[] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / (Abridged Version) CONTENTS Page Foreward by the publishers Preface by the authors The Elbe drainage area 3 The sections of the Elbe 4 The Elbe and conservation 10 Stations of the Beluga 13 VEB Vereinigte Zellstoffwerke Pirna 15 (Pirna State-Owned Pulp Works) VEB Pharmazeutisches Kombinat GERMED, Dresden 20 (GERMED State-Owned Pharmaceuticals Combine) Zellstoffwerk Coswig 31 (Coswig Pulp Mill) VEB Chemiewerk Nnchritz 32 (Nnchritz State-Owned Chemicals Plant) Black Elster 36 VEB Synthesewerk Schwarzheide 38 (Schwarzheide State-Owned Synthesis Plant) VEB Kombinat Agrochemie Piesteritz 41 (Piesteritz State-Owned Agrochemicals Combine) The Mulde 45 VEB Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld 47 (Bitterfeld State-Owned Chemicals Combine) VEB Fotochemisches Kombinat Wolfen 55 (Wolfen State-Owned Photochemicals Combine) The Saale 60 Low temperature carbonization of brown coal 61 VEB Chemische Werke Buna 64 (Buna State-Owned Chemicals Works) VEB Leuna-Werke "Walter Ulbricht" 70 (Walter Ulbricht State-Owned Works in Leuna) VEB Fahlberg-List 76 VEB Groágaserei Magdeburg 81 (State-Owned Gasworks in Magdeburg) VEB Zellstoffwerke Wittenberge 87 (State-Owned Pulp Works in Wittenberge) Hamburg's contribution to pollution of the Elbe 93 Dow Stade GmbH 99 Temming AG, Glckstadt 111 Bayer AG, Brunsbttel 114 Drinking water 128 Evaluation and conclusions 147 References 153 Lexicon of hazardous substances 156 The ship's laboratory 175 Diagrams The Beluga Foreward by the publishers The opening of the East has brought with it new opportunities and challenges for the former GDR. Carefully guarded secrets about pollution and destruction of the environment in this part of Europe were revealed and it became clear just how urgently an environmental policy is needed that is geared to the future and avoids past mistakes. For the first time environmental groups were able to state their demands and expectations openly and actively engage in politics. For the international environmental organization, Greenpeace, the days of illegal activities in the GDR came to an end as well. In the spring of 1990 it was possible to found a section in the GDR (Greenpeace e.V. GDR). At the same time it became clear that quick action was called for. In the course of considering a plan of action the Elbe river became a prime focus of Greenpeace's work for a number of reasons. - The catastrophic condition of the river had proved once again that international environmental problems require intense cooperation among all countries. Past discussions on the correct borderline along the Elbe, which now seem ridiculous, were a major hindrance to its clean-up. - Most of the population of the former GDR live in the drainage area of the Elbe and are directly dependent on the river's water. In addition, the industrial centers with their widely varying impacts on the environment are also located here. The Elbe will be a useful indicator of any improvement in the environmental situation in the five new German states. - Immense pollutant loads are discharged daily into the North Sea by the Elbe. Greenpeace has been fighting for years to save this ecosystem, which has already received some irreversible damage. Consequently, it was a logical step to also extend activities to one of the major inflows. - To save the river, fundamental political decisions must be demanded with massive public backing. Rebuilding the industry in the five new German states offers a unique historical opportunity to put into practice a model for dealing with nature that is ecologically responsible and socially compatible. The Elbe could thus become the model for a fundamental ecological reorientation of industrial society in the East and West. It is hoped that the ecological-political evaluation of the Greenpeace Elbe trip presented here will make a constructive contribution to the decision-making process. J”rg Naumann, Christoph Thies G r e e n p e a c e November 1990 If not otherwise specified, the analyses on which this study is based were carried out by: ALcontrol GmbH - independent laboratory specializing in the environment, Bremen. Forward by the authors From April to May 1990 the Greenpeace measuring and campaign ship, the Beluga, traveled the Elbe, measuring pollutants, informing the population and conducting campaigns at the worst polluters of the Elbe. The aim was to draw attention to the extent of pollution of this river as well as to economic consequences and possible corrective actions. The present report was originally meant to be purely a travel log of this trip but its character has since gradually changed. As the GDR disbanded, the states joined the Federal Republic of Germany, nationally- owned businesses were converted to capitalist forms of business, and plants were modified or shut-down, there were also so many changes at the plants and combines visited by Greenpeace that just a few weeks after the trip ended it seemed senseless to publish a mere travel log describing facts as found and uncovered by Greenpeace. Documentation of the old condition is still important but it is no longer adequate. Even now it is still daring to publish the present study, as developments continue to progress rapidly and many are not nearly complete. Just one example is the ghost of I.G. Farben. It was long believed dead but has recently reared its head and filed claims for possession of the Buna, Leuna, Wolfen, Bitterfeld and Piesteritz plants also treated in this report. This report does not pretend to be complete. This applies not only to documentation of the condition of the Elbe and its drainage area, which encompasses virtually all of the GDR, as it was at the beginning of this year. This is even more applicable to the description of current developments and future plans for redeveloping the GDR economy. The amount of information available on different plants and combines varied considerably as it depended largely on the willingness on the part of those responsible in plants and the authorities to provide information. Often the public was not sufficiently aware of the fact that the Beluga made stops not only in the GDR but also in the FRG to point out environmental destruction there as well. These stops, which received too little attention in mass media reports, will be evaluated once again in detail in the present report. The main idea is to communicate the mistakes made in the West, whether in establishing businesses, in poor planning of the use and exploitation of the land and resources or in setting up inadequate emission standards, to the people and politicians of the new states of the FRG in such a way that they will not repeat painful mistakes. Finally, the report will try to show just how far the industries in the West are removed from a production that is beneficial to the environment and humans and to define goals that will be worth pursuing even in years to come. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Sabine Winteler, Joachim Lohse ™ k o p o l November 1990 The Elbe Drainage Area The Elbe river rises in the Riesengebirge (Great Mountains) at 1390 m above sea level (M.S.L). Its total length from source to sea is 1,143 kilometer, of which 415 km flow through the territory of the CSFR, 473 km through the territory of the former GDR and 255 km through the territory of the former FRG. The drainage area encompasses approximately 148,500 km , with 34.6% (51,400 km ) of the drainage area located in the CSFR, 48.6% (72,200 km ) in the territory of the former GDR and 16.8% (24,900 km ) in the territory of the German states of Schleswig- Holstein, Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Northeastern Bavaria. In comparison, the drainage areas in Poland and Austria are only of minor importance. The stream mileage valid in Germany does not start until the Elbe enters the territory of the GDR. A weir at Geesthacht divides the river into a section (973 km) that is not tidal and one (170 km) that is. Between Hamburg and the North Sea the Elbe is one of the world's busiest waterways. Modes of river transport mechanisms The materials contained in the water of the Elbe can be divided into two categories, geogenic (natural) and man-made (anthropogenic). Therefore, any consideration of material transport must include not only the respective hydrogeological conditions but also the effects of industrial and agricultural production. The physical and chemical properties of the water components, such as their degradability by biological processes and their solubility in water, also play an important role in transport. In the long run, non-degradable materials, such as heavy metals, are almost entirely transported to the sea with only the smallest fraction being finally buried in the bed of the Elbe. Degradable materials are partially or completely degraded along the watercourse, depending on extrinsic (for example, weather conditions) and intrinsic (for example, the preload from tributaries) factors. Materials with good water solubility, such as salts, are transported with the main body of water. Materials with a water low solubility, such as heavy metals and some long-lived chlorinated hydrocarbons, bind to suspended particles and settle with these in still water zones. The materials can be swept up and transported further downstream when high flow occurs, for example, with flooding produced by heavy rains or melting snow, or when ships pass by. As a result of these mechanisms the transport of materials is very irregular. The highest loads of components bound to suspended matter are transported in the first stage of a flood wave. After periods of low flow, pollutant loads are particularly high. However, it is important here to distinguish between substances that are in the stream continuously as dissolved substances and those bound to particles that have been swirled up from the bottom. The impact of runoff from pollutants produced by heavy rains on the Elbe depends on where the increased precipitation takes place. Variations are based on the geochemical conditions as well as the structure (agricultural or industrial utilization) of the affected area. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Sections of the Elbe The Drainage Area in the CSFR Approx. 