindrich.petrlik@arnika.org Mgr. Viteslav Dohnal, environmental law expert, Environmental Law Service EPS, tel: +420.776 834 534, e-mail: tabor@eps.cz Internet: http://www.greenpeace.cz/agentorange/index_en.htm http://spolanabezjedu.arnika.org/spolana (only Czech) NOTES FOR THE EDITOR: (1) In the sediment of the blind Elbe River arm, on 24.6.2002, 518,6 pg TEQ dioxins/gramm sediment was measured. In samples of 02.10.2002, the values were 30,7 and 35,6 pg TEQ dioxins/g. After the floods, the part of the most dangerous dioxin 2,3,7,8 tetra-chlor-dibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) had increased. This dioxin is typical for wastes stored at Spolana. According a methodological assessment of the Czech Environment Ministry the background concentration of dioxins is around 1 pg TEQ/g. More information (incl. measurement tables) can be obtained from the Czech office of Greenpeace. Source: Shrnuti mereni kontaminace okoli Spolany Neratovice polychlorovanymi dibenzo-p-dioxiny, dibenzofurany a bifenyly po povodnich 2002, podklady pro jednani meziresortni skupiny expertu (Summary of contamination measurements of poly-chlor dibenzo-p-dioxins, dibenzofuranes and bifenyls around Spolana Neratovice after the floods of 2002, documentation for the meeting of the inter-departmental group of experts), TOCOEN Report No. 236, Brno. (2) The Tip of the Iceberg, State of knowledge on persistent organic pollutants in Europe and the Arctic, Greenpeace International, August 1999, http://www.greenpeace.org (3) U. S. Environmental Protection Agency: Exposure and Health Reassessment of 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and related compounds, U.S. EPA, EPA/600/P-00/001 March/May 2000 (4) Okresni urad Melnik: Oznameni o zameru vyhlasit zvlaste chranene uzemi (ZCHu) ? prirodni rezervace ?Cerninovsko? ? rozsireni, 8. srpna 2001 (District Office Melnik: Declaration on the intention to declare as an important protected area ? the nature reserve ?Cerninovsko? - extension, 8 August 2001). (5) Greenpeace Press Release 19 November 2002: ?Greenpeace found at Czech chemical factory Spolana food stuffs polluted with PCBs and dioxins?, http://www.greenpeace.cz/release/02/021119en.htm (6) Labe je znecistene toxickou latkou PCB (The Elbe River is contaminated with toxic PCBs) Press Release Arnika 24.10.2002 (http://arnika.org/havarie/tz.shtml?x=107275 ? only in Czech)
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press release