Press release
41/2001

Greenpeace challenges director Spolana:
Give the people a Christmas present, secure the dioxin buildings!

Praha / Neratovice, 12 December 2001 - Greenpeace challenged the general director of the Czech chemical company Spolana, ing. Jaroslav Strop, to take direct steps to secure the buildings on the Elbe banks that are heavily polluted with dioxins (1). The former production halls contain a very large amount of toxic substances, that not only could endanger Spolana and its direct surroundings, but also the Elbe river and areas downstream. Although Spolana's own expert reports warn for a huge and acute health risk, the management of Spolana ignores until now all warnings.

The dioxin contamination originates from the late 1960s, when Spolana produced the herbicide 2,5,4-T that, amongst others, was used in the Vietnam war in the defoliant Agent Orange. Two contaminated buildings contain according to experts 28 to 276 grams of dioxins (2). A Belgian scandal with "dioxin chicken" involved according to experts only one gram of dioxins! The following damage because of dioxin contamination was in Belgium estimated on 50 billion Czech Crowns (1,5 billion Euro) (3).

"The management of Spolana has clear indications that the condition of the buildings that are contaminated with dioxins is very bad. Instead of properly informing the public, however, it tries to play down the situation (4)," comments Dr. Miroslav Suta, Greenpeace expert on toxic substances. "We have passed the Spolana management the idea to give the employees, the people in the direct vicinity and those living downstream the Elbe a symbolic Christmas gift. We want to see Spolana secure the buildings from a possible flood and from leakage of dioxins into the environment, so that these people can sleep quietly this Christmas," added Suta.

Dioxins are extremely dangerous substances that are very difficult biodegradable and therefore remain very long in the environment. Minute amounts can already cause cancer and disturb the hormone and immunity system Chemical investigations have shown not only high concentrations of dioxins within the contaminated buildings, but also in the surrounding soil, air and groundwater (2).

Further information:
Dr. Miroslav Suta, coordinator toxics campaign mobile: +420.603.443 140 (Czech and English),
e-mail: miroslav.suta@cz.greenpeace.org
Vaclav Vasku, press spokes person, mobile: +420.603.414 739 (Czech and English)
Jan Haverkamp, campaign director, mobile: +420.603.569 243 (English and German),
e-mail: jan.haverkamp@cz.greenpeace.org


internet: http://www.greenpeace.cz/agentorange



Notes for the editor:
(1) Letter of the general director of Spolana Neratovice, ing. Jaroslav Strop, to Greenpeace. Similar letters were received by other members of the organisations and members of the Board of Commissioners of Spolana.

(2) A risk analysis was made for Spolana Neratovice by Aquatest in January 2001

(3) Centre for food hygiene of the State health office: polycholor bifenyls: http://www.chpr.szu.cz/monitor/tds99c/7chem/7org99/pcb.pdf

(4) "Joska: Greenpeace only disturbs the inhabitants" (Joska: Greenpeace jen zneklidnuje obyvatele), Central Bohemian version of MF Dnes, 7 December 2001-12-12

Pictures are available on request