9.0 million people live in the drainage area of the Elbe in the CSFR. The Elbe is known as the "Labe" in the territory of the CSFR and only becomes the "Elbe" upon entering the German- speaking countries. From its source in the Riesengebirge (Great Mountains) the Elbe first flows southward. It then makes a wide arc to the west, joining its major tributary, the Moldau, north of Prague. The Elbe and its tributaries drain practically all the industrial areas of western Czechoslovakia. The segment of the Elbe in the CSFR is canalized. The water levels are regulated by a system of locks, making the river very sensitive to any disturbance, such as the entry of pollutants, since its self-purification capacity is diminished. Along its watercourse in the CSFR the river is utilized and polluted in a variety of ways. Power generation from brown coal produces large amounts of acid rain that falls on the land and inland waters and eventually also drains into the river. In this area of the CSFR, which is heavily industrialized (Iron and steel are produced here and there are also facilities for automobile and pulp production as well as breweries and chemical plants.), the water of the Elbe is utilized but also heavily polluted. Likewise, the water of the Moldau, which until it merges with the Elbe has a larger drainage area and is therefore the larger of the two rivers, is contaminated with a wide variety of harmful substances that are characteristic of the respective industrial sectors. This is an even greater pollution factor, as a majority of the polluters do not treat waste water to any great extent. As a result, for example, downstream from Synthesia Semtin, a chemical plant in Pardubitz, the Czechoslovakian Water Resources Inspection Agency determined a genotoxicity (ability to alter genes) in the water of the Elbe that was twelve times higher than that in the nonpolluted part of the river. The capital of the CSFR, Prague, likewise directly discharges half of the sewage produced by its more than 1.25 milion inhabitants untreated into the Elbe. Only 2/3 of the communities in Bohemia have sewage treatment plants. In rural areas the access to treatment plants is even lower. Another important user and polluter of the Elbe in the CSFR is agriculture. It contributes to water pollution through runoff from fertilizers, pesticides and wastes from mass breeding of livestock (eg liquid manure, cleaning agents and drugs). If water from the Elbe is used simultaneaously to irrigate areas utilized for agriculture, the result is a poisoning of the soil with harmful substances from the Elbe. These are then absorbed by the crops grown in this soil and move through the food chain, thus eventually also becoming a hazard to humans. In the CSFR a ban on marketing crops grown in these fields is currently being considered. The Elbe is thus already considerably polluted when it flows into today's Germany at Schmilka. Table 1 -------------------------------------------------------------- Results of random testing of Elbe water on the German- Czechoslovakian border (Greenpeace, March 1990). Collective parameters COD up to1 39 mg/l AOX up to 227 æg/l Cyanide up to 2.2 æg/l Total phosphate up to 560 æg/l Conductivity up to 300 æS/cm Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes up to 4.8 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene up to 0.41 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene <0.05 æg/l Volatile chlorinated hydrocarbons (solvents) Chloroform up to 66.0 æg/l 1.1.1-Trichloroethane up to 0.14 æg/l Toluene up to 5.5 æg/l Xylene up to 3.1 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides Methoxychlor up to 0.09 æg/l a-HCH up to 0.11 æg/l Heavy metals Nickel up to 11.2 æg/l Individual substances identified by the ship's laboratory Lower molecular weight aromatic hydrocarbons Alkylbenzenes Methylnaphthalene [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / The Drainage Area of Central and Eastern Germany2 In the territory of the former GDR 13.6 million people, corresponding to 82% of the population, live in the drainage area of the Elbe. The drainage area of the Elbe and its major tributaries, the Black Elster, the Mulde, the Saale and the Havel, comprise approx. 72% of the total area of the former GDR. Because it has a depth of only 1-2 meters at its normal water levels the use of the whole length of the Elbe as an inland waterway is limited. To maintain navigability it is dredged. Of the 222 cities in the former GDR with more than 10,000 inhabitants, 178 are in this region, including the industrial centers of Berlin, Magdeburg, Leipzig, Chemnitz, Halle, Erfurt and Dresden. Approx. 65% of the gross industrial output of the former GDR is produced here. The Elbe is polluted not only directly by industrial wastes discharged into its waters but also indirectly by its tributaries. Thus the Black Elster drains the Niederlausitz brown coal mining area, the Mulde the industrial areas of Wolfen and Bitterfeld, the Saale areas of central Germany (brown coal mines) and the industrial complexes of Leuna and Buna and the Havel the Greater Berlin Area. The Elbe is directly polluted by wastes entering from the Dresden area and from Coswig and Piesteritz, Magdeburg and Wittenberge. As in the CSFR, the use of the drainage area in eastern and central Germany for agriculture and forestry also contributes to pollution of the Elbe and its tributaries through runoff from fertilizers and pesticides. Household sewage is also discharged into the Elbe, in some cases with no treatment at all. The city of Dresden, for example, with a population of over a half million, does not have a functioning sewage treatment plant. Because the water supply in central Germany is so low, water from the Elbe and its tributaries is used both for drinking water and for industrial use in a cycle that is sometimes repeated up to seven times with only inadequate purification of the water being carried out. The water situation is actually so bad that the establishment of a drinking water supply system with water imported from other areas in Germany is even being considered. The Elbe is not used by the fishing industry because it is so heavily loaded with harmful substances. Fishing only takes place in the less polluted upper reaches of the tributaries. From Aussig in Czechoslovakia to Lauenburg in Germany the Elbe can be considered a "native, corrected inland river". Consequently, the water level and flow are interrelated, ie when the water level is high there is a high flow and vice versa. Because the depth of the water is so low, the Elbe warms up rapidly and also cools off rapidly. Moreover, this section of the river has a relatively large specific water surface (ratio of water surface to water volume). Consequently, relatively large amounts of oxygen are absorbed from the air or produced by algae via photosynthesis. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / The Drainage Area of the Elbe in Northwestern Germany In the German states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Lower Saxony approx. 3.0 million people live in the drainage area of the Elbe and 1.59 million in Hamburg alone. In Hamburg petrochemical companies and loading plants for feed and other commodities constitute the major industries. However, aluminum, steel and copper are also produced. The lower course of the Elbe has been used for years for chemical process manufacturing, in particular by two large plants in Btzfleth (Lower Saxony) and Brunsbttel (Schleswig-Holstein) owned by DOW Stade GmbH and BAYER AG respectively. Today the water withdrawn directly from the Elbe downstream from Geesthacht is used by industry and power plants for cooling purposes only. However, the resulting contaminated process, cooling or other waste water is discharged into the Elbe as well as the sewage from Greater Hamburg and its surroundings. In the lower course of the Elbe intensive agricultural use of water for truck farming and fruit-growing is prevalent and also contributes to the load of harmful substances. The pesticides used are discharged either directly into the Elbe or into its tributaries, resulting in pollution of the water here, too. The use of the Elbe for fishing is also virtually impossible in this area. The lower reach of the Elbe was once one of Europe's waters with the most abundant fish population. Now there is a total ban on the sale of eels from the Elbe. Other fish must first be subjected to a "detoxification treatment" (maintenance in unpolluted water). While the Elbe is a "natural" river until Lauenburg, from this point on the weir at Geesthacht starts to affect the flow. The transition from a stream to almost a standing water and the accompanying decrease in flow leads to an increase in sedimentation. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / The section from the weir at Geesthacht to the sea is tidal and can be divided into several subsections: In the upper tidal region the natural direction of flow overlaps with the tides producing a wide variation in flow conditions which depend on the relation of the flow and the tides. The specific water surface is smaller and the river not as well oxygenated. The latter is a consequence of the reduced water/air interface for oxygen uptake and the fact that the light required for algae photosynthesis (and thus for oxygen production) no longer penetrates the river over a large surface area. In the Hamburg area from Bunthaus to Teufelsbrck the river splits into several branches, representing a special zone. The Elbe divides into two major arms (Norder Elbe and Sder Elbe) which enclose a large portion of the harbor area of the city of Hamburg. Since water flows through only parts of the large harbor basin and the minor branches and the depth of the water is also considerably greater (up to 13.5 m in the river, in some harbor basins up to 16.0 m), the Elbe water has a very high residence time. The body of water oscillates upstream and downstream with the tide for several tides. Consequently, the water is repeatedly polluted by the same fixed discharge. The oxygen uptake is no longer sufficient, as the specific surface is relatively small. As a result, oxygen is depleted in this area. In the deep harbor basin suspended matter and the hazardous substances adsorbed to it are deposited when there are prolonged periods of low surface flow. On the other hand when the surface flow is high, the pollutant load passes through the area within a few tides owing to enhancement of the Elbe current and weakening of the tidal current. In the next section (Teufelsbrck to Glcksstadt) the water level is determined primarily by the tides. Here, too, the water oscillates back and forth. In the summer of every year this area is affected by fish kills resulting from the low oxygen concentration prevalent at that time. In the past this was due on the one hand to the pollutant load already in the river, making the Elbe very susceptible to disturbances, and on the other hand to oxygen-depleting substances discharged by Hamburg and its surroundings. The major sources of these substances are the numerous loading plants for fertilizers and feeds in the Hamburg harbor and Hamburg's municipal sewage, which until just recently had been inadequately treated. Here at least conditions have been improved by the opening of the Dradenau sewage treatment plant in Hamburg. Further downstream the freshwater mixes with the salty seawater, adding to the influence of the tides. Depending on the velocity of the flow of fresh surface water, the brackish water zone will begin somewhere between Kollmar and Brunbttel. In this section of the river a large proportion of the freshwater and saltwater organisms entering this zone perish. Moreover, owing to the increasing salt content of the water the heavy metals previously bound to suspended particles now go into solution and thus become accessible to living organisms. The final section of the Elbe is characterized by a deep mainstream channel and flat embankments, such as mud-flats and sandbanks. Thus there is a smooth transition from the Elbe River to the coastal area of the Deutsche Bucht. