Press release |
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4/2002 |
Greenpeace files criminal complaint against management
Spolana Neratovice
Flooding could wash out poisons from the chemical plant!
Praha/Mělník,
6 February 2002 - Greenpeace today filed a criminal complaint against
the management of the chemical factory Spolana in Neratovice, Czech
Republic. The environmental organisation declares that people within
the management of the firm should face criminal charges because they
failed already several years to protect heavily with mercury and dioxins
contaminated areas and buildings against possible flooding. In spite
of clear evidence of the risks and many repeated warnings, the management
of Spolana refuses to take defensive measures against possible high
water levels. When the poison would wash out to the Elbe River, this
would, according to experts, endanger the environment as well as public
health (1).
"The
management of Spolana so far ignored all calls for securing the buildings,
even though their own study concludes that the with dioxins contaminated
building number A 1030 will already be flooded with 50 centimetres of
water in case of a once in a 50 years flood," warned Dr. Miroslav
Suta, coordinator of the toxics programme of Greenpeace in the Czech
Republic.
The
management of Spolana argues at present with a new "dynamic flooding
model", that it nevertheless refuses to publish. In reaction to
the claim of Spolana, the Czech Inspectorate for the Environment (CIZP)
informed Greenpeace that this model study has not yet been concluded,
and furthermore that its present results indicate a similar risk on
flooding of the buildings as described above. (2)
At
Spolana not only two heavily with dioxins contaminated buildings are
endangered, but also parts of the production area that are contaminated
with extremely high concentrations of mercury. These originate from
old amalgam electrolysis installations that have been abandoned over
25 years ago without any form of maintenance. In this area several tens
of thousands cubic metres of soil are contaminated with over 250 tons
of elementary mercury and its organic and inorganic compounds. According
to documentation available at the Czech Ministry of Environment the
mercury-contaminated area would already flood in a once in 20 year flood.
(3)
"Failing
to protect these areas and buildings against possible flooding has to
be classified as endangering the public and endangering the environment
in the sense of the Czech criminal law," stresses Suta. "Dioxins
are carcinogenic substances that already threaten the human immune and
hormone systems in the smallest amounts. Also mercury is extremely dangerous
for human health and the aquatic ecosystem of the Elbe River. Long-term
exposure to small amounts of mercury can even effect the human brain,"
concludes Suta (4).
Další
informace:
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)
Aquatest: Spolana a.s. Neratovice - Kontaminace objekti A 1420 a A 1030
dioxiny - Analyza rizika - zaverecna zprava (Contamination of the objects
A 1420 and A 1030 with dioxins - Risk analysis - final report), January
2001
(2) Letter of the Czech Inspectorate for the Environment (CIZP) to Greenpeace,
dd. 17 January 2002 (copy available from the Greenpeace office in Prague)
(3) Ekosystem: Documentation on the assessment of building activties
on the environment (EIA), Building activities - decontamination of the
old amalgam electrolysis structures, Prague, April 2001 (Ekosystem:
Dokumentace o hodnoceni vlivu stavby na zivotni prostredi (EIA), Stavba
- sanace stare amalgamove elektrolyzy)
(4) People that have been exposed to mercury have been reported to suffer
headaches, dizziness, loss of weight, and digestion malfunctions. It
also causes long term tremors of fingers, lips, tongue and eyelids,
which spread further to hands and legs. See e.g. Bencko, Cikrt, Lener:
Toxicke kovy v zivotnim a pracovnim prostredi cloveka (Toxic metals
in environmental and occupational healt), Grada 1995.
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