Press release
7/2002

Spolana also contaminates the air with toxic dioxins!

Praha, 22 February 2002 - Greenpeace today requested the local hygiene inspection in the town of Melnik, Czech Republic, as well as the director of the Czech Environmental Inspection to demand from the management of Spolana to secure their dioxin contaminated buildings from leakage of dioxins into the surrounding air. Greenpeace has results from analyses at its disposal that show such a high concentration of dioxins in the direct surroundings of the contaminated buildings, that human health could be endangered.

Greenpeace furthermore has pictures that show that the contaminated buildings in Spolana have broken or even completely missing windows. In one of the buildings part of the roof has already collapsed. The contaminated building A 1420 furthermore lies on the edge of the Spolana area. In the direct vicinity live neighbours, are an operating boarding house, first aid station, shops and further buildings with public use.

In air-samples from the surroundings of building A 1420, the specialised Axys Varilab laboratory found dioxin concentrations of 51,9 pg/m3 (2). A health risk analysis showed that such amounts could clearly affect human health. This is also confirmed in a study carried out for Spolana by the AQUATEST consultancy, which concludes: "[...] it must [...] be expected that concentrations of TeCDD in the order of tens to hundreds pg/m3 also in relative short exposition times may have an important harmful effect on health." The measured concentration of dioxins is 5 times higher than the occupational maximum acceptible concentration and more than 50 times higher than the Czech Environmental Inspectorate allows acceptable for the environment (3).

"Although people that work at Spolana and work or live in the direct vicinity are highly endangered, the management of Spolana ignored all earlier appeals from Greenpeace to adequately seal off the buildings," explains Dr. Miroslav Suta, coordinator of the Greenpeace toxics campaign in the Czech Republic.

Greenpeace also passed information on the air-contamination with dioxins around the buildings of Spolana to the police in Melnik. On the basis of a criminal complaint from Greenpeace, the Melnik police investigates whether people within the management of Spolana committed criminal acts by not securing the dioxin contaminated buildings.

Spolana Neratovice is one of the few chlorine chemical plants and the monopoly producer of PVC in the Czech Republic. The production of chlorine and chloro-organic substances contaminated the Spolana area with dioxins, mercury and a list of other extremely dangerous toxic substances. Spring 2001, Greenpeace started a campaign to convince Spolana to secure the contaminated object on short term against leakage of toxic substances to the air and against flooding, and on the longer term secure safe decontamination.

Further information:
Dr. Miroslav Suta, coordinator of the Greenpeace toxics campaign in the Czech Republic [English, Czech],
mobile: +420.603.443140, tel.: +420.2.24319667, fax: +420.2.33332289
e-mail: miroslav.suta@cz.greenpeace.org
Vaclav Vasku, press spokes person [English, Czech], mobile: +420.603.414739
Jan Haverkamp, Greenpeace campaign director in the Czech Republic [English, German], mobile: +420.603.569243


Notes for the editor:
1) Aquatest: Spolana a.s. Neratovice - Kontaminace objektů A 1420 a A 1030 dioxiny - Analýza rizika - závěrečná zpráva, leden 2001 (Contamintion of the buildings A 1420 and A 1030 with dioxins - risk analysis - final report, january 2001)

2) Axys Varilab: Protokol z analýz vzorků číslo 2398 a 2399 (Protocol of the analysis of the samples 2398 and 2399).

3) Letter from the director of the Czech Environmental Inspection, ing. Soukupa (90R/11129/01) of 10. January 2002

Pictures and video (Betacam) available from the press spokes person of Greenpeace