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / The Elbe and Conservation Along the course of the Elbe in eastern, central and northwestern Germany there are a great number of nature reserves and biotopes that are worth preserving and protecting. The last remains of the Elbe flood plain forest are located in the nature reserves in central and eastern Germany. The natural shoreline vegetation of the flood plain forest make up important sites for the breeding, resting and wintering of swamp- and waterfowl in Central Europe. In the existing nature reserves rare plants, such as floating ferns, can be found. The Elbe beaver has also found a habitat and refuge in the remains of the flood plain forest. Above Dresden where the Elbe cuts through the Elbsandsteingebirge (Elbe Sandstone Mountains) there are larger nature reserves that must be preserved because of their wide variety of species. The nature reserves along the course of the Elbe from its confluence with the Black Elster to Magdeburg are of great importance to ecology and the protection of a variety of species. Since the gradient of the river is very small in this area, several branches of the Elbe have formed that are totally or partially isolated, providing a refuge for water, swamp and land animals and fowl. At the confluence of the Black Elster with the Elbe there are four nature reserves that are especially important as breeding and molting grounds for various species of swamp- and waterfowl. The Groáe Streng and the Alte Elbe at B”sewig are the most important of these reserves. The Saalbergbau and the second largest nature reserve in the GDR, the Steckby-L”dderitzer Forest, form a unique flood plain landscape in the area of the middle Elbe. The Steckby-L”dderitzer Forest has been recognized by the UNESCO as a biosphere reserve since 1980. In the further course of the Elbe the Elbufer-Drawehn National Park and the area on the opposite bank of the Elbe constitute a large area that must be regarded as worth preserving as a whole. Because of the formerly isolated location of the Wendland with its national park (surrounded on three sides by the former GDR) and the former "security zone", which could only be entered with special permission, the natural communities on both sides of the Elbe have been able to survive to date practically untouched by mass tourism, industrialization, overdevelopment, mounds of waste and traffic. In the course of the Elbe from Schnackenburg to Geesthacht as well as further upstream, the groin fields represent an extremely important biosphere for water ecology. These are areas of shallow water with a high specific water surface where the water of the Elbe can absorb oxygen and which is an important refuge and alternative biotope. A loss of the groin fields, for example, by filling with dredged materials or by canalization and erection of sheet pilings, would result in a biological desolation of the middle Elbe. This would also largely prevent any influencing of ecosystems further upstream, for example, by the Elbe tides. For this reason the preservation and maintenance of the groin fields and adjacent still water areas in the middle Elbe are very important. Groin fields with heavy sediment deposits should be dredged occasionally. Filling in groin fields with dredged or excavated materials should be prohibited. Top priority for any future use of the Elbe should therefore be the preservation or even extension of the existing biotopes and nature reserves. Currently, however, consideration is being given to increasing the depth of the Elbe to 3 m from above the weir at Geesthacht to at least the level of the industrial area of Thuringen, possibly even to Schmilka on the border to the CSFR. Deepening and narrowing of a stream channel, for example, by diking, result in a depletion in oxygen content. The specific water surface, ie the ratio of surface to volume, and consequently the interface of the river and atmosphere at which oxygen can be absorbed from the air, is reduced. At the same time the volume of water penetrated by light in which photosynthesis can take place is decreased. Degradation of existing nutrient loads will therefore be very limited. A deepening and straightening of the Elbe increases the velocity of flow. Numerous species of plants and animals can no longer maintain their position on the river bed and are "washed away". The type of corrections discussed above will also have consequences for the Elbe itself. Canalization and regulation of the river will become necessary at least in some parts of the section from the point where construction is started to the weir in Geesthacht. The higher flow of the water resulting from these "corrective measures" can very easily "empty" the Elbe unless appropriate damming measures are taken to prevent complete discharge of the water. Because of the river engineering measures described above the water balance of the Elbe, its tributaries and the groundwater will continue to change. Considerable changes in the water balance can thus be expected especially in the sensitive flood plain forest and swamp areas along or in the vicinity of the Elbe. This will result in a loss or reduction in the biosphere of many long-standing species of animals. The refuge and spawning grounds of fish will also be diminished by these river alterations and could even be lost to the point that they only serve as an alibi. In the course of the tidal Elbe, too, numerous alterations of the river are accompanied by drastic changes in the plant and animal communities along the river. The environmental safety of the construction materials used for embankments has still not been demonstrated, especially when used over prolonged periods. For example, the slag brick from the copper production of the Norddeutsche Affinerie used in this sector is still contaminated with heavy metals. These can enter the water via extraction mechanisms or be incorcorpated by plants and small animals living directly on or next to the bricks. Moreover, steep embankments and sheet pilings will certainly lead to a narrowing of the ecological base for the formation of aquatic biological communities in the Elbe. Dike retrenchments reduce the shallow water areas of the branches of the Elbe, the mud flat and the forelands that are covered by tidal inlets and marshy ditches. These biospheres are important rearing, breeding, feeding and refuge biotopes. Their disappearance will lead to a reduction in species variety as well as the population of individual species. The area lost in the freshwater section cannot be compensated by the area won in the brackish water zone. It is precisely the large number of areas that have already been diked that has increased the value of the remaining forelands. It is therefore essential to preserve a mud flat area like the Heuckenlock on the Suder Elbe. Necessary action A redevelopment of the Elbe based on current findings could be used to preserve - or even extend - a majority of the existing biotopes along the river for the environment (and thus for humans as well). In view of the mass of information available today on the effects of destructive river engineering practices, such as dredging, diking and straightening bends, past mistakes made so often in other German rivers must not be repeated. Furthermore, the process of restructuring the industrial regions in central and eastern Germany is an opportunity to minimize pollution of the environment by humans. This opportunity must not be thrown away because of senseless short-term and short-sighted river engineering projects or establishment of industries and businesses that pollute the environment. Only if the opportunity is taken will the Elbe again become what it once was a few decades ago: one of Europe's waters with the highest fish population. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / The Stations of the Beluga in the GDR and the FRG The Greenpeace campaign ship, the Beluga, traveled the Elbe between Dresden and Brunsbttel from April 7, 1990 to May 10, 1990. The purpose of the trip was to make use of the political opening of the former GDR to point out flagrant destruction of the environment and its consequences, aquire and disseminate information and, wherever possible, to remedy deplorable situations quickly or outline ways to get out of them. At the same time the Beluga trip was also supposed to establish a connection to the production processes on the former territory of the FRG. Although they are cleaner with regard to their direct environmental impact on water, air and soil, this is achieved often enough only by shifting the burden to other media, such as sludge, flue dust, slag, special waste and ultimately the products to be sold. The trip focussed primarily on problems relating to chlorinated hydrocarbons with their innumerable adverse effects on the environment and all levels of living organisms including even humans. These hazardous substances are discharged into the Elbe mainly from the sewage pipes of the chemical industry and by the pulp industry plants that still use chlorine bleaching. Therefore, campaigns were conducted at the pulp production facilities in Pirna, Coswig, Wittenberge and Glckstadt, the Arzneimittelwerk Dresden (pharmaceutical production), at the Fotochemischen Kombinat Wolfen (photochemicals), the pesticide manufacturer, Fahlberg-List, at the Agrochemie-Werk Piesteritz (agrochemicals), the Chemiewerk Nnchritz (chemicals), in front of the Volkskammer (parliament) of the former GDR and at the important West German chemical manufacturers, Dow Stade and Bayer Brunsbttel. After taking preliminary samples in March 1990 for the purpose of detecting particularly damaging sewage loads, the Beluga embarked from Hamburg on April 4th and traveled the Elbe upstream to Pirna. From there it navigated slowly downstream, stopping at different factories and in different cities to inform the population. A series of tests to determine the water quality were carried out routinely throughout the entire journey. At certain discharge locations modern analytical techniques, such as gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, were used to carry out special analyses of especially hazardous pollutants. This kind of detective work can never replace self-monitoring by plants or monitoring of dischargers by the authorities, much less a government program to control water quality. However, this was never intended. Instead the failings of government and industry were to be exposed by random testing selected according to strategic considerations. In addition, thanks to modern analytical equipment and the experienced laboratory crew it was possible to track down a number of "exotic" substances in the waste water which had never before been detected by other monitoring programs. The findings of the ship's laboratory repeatedly served as the basis for demands for immediate action for water protection and for clarifying discussions with those responsible in the respective plant management and monitoring authorities. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / VEB Vereinigte Zellstoffwerke Pirna (State-Owned Pulp Works in Pirna) The pulp plant in Pirna is located above Dresden on the left bank of the Elbe. It includes a yeast plant in Heidenau where forage yeast is produced from the pulp liquor from the plant in Pirna and that part of the company in Heidenau (shut down at the end of 1989). In the Pirna plant sulfite wood pulp is produced from beech wood for production of synthetic fibers. Wood chips are digested by calcium sulfite at low pH values. This digestion removes lignin from the wood; the lignin is converted to the water-soluble lignosulfonic acid and extracted from the wood pulp constituents. The pulp liquor is then passed on to the neighboring plant in Heidenau and used to produce forage yeast. In the process, a portion of the biodegradable components are removed. The remaining waste liquor is then discharged into the Elbe. To remove residual lignin, the wood pulp is subsequently bleached. Elemental chlorine had been used in the first stage; the lignin chlorination products were discharged into the Elbe with the waste water. On the plant grounds there is a chlorine storage tank with a capacity of 30,000 m3. The second stage is an extraction with sodium hydroxide solution. This is followed by two more stages of bleaching using sodium hypochlorite. The resulting wood pulp is processed further in the Chemiefaserkombinat Schwarza (Schwarza Synthetic Fiber Combine) and the Zellstoffwerke Wittenberge (Wittenberge Pulp Works). Environmental impact The production process, in particular the bleaching of fiber materials, causes considerable pollution of the environment. Wood pulp production pollutes sewage with dissolved and suspended matter present in wood constituents. Carbohydrate-like substances (cellulose components, hemicellulose) are primarily responsible for a high biological oxygen demand (BOD). The lignin fractions are much more difficult to degrade by biological processes and consequently contribute less to the BOD but do increase the COD. They are also responsible for the dark color of the waste waters. Wood pulp bleaching loads waste waters with lignin chlorination products that can be toxic. They also contain larger quantities of inorganic chlorine compounds. Lignin chlorination products are practically non-biodegradable. Analysis of a random sample of the waste water from the bleaching plant taken in March gave a COD greater than 1000 mg/l and an AOX of 27,000 æg/l. Furthermore cyanides (15.0 æg/l), chloroform (376 æg/l), chlorobenzenes (including hexachlorobenzene) and chlorophenols (especially trichlorophenols at 13.8 æg/l) were found. In April the Beluga's laboratory was able to identify 2,4,5-trichlorophenol and 4,5-dichloroguaiacol. (These are toxic substances characteristic of those formed during chlorine bleaching of wood pulp. In addition to a high COD (greater than 1000 mg/l), an AOX of 30,000 æg/l, penta- and hexachlorobenzene and organochlorine pesticides as well as copper (58 æg/l, more than twice as much as the base load of the Elbe) were found. Chloroform, found in high amounts, is formed as a by-product of bleaching with chlorine gas and especially of hypochlorite bleaching. The source of copper is unclear. At over 300 tons of COD per day, the Pirna pulp plant discharges into the Elbe the highest organic pollutant load of any of the pulp works in the GDR. In order to put at least a symbolic end to this intolerable situation, Greenpeace activists rerouted the waste water from the pulp plant to the plant's tapping station for one day, thus ensuring a "closed water circuit". The explosive nature of this toxic load in the pulp water is enhanced by the fact that drinking water is obtained from the offshore filtrate of the Elbe. Just a few kilometers below the Pirna plant the Hosterwitz and Tolkewitz waterworks are located on the right and left banks of the Elbe respectively. With 2,4,5-trichlorophenol the Beluga's laboratory was able to track down a hazardous toxic substance in the Tolkewitz waterworks that had already been identified in the waste water of the bleaching plant in Pirna but was not found in the Elbe upstream from the Pirna plant. Statement of those responsible "For years, for example, the emission of organochlorine compounds (AOX) has been monitored. Changes in the technology of the digestion and conversion processes have led to a reduction in chlorine consumption per t of pulp from 36.5 kg in 1985 to 20.5 kg in 1989. As a result the volume of organochlorine compounds generated has decreased from approx. 800 to approx. 400 kg/d. It is customary to subdivide the AOX load a) into a low molecular weight, extractable fraction (EOCL) which contains the chlorophenols and chloroform and represents the actual toxic group of substances and b) into the high molecular weight, non-extractable AOX fraction consisting of the yellow to brown chlorinated lignosulfates possessing no toxic properties. According to this differentiation only 2.7 kg/d or 0.6 per cent of the AOX-load named above of about 400 kg/d belong to the EOCL fraction. At 2.7 kg/d the volume of low molecular weight compounds generated is so small that with the high preload at times present in the Elbe they are hardly detectable in the gas chromatogram. ..." (Werner, Director of Production/Research, in the Neuer Zellstoffwerker, In-plant paper of the VEB Vereinigte Zellstoffwerke Pirna, May 29, 1990). With this strategy of dividing a proven toxic load into a fraction that is toxic and one that is supposedly harmless the plant management is using a form of argumentation that is common but that hides the fact that a conversion of the "harmless" to the "toxic" form is quite possible. In the case of pulp chlorination chlorine attacks the aromatic ring of the high molecular weight lignin structure, preforming chlorophenol structures. The resulting chlorine-containing lignin fragments in the waste water are initially mostly in the high molecular form considered to be harmless by those responsible. However, in the river they can gradually decompose into smaller fragments, such as the hazardous chlorophenols. Consequently, depending on the weight, a considerable proportion of the high molecular weight AOX load can be converted to dangerous toxic substances. If conditions are unfavorable, the chlorophenols contained in the waste water of pulp factories can even form dioxins. As shown by more recent measurements by "Stichting Reinwater" at the French Stracell pulp plant on the Rhine, this can happen even with bleaching of sulfite wood pulp, which was long thought incapable of generating dioxins. There are still no results available for Pirna. Previous Successes - Planned Action The first bleaching stage is no longer carried out with elemental chlorine but with hydrogen peroxide. This has substantially reduced the emission of chlorinated compounds. However, it is as yet impossible to speak of a "chlorine-free bleaching", as sodium hypochlorite is still being used for the subsequent stages of bleaching. The plant intends to change over to the magnefite method, which substitutes magnesium sulfite for calcium sulfite. With this method it is possible to recover the inorganic digestion chemicals and obtain a higher yield of wood pulp. This results in significantly less pollution of the environment. In addition, there are plans to concentrate and incinerate the pulp liquor. This will eliminate well over 90 % of the current volume of pollutants. If chlorine compounds are not used in the bleaching process, the waste water from the bleaching plant can be concentrated together with the pulp liquor. Pulp liquor concentration and a biological treatment plant are to go into operation in 1993. It is intolerable that the Elbe in Pirna will continue to be polluted with a COD load of 400 t day after day for another three years. The waste water load will have to be lowered significantly in a much shorter time period. Further Demands/Prospects In the long term all chlorine chemicals, ie chlorine gas, chlorine dioxide and hypochlorite, should be eliminated from the bleaching process. The Swedish viscose manufacturer, Svenska Rayon, was the first to put a fully chlorine-free viscose on the market. The cellulose used was obtained from Borregard in Norway. Bleaching was carried out with sodium peroxide. There is no AOX pollution of waters with this method. Table 2 Results of random testing of waste water from the Vereinigten Zellstoffwerken Pirna (March 1990). For technical reasons monochlorobenzenes and monochlorophenols were not determined. Total Bleaching Collective parameters waste water waste water COD 1165 1146 mg/l AOX 29.7 26.7 mg/l Total cyanide 2.8 15.0 æg/l Conductivity 1270 1280 æS/cm Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 6.67 æg/l Trichlorophenols 13.8 æg/l Tetrachlorophenols 0.38 æg/l Pentachlorophenol 2.57 æg/l Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzene 6.11 æg/l Trichlorobenzene 1.35 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 0.65 0.68 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene 0.27 0.14 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 28 0.22 æg/l Volatile chlorinated hydrocarbons (solvents) Chloroform 375.6 æg/l 1,1,1-Trichloroethane 0.15 æg/l Carbon tetrachloride 0.69 0.77 æg/l Trichloroethylene 8.4 9.04 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides Methoxychlor 0.22 æg/l o,p-DDT 1.55 æg/l o,p-DDD 0.16 æg/l Lindan 0.32 æg/l Heavy metals Copper 58 28 æg/l Individual substances identified by the ship's laboratory: Various dichlorophenols, various trichlorophenols, including the 2,4,5-isomer, 4,5-dichloroguaiacol The waste water for the year 1988 was examined for organochlorine components: TOCL Type of Number waste water of samples Mean value (mg/l) Deviation (mg/l) Chlorination 23 110 17 ... 226 Extraction 13 72 0 ... 140 EOCL Type of Number waste water of samples Mean value (æg/l) Deviation (æg/l) Chlorination 15 443 180 ... 827 Extraction 7 558 254 ... 1060 Daily load: Type of Volume TOCL-Load EOCL-Load waste water (m3/d) (kg/d) (kg/d) Chlorination 5,200 572 2.30 Alkalization 3,200 230 1.78 Total 8,400 802 4.08 [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / VEB Pharmzeutisches Kombinat GERMED, Dresden) (GERMED State-Owned Pharmaceutical Combine in Dresden) The plants of the Arzneimittelwerk Dresden, formerly known as the VEB Pharmazeutisches Kombinat GERMED, are situated some way back from the Elbe on the left bank in Radebeul near Dresden. The largest pharmaceuticals producer in the territory of the former GDR with a total of 3500 employees produces about 250 chemical- pharmaceutical products, such as cardiovascular drugs, psychotropic drugs and antirheumatic agents. Since dissolution of the VEB and its reorganization to a GmbH as GERMED Pharma AG, seven plants and research facilities of the former pharmaceutical combine have joined together. This group offers research and scientific services. The older part of the company with its brick buildings was built around the turn of the century and the new "multipurpose plant" was added in the 1970's. Although the building permit for this addition was only granted on condition that air filters and better waste water treatment facilities be installed, none of these measures had been instituted even after reconstruction had been completed. Environmental pollution from the plant The Arzneimittelwerk Dresden (abbreviated AWD) is most clearly noticeable in the adjoining areas due to the heavy emissions of soot from the company brown coal power plant that deposit in the surrounding area. Other pollution of the air with a wide variety of hazardous substances emanates from the approx. 400 chimneys and fume hoods on the grounds. The grounds are most likely one big abandoned pollution area. There have been several burst sewage pipes at GERMED (the last one in 1987). These accidents have produced large puddles of highly contaminated waste water in the vicinity of drinking water wells and allotment gardens. The plant management originally had the ponds near the meadows fenced in with barbed wire to keep away children at play. Later they were filled in without the contaminated soil being replaced. This is probably the source of contamination of the nearby drinking water wells with solvents. The "AWD Citizen's Initiative" has long feared that other soil pollution has been caused by the defective sewerage system of the old plant. A ground contamination from leaking drums (with residues from chloroform production) was also described in a memo written by one of the employees in 1988. The same employee complained several months later that nothing had as yet been undertaken to correct the situation. The people living in the vicinity notice the plant's waste water effluents less than the daily air pollution. However, 5000 m3 of untreated waste water enter the Elbe daily. This is the most polluted waste water of any of the plants in the territory of the former GDR studied by Greenpeace on its Elbe trip. Since the amount of waste water in preceding years was higher than it is today, more than 20 million m3 of untreated waste water must have flowed into the Elbe in the 11 years since reconstruction. In 1984 planning of a combined sewage treatment plant for the VEB GERMED and the city of Dresden was begun. After pretreatment in the plant the waste waters were to go to the municipal treatment plant, which, however, has been out of operation since 1987, and from there discharged into the Elbe. The only existing facilities to control waste waters until the spring of 1990 consisted of a 5000 m3 capacity stacking container for "equalization", ie primarily for compensating extreme fluctuations in the acid content (pH-value). However, even this container was out of operation 30 to 50 % of the time. Inside the container meter-high deposits of toxic sludge had accumulated over the years. No plans as yet exist for their removal and disposal. Despite an intensive search Greenpeace could not find the plant's discharge pipe located in the middle of the river. Therefore, it had to take waste water samples from an adjacent sewer. Very high amounts of hazardous substances were found by Greenpeace in their preliminary samples of the VEB GERMED's waste water of March 1990. High concentrations of oxygen-depleting substances and organochlorine compounds were determined including, for example, hexachlorobenzene, toluene, polycylic aromatic compounds, chlorinated solvents, chlorobenzenes and chlorophenols. Slightly elevated concentrations of cyanides and heavy metals were also measured in the waste water of the plant relative to the load in the Elbe (refer to the table). In addition to these findings, the Beluga's laboratory was able to determine the solvents, monochlorobenzene and dichlorobenzene, as well as medazepam, a tranquilizer related to valium, in the waste water by gas chromatographic analysis. The concentration of carbon tetrachloride, which the plant management categorically denied using in the VEB GERMED, was more than 100 times higher than the emissions of comparable industrial plants. The Greenpeace staff filled the yellow cocktail of poisons with an overpowering odor into 120 drinking glasses and offered them to the plant employees on a counter in front of the main gate. The plant was also very careless in its handling of substances present or stored on the grounds. When the Greenpeace staff entered the plant's premises a short time later to try to talk with the plant management, they observed workers attempting to extinguish flames licking out of an open drum. Statement of the plant management In several discussions in which sometimes up to 100 interested citizens of Dresden participated, Greenpeace demanded that the plant management and staff of the Upper Elbe Water Conservation Authority responsible for issuing waste water discharge permits immediately put a stop to the discharge of water-polluting and carcinogenic substances by GERMED. One justification for this demand was the fact that just a few kilometers downstream the city of Meiáen obtained its drinking water from the offshore filtrate of the Elbe. Hazardous substances like chlorinated solvents had already penetrated the drinking water wells and posed an unjustifiable cancer risk to the population. Confronted with the Greenpeace analyses, the management of the pharmaceuticals company initially denied categorically that any pollutants of the highest water hazard category were contained in the waste water. This was applicable primarily to carbon tetrachloride, chloroform and benzene. Carbon tetrachloride, or so it was claimed, had last been used in larger amounts in 1987. The high concentrations in waste water found by Greenpeace could not possibly correct. The discharge of organochlorine pesticides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) was also initially denied. Little by little the plant management eventually had to admit that most of these substances actually were contained in the waste water. However, the laboratory commissioned by Greenpeace also made an initial mistake. It confused benzene with toluene. Thus the plant was falsely accused of high benzene emissions. However, this does not alter the fact that the toluene concentration in the waste water was also very alarming. Eventually, however, explanations were found for most of the substances identified by Greenpeace that were very embarassing to the GERMED management. Unknown to the management, carbon tetrachloride was still being used in the apprentices' workshop and was not banned until after the Greenpeace action. Chloroform originated from the production of digitalis preparations (cardiovascular drugs), where it turned out it could be easily replaced. The "Teersulfoderm" production and quenching of brown coal ashes were named as possible sources of the PAH emissions. No explanation could be given for the occurrence of organochlorine pesticides in the waste water. The source of the waste water load of the heavy metal, zinc, was finally identifed as the zinc ointment production. Members of the workforce also participated in the talks between Greenpeace representatives and the GERMED management. They stressed the fact that they had been fighting for more pollution control for years. These efforts should not be negated by an immediate shutdown. The plant should be given an adjustment period for a comprehensive cleanup to enable it to maintain stricter limits for waste water. After all, medicaments are necessary products. Previous achievements/actions Greenpeace's greatest achievement was to force the plant to take a close look at each of its own processes for the first time individually in an effort to eliminate unnecessary emissions. In addition, the Water Conservation Authority ordered a stop to parts of production and issued a ban on the discharge of carbon tetrachloride, chloroform and benzene, which are pollutants in the highest water hazard category. Standards limiting the emissions of other hazardous substances were also established. A follow-up discussion among Greenpeace, the Water Conservation Authority and the GERMED management on June 14, 1990 revealed the following: The productions lines had been divided into the following four categories: 1. Production lines that will be shut down for good, as they cannot be modified to make them environmentally safe (13 final products). 2. Production will be stopped temporarily. The processes will be modified to enable production without water pollutants of the Category 1. A start up of the line will only take place with the approval of the Water Conservation Authority and the director of the plant (15 final products). - The GERMED management is optimistic about this production line category because successful substitution of chloroform in digitalis production took such a short time. 3. Production will continue while the process technology is being modified (25 final products). 4. Production is safe and can continue operating as is (4 final products). After the plant management had protested the stricter limits, the Water Conservation Authority established the following standards for a limited time period effective until the end of June: Substance Concentration Load Chloroform 20.0 mg/l 100 kg/d Toluene 0.6 mg/l 3 kg/d Total xylene 3.0 mg/l 15 kg/d Butylamine 2.0 mg/l 10 kg/d Monochlorobenzene 20.0 mg/l 100 kg/d Since June discharge of these substances has been prohibited, as is the discharge of all substances of the highest two water hazard categories. Care must be taken to ensure that other anti- pollution measures are actually quickly instituted. In September 1990 the COD load of the waste water has in fact been reduced by one-half. Plans of the GERMED management and farther-reaching demands The AWD has admitted that it is the source of the abandoned pollutant wastes on the plant grounds. Currently pollution of the grounds is being determined in detail and a cleanup plan is being drawn up. In the area of air emissions and wastes the following pollution abatement measures are planned: * installation of several waste air filters * firing of oil instead of brown coal in the heating plant as of 1993 * reduced generation of toxic special wastes by means of a computer program for ecologically oriented planning. After a wet oxidation of the toxic waste waters, the residual organic substances of the remaining waste are to be burned in a hazardous wastes incinerator. The cleaned and thus safe waste waters are to be taken to the new sewage treatment plan of the city of Dresden in Kaditz. This plan must be criticized for a number of reasons. A heated debate on the necessity of the special wastes incinerator is currently in progress. One argument put forward in favor of this plant is the hazardous wastes stored on the plant grounds since 1987 owing to a lack of a disposal permit. Furthermore, it is argued that it will be impossible to avoid generating substances like chloroform, methylene chloride and monochlorobenzene in the plant in the future. Environmental organizations like the "AWD Citizen's Initiative" and the "Air Task Force" of the New Forum are fighting these plans for several reasons: * No sensible design of this type of plant is possible without a waste management program. This must included a precise determination of the needs of the pharmaceutical plant as well as the city of Dresden, its surrounding areas and possibly even the whole state of Saxony. * This waste management program must be aimed primarily at preventing the generation of special wastes, such as chlorinated solvents, and residual substances. Then disposal capacities will only have to be provided for residual substances that are totally unavoidable. * The site of a special wastes incinerator, should construction really be unavoidable, must be selected carefully. The valle location of the pharmaceuticals plant is extremely unfavorable as long as it is impossible to ensure a largely emission-free operation. At the beginning of September 1990, however, plans for the special wastes incinerator were stopped (for the time being) for two reasons; the amount of special wastes generated by the pharmaceuticals plant after restructuring is much lower than expected and the necessity of the incinerator was questioned especially by the people living in the area. Problems also arise from the planned combined treatment of the waste water of the GERMED plant and the sewage of the city of Dresden. Experience has shown time and again that shock loads of deleterious industrial waste waters can bring an entire municipal sewage treatment plant to a standstill. Restarting the biological treatment stage can then take several weeks. It would be more sensible to treat the waste waters of the pharmaceutical plant in a treatment plant on the plant's premises, especially as it will certainly take several years for the municipal sewage treatment plant in Kaditz to again be fully operative. The statement of the plant's management concerning the Greenpeace analyses is found on the following pages. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Arzneimittelwerk Dresden GmbH i. A. Radebeul, July 31, 1990 S T A T E M E N T on the analysis of our waste water by Greenpeace in April 1990 First we would like to stress the fact that the Greenpeace campaign has led to drastic changes in our plant. We would, however, have liked to have had an objective discussion before publication of the data. This would have avoided the spread of false information to the public. Following the Greenpeace campaign we temporarily shut down about half of our syntheses. They will only be put back into operation stepwise after suitable technological measures have been instituted to abate pollution. Our plant has had plans for a biological waste water treatment plant for approx. 20 years, but this type of investment had no place in a planned economy. With construction of the treatment plant in Dresden-Caditz our waste water loads will be reduced to comply with the FRG standards. Concerning the most important Greenpeace analytical data: Benzene: Was only in the preliminary analytical data and was not confirmed. It has not been used in our plant for several years. Toluene: Is the main solvent for many synthesis steps. A stepwise reduction in the waste water load is being worked on. The problem will be solved with biological waste water treatment. Xylenes and ethyl benzene: Are not used and their presence can only be explained as impurities of toluene. Carbon tetrachloride: Has not been used in the plant since May 1990. Chlorophenols and poly- chlorobenzenes: Are not processed. The analytical data cannot be explained. PAH II: Fluorene, anthracene and chrysene are not produced or processed. Independent analyses commissioned by us do not confirm the Greenpeace analysis. Organochlorine pesticides: å-Endosulfan and p,p-DDE the same as PAH II. We are interested in constructively cooperating with Greenpeace in an effort to solve environmental problems. Dr. sc.nat. D. Lohmann Dr.sc.nat. W. Thiel Interim Managing Director Head of Analytical Dept. Table 3 Results of random testing of waste water from the VEB Pharmazeutisches Kombinat GERMED, Dresden (Greenpeace, March 1990). Collective parameters COD 5416 mg/l AOX 93 mg/l Total cyanide 4.3 æg/l Total phosphate 52,900 æg/l Conductivity 1940 æS/cm Aromatic compounds Toluene 13,995 æg/l Xylene 53 æg/l Ethylbenzene 40 æg/l Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Fluorene 381 æg/l Anthracene 159.3 æg/l Chrysene 103.1 æg/l Benzo(k)fluoranthene 1.2 æg/l Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 474 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 3.76 æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes 11.2 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 3.09 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene 17.0 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 72.1 æg/l Trichlorophenols 7.36 æg/l Tetrachlorophenols 0.28 æg/l Pentachlorophenol 1.08 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 52 4.2 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) Carbon tetrachloride 324.7 æg/l Trichloroethylene 8.24 æg/l Tetrachloroethylene 10.5 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides alpha-endosulfan 161 æg/l p,p'-DDE 92 æg/l Heavy metals Zinc 5700 æg/l Chromium 26 æg/l Copper 51 æg/l Monitoring of the water in the waste water flow channel of the VEB GERMED in 1989 (in the limit) COD/Cr less than 1,000 - 20,000 mg/l <5,500> pH 1.4 - 10.5 <3-9> Odor "chemical" Color brown, yellow, green, colorless, grayish-green, black, bluish green, reddish... Turbidity slight - moderate - high Chloride up to 7,000 mg/l <150> Ammonium up to 700 mg/l <250> Nitrate up to 400 mg/l <120> Chloroform up to 150 mg/l Toluene up to 194 mg/l Aromatic amines (as aniline equiv.) 40 - 310 æg/l Volatile organochlorine comp. up to 86,215 æg/l (POX) Adsorb. organochlorine comp. up to 14,868 æg/l (AOX) Total organochlorine compounds up to 101 mg/l (TOX) Additional individual measurements: Carbon tetrachloride 1,460 æg/l Trichloroethene 380 æg/l Dichlorobromomethane 150 æg/l Tetrachloroethene 60 æg/l Chlorodibromomethane n.d. ---------------------------------------------------------- Results of testing of random waste water samples of the AWD at the Kaditz lock (GERMED, July 9, 1990) Aromatic hydrocarbons Toluene 3,200 æg/l Xylene 5.7 æg/l Ethylbenzene 3.1 æg/l Chlorobenzenes Monochlorobenzene 173 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 1.32 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 0.9 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 28 0.77 æg/l Individual substances identified by the ship's laboratory: Monochlorobenzene Monobromobenzene Benzaldehyde Dichloroaniline Sulfur Medazepam (tranquilizer) Dithiophosphoric acid-O,O,S-trimethylester Dichlorophenol [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Zellstoffwerk Coswig (Coswig Pulp Mill) Greenpeace also stopped at the pulp mill in Coswig near Dresden. In this mill 100 t of sulfate wood pulp are produced daily from pine wood. After the Tompingson kettle for concentrating the pulp liquor broke down in 1983, 1,000 cubic meters of black liquor and 8,000 cubic meters of other waste waters were discharged directly into the Elbe, adding to the high river loads of oxygen-depleting substances and phosphate. The mill in Coswig has since been shut down. A social plan has been set up for the employees. The facilities have already been dismantled. VEB Chemiewerk Nnchritz (Nnchritz State-Owned Chemicals Plant) Just 40 kilometers downstream from Dresden on the right bank of the river in Nnchritz at Riesa, the Chemiewerk Nnchritz discharges its waste water into the Elbe. In this plant with its approx. 2000 employees sulfuric acid and its secondary products, such as chlorosulfonic acid, are produced. In addition, silicone products for adhesives, paints, rubbers and oils and even two ozone killers, the chlorofluorocarbons, CFC-11 and CFC-12, are produced. Teflon and the silicone-based building conservation agent, "Contraquin", are also well-known commercial products. The Chemiewerk Nnchritz was originally built around the turn of the century, but was dismantled after World War II. Silicone production was begun in the early 1960's. Every day the plant introduces approx. 4,000 m3 of waste water into the Elbe through at least two channels. According to the Magdeburg Water Conservation Authority this waste water probably contains acids, salts (approx. 10,000 tons of chloride per year), heavy metals and organochlorine compounds. In fact a strong smelling random waste water sample taken by the Greenpeace staff in March 1990 contained several problem substances, especially other organic pollutants. Of the pollutants found, the non- chlorinated and chlorinated aromatic compounds as well as the chlorophenols and especially the chlorinated solvents (see table) are very hazardous. Of the heavy metals found, copper in particular was elevated but the nickel, zinc and lead values measured were also significantly higher than normally found in the Elbe. The Beluga's laboratory proved to be an excellent detective in the case of another waste water component. The Greenpeace chemists were surprised that the sensors for measuring the temperature and oxygen content became covered with a sticky, viscous mass. It later emerged that this was raw, uncrosslinked silicone that was obviously contained in considerable concentrations in the waste water of the Nnchritz Chemical plant. Toluene was also identified on site. Statement of the plant management In a discussion about the concentrations of hazardous substances in the waste water, the Nnchritz plant management confirmed that neutralization was the only waste water treatment on the premises. However, some of the waste water was recycled, as is hydrogen chloride gas, in the CFC and chlorosilane production. The only waste water parameter measured was the chemical oxygen demand (COD). Representatives of the plant management were surprised that Greenpeace had discovered uncrosslinked silicones in the waste water. They had not been expecting this. For many of the other waste water components found by Greenpeace plausible explanations could be found: * Copper is used as the catalyst for direct synthesis of methylchlorosilane. Other metals like iron, calcium, aluminum, magnesium and trace metals (nickel, zinc and lead were found in the waste water) are contaminants of silicium, which is 96-98% pure. * Carbon tetrachloride is used in CFC production and must have entered the waste water there. * The aromatic compounds, such as toluene and xylene, are solvents and accelerators used in the production of silicone paints. The plant management had no explanation for the occurrence of chloroform and chlorobenzenes in the waste water of the Nnchritz chemicals plant. Chloroform is not used in the plant (the concentrations were also relatively low compared with those of other dischargers). Chlorobenzene was last used several years ago for production of paints with a phenylchlorosilane base. Up until five years ago bromobenzene was still being produced in Nnchritz. This synthesis has since been discontinued. The reactor residues from silicone synthesis is one of the plant's pressing problems. Until recently these copper-containing wastes had been sold in the territory of the former GDR for recovery of the copper, but the buyer (the Mansfeld Combine) no longer has any need of it. As a result, the wastes are currently very difficult to dispose of. Prospects In view of the worldwide condemnation of CFC's because of their ozone-destroying effect, the continued production and sales of these hazardous substances in Nnchritz are totally unacceptable. The plant management does plan to cease CFC production in 1995 at the latest, but this is still inadequate. Production must be stopped immediately! At the same time this would solve the problem of carbon tetrachloride emissions. It should be relatively easy to separate the other pollutants from the waste water. Heavy metals and even organic pollutants can be separated by available technologies and can often be recycled. They do not have to end up as waste water pollutants or as waste. In the medium and long term, an ecologically safe reorganization of plant production should focus on phasing out substances with problematical properties. Table 4 Results of random testing of waste water from the VEB Chemiewerk Nnchritz (Greenpeace, March 1990). Collective parameters: COD 1319 mg/l Total cyanide 4.7 æg/l Aromatic compounds: Benzene 288.8 æg/l Xylene 166.1 æg/l Ethylbenzene 37.2 æg/l Chlorobenzenes: Dichlorobenzenes 20.8 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 2.18 æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes 0.28 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 0.79 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene 0.52 æg/l Chlorophenols: Dichlorophenols 23.4 æg/l Trichlorophenols 18.1 æg/l Pentachlorophenol 0.49 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents): Chloroform 36.1 æg/l Carbon tetrachloride 243.1 æg/l Trichloroethylene 5.56 æg/l Tetrachloroethylene 5.67 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides: Heptachlorepoxide 0.24 æg/l Aldrin 0.23 æg/l Heavy metals: Nickel 17 æg/l Zinc 460 æg/l Copper 550 æg/l Lead 19 æg/l Individual substances identified by the ship's laboratory: Toluene [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / The Black Elster When the Black Elster flows into the Elbe above Wittenberg it has mixed consequences for the main stream. Although the Black Elster lowers the nutrient load owing to its relatively low phosphate content, it also pollutes the Elbe with cyanides, oxygen- depleting substances and organochlorine compounds. Several plants along the Black Elster including the Synthesewerk Scharzheide (SYS), the pulp mill at Gr”ditz and the Lauchhammer brown coal processing plant responsible for this. A cutback in the production capacity of the brown coal processing plant is planned. The coke oven for tar production affiliated with the plant has currently been cut back to 50% capacity and is supposed to be shut down by December 1991, as tar production has become unprofitable. The Gr”ditz pulp mill has been polluting a tributary of the Black Elster, the Great R”der, with high COD loads from its waste water. Conversion of wood pulp production to a new type of process that is less polluting is planned for the future (see Wittenberge Pulp Mill). In this connection, consideration is being given to discharging the waste water through a pipeline into the Elbe in the future. Although this would provide immediate relief to the smaller river, it would aggrevate the condition of the Elbe by introducing an additional COD load. A detailed discussion of the Synthesewerk Schwarzheide follows. Table Concentration of hazardous substances in the Black Elster where it flows into the Elbe - results of random testing by Greenpeace, March 1990: Collective parameters: COD 42 mg/l Adsorbable organochlorine compounds 389 æg/l Total cyanide 7.7 æg/l Total phosphate 130 æg/l Conductivity 510 æS/cm Aromatic compounds Toluene 1.89 æg/l Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 1.29 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 0.15 æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes 0.05 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 0.30 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene < 0.05 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 0.72 æg/l Trichlorophenols 1.11 æg/l Tetrachlorophenols < 0.1 æg/l Pentachlorophenol 0.14 æg/l Chlorinated solvents Chloroform 7.7 æg/l Tetrachloroethylene 0.61 æg/l Heavy metals Chromium 18 æg/l Copper 19 æg/l [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / VEB Synthesewerk Schwarzheide, Kombinat SYS (Schwarzheide State-Owned Synthesis Plant, SYS Combine) About 5,000 persons still work at SYS after the break-up of the VEB into an AG (joint-stock company) and four GmbH's (limited liability companies). Total sales of the former complex was about 600 million marks. The synthesis plant has already been taken over by BASF. The Schwarzheide plant was founded in 1935-1938 as part of the German efforts to achieve economic self-sufficiency primarily to generate gasoline from brown coal by means of the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. The plant was almost totally destroyed during the war. It was rebuilt after the war with syntheses based on brown coal, which had become uneconomical, being replaced stepwise by modern methods of oil refining. In the mid-60's plants were constructed for the production of herbicides, and in the early 70's modern facilities for the production of polyurethane raw materials and processable polyurethane systems went into operation. The VEB Pyrotechnik Silberhtte (pyrotechnics), the VEB Sprengstoffwerk Gnaschwitz (explosives) and the VEB Sprengstoffwerk Sch”nebeck (explosives), which all have long traditions, were also part of the Kombinat Schwarzheide, which used to have 12,000 employees. The Schaumchemie Brukhardsdorf (synthetic foams), which is still in a good technological state, has also been denationalized. BASF plans to invest several 100 million marks after takeover and to expand the plant to make it a center of polyurethane production and to manufacture other polymers. However, BASF will not bear the costs resulting from abandoned pollutant wastes at Schwarzheide. Although up to now only contamination of the ground with gasoline from the destruction of the plant during World War II has been named as "abandoned pollutant wastes", it can be assumed that residues from the whole production range will be found in the ground. The question of financing the cleanup of these abandoned wastes still has to be settled. Up to now the SYS product range has encompassed: * polyurethanes (PU) for a variety of applications * their starting materials, aniline, phosgene, isocyanates and polyols * herbicides * large-scale production of chemical products for use in the chemicals and metal-working industries, including, for example, chlorinated paraffins, a variety of nitrobenzenes and nitrotoluene derivatives, hydrochloric acid and release agents * explosives and auxilliary substances * hunting and sporting ammunition * pyrotechnical products and sea distress signaling gear * consumer goods for household and do-it-your-self needs, such as various tools, adhesives, putty, car safety parts, lawn herbicides, and a variety of flexible foam products for the bathroom, toilet, kitchen and camping. The nitrogen- and chlorine-containing residues from PU and herbicide production are burned in the plant's own incinerator. Up to now this incinerator as well as the on-site power plant have operated without facilities for flue gas cleaning operations, such as removal of dust, nitrogen and sulfur, although the burned wastes contain as much as 5% chlorine. Here it is essential to install technical facilities for flue gas cleaning. - The incinerator ash is taken to the on-site dump. Facilities for treating waste water are relatively modern. Following homogenization the waste waters are fed into open settling basins where flocculation is initiated by addition of electrolytes. In a preliminary stage nondegradable substances are converted to degradable substances by wet air oxidation. The nitrogen level is lowered in a nitrification/ denitrification plant. Up to now the sludge has been used for fertilizer, which, however, is problematical because of the high content of hazardous substances. Currently disposal in a sanitary landfill (interim solution) and combustion of the sludge are being discussed. Evaluation of the production processes from an ecological point of view Polyurethane foams (PU) are materials with a sharply increasing demand worldwide. Many countries are expanding their production capacities accordingly, and from a market point of view, this branch of production in Schwarzheide certainly has a promising future. On the other hand, the PU in the Synthesewerk Schwarzheide is produced with chlorine-containing chemicals. If phosgene, a hazardous substance, is used, chlorinated toxic wastes are generated that are difficult to dispose of (see also Bayer AG, Brunsbttel). Escape of phosgene from one of the two 40 ton liquid phosgene tanks would have disastrous consequences for the workers in the plant and for the neighborhood. Since safe, chlorine-free alternatives for the production of PU exist, Schwarzheide must convert to a chlorine-free production process. In the medium range, measures must be taken to substitute production of now PU materials with a recycling of the substance. In the long range, basic consideration must be given to whether production and use of this product, which is made from nonrenewable resources, are even necessary. The goals must be to cut back production and to use renewable resources for production. These measures are urgently needed not only to abate environmental pollution and reduce energy consumption but also to save the nonrenewable base raw material, oil. Herbicides based on chlorophenoxyacetic acid must be totally banned. The use of these herbicides is nothing but the deliberate distribution in the environment of highly toxic, long-lived chlorinated hydrocarbons that are not degradable by natural processes. There is already sufficient evidence to show that they are concentrated in the food chain and cause numerous diseases in animals and humans. It is especially alarming that these herbicides are often contaminated by dioxins resulting from production. (Dioxins are some of the most toxic substances ever synthesized by humans.) Cancer and deformities in newborns are inevitable consequences of the use of these agents. It is irresponsible for the Synthesewerk Schwarzheide to even offer these preparations for use in private gardens. These substances must be taken off the market as quickly as possible. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / VEB Kombinat Agrochemie Piesteritz (Piesteritz State-Owned Agrochemicals Combine) The VEB Kombinat Agrochemie Piesteritz is located on the right bank of the Elbe in Wittenberg-Piesteritz. The plant for production of nitrogen was founded in 1915. Between 8,000 and 10,000 workers were last employed in both parts of the plant (north and south plant). According to more recent data, between 2,000 and 4,000 will be or have already been laid off. The product range of the plant encompasses besides inorganic acids (sulfuric acid, nitric acid, phosphoric acid) a great variety of nitrogen- and phosphorus-based fertilizers, such as urea, calcium cyanamide and white phosphorus. The range of production processes is based on the synthesis of carbide from lime and coke in an electric furnace, which consumes large amounts of electricity. The calcium carbide formed is converted to calcium cyanamide by the Frank-Caro process in a stream of nitrogen at 1000 C. This is sold as calcium cyanamide fertilizer. At present, however, fertilizer production has been cut back, as the customers (the former state-owned agricultural enterprises) have only limited funds and therefore buy less fertilizer. Thus, for example, two of the original three carbide furnaces have already been shut down and two of the original three urea plants are out of operation. In subsequent stages of synthesis cyanamide is converted to dicyanamide and then to melamine. Dicyanamide can be used as an additive for explosives and as a vulcanization accelerator. Its secondary product, melamine, is treated with formaldehyde to form thermoset materials with a range of applications that includes laminates, adhesive resins and adhesives. In the processes used in Piesteritz highly toxic cyanides and hydrogen cyanide are inevitably formed as by-products. They in turn serve as the starting materials for plexiglass (poly(methyl methacrylate) - PMMA) or are processed further to colored cyano complexes. However, the plexiglass production has since been discontinued, as the production process used is too expensive. The plant discharges its waste water into the Elbe via several inlets. Neither the chemicals plant nor the neighboring city of Wittenberg as yet has a sewage treatment plant. The company itself gave the environmental loads emanating from the plant as follows: Air: According to its own data, the Piesteritz agrochemicals plant emitted 8772 tons of dust, 11,084 tons of SO2, 4,025 tons on NOx, 105 tons of fluorine compounds, 2,587 tons of ammonia and 213 tons of phosphorus pentoxide into the air in 1989. For dust, SO2 and NOx, this is approximately equivalent to half the amount blown into the air in 1986 by all of the industries in the Hamburg area(!). Waste water: The plant discharged a total of 100,000 m3 of waste water into the Elbe daily. Thus more than 21,000 tons of solids, almost 30 tons of cyanides, 43 tons of phosphorus, more than 1,500 tons of ammonium, 69 tons of nitrite and over 2,000 tons of nitrate were discharged into the Elbe annually. Soil: According to other data, the plant grounds should not be designated an abandoned polluted area. There should be no hazardous substances from the plant's production in the ground. Also the ground under the old factory dating from 1915 is not supposed to be polluted. A water sample taken by Greenpeace contained large amounts of cyanide as well as slightly elevated levels of phosphate, benzene, toluene, dichlorobenzene and pentachlorobenzene. The heavy metal, copper, was also determined in the waste water in a higher concentration. The pungent odor of the waste water that was partly colored a deep blue is attributable to the highly toxic substances, phosphine, arsine and acetylene. The color itself is caused by the cyanide complexes, such as Berlin blue, contained in the waste water. Statement of the plant management The plant management proved very open to discussion with the Greenpeace delegation from the Beluga. It repeatedly lamented that although a combined industrial waste - municipal sewage treatment plant had been planned back in 1969, it had still not been constructed. The plant management hoped the combined treatment plant would be in operation by 1995 and that this would reduce the nitrogen effluents by 90%. Free cyanides could also be disposed of in the treatment plant. However, the biology of the plant presents some problems because the carbon/nitrogen ratio of individual parts of the plant do not meet the requirements of the combined sewage treatment plant. In such cases the partial waste water streams would have to be treated separately. Plant management stated that cyanide in the waste water emanated mainly from the ester plant for production of methylmethacrylate and from its preliminary stage, the synthesis of acetone cyanhydrin. However, the emissions had already been reduced by 30-35%. Greater reductions should be expected in the future from the shutdown of the ester plant planned for 1990. The toluene concentrations in the plant waste water probably result from the use of toluene in paint resins. The plant management expressed doubts about other pollutants found by Greenpeace in the waste water including, for example, the organochlorine compounds. These were neither used nor produced in the plant. The concentrations of some of the chlorobenzenes in particular were markedly elevated, although the cause for this could not be clearly identified. The plant management is counting on the assistance and know how of the FRG for the necessary pollution abatement program. However, negotiations have proved difficult, as especially the large West German groups of companies have shown great hesitation. Additional assistance should come from a partnership with the city of G”ttingen. To date, however, no firmly committed partner has been found. A number of pollution control measures are definitively planned for the coming year. These include for air pollution abatement dedusting of the carbide production (stepwise by 1995), lowering of the NOx emissions of the nitric acid plant (1991-92), conversion of steam generation to oil firing (1991-95) and installation of a fiber deep bed filter in the phosphoric acid plant (1990). To reduce the waste water load the present wet gasifier with its pollutant effluents into the Elbe is to be shut down from 1990 to 1994. In its place the carbide dry gasifier, which already exists, is to be reconstructed. The soot is to be recycled and building lime produced at the same time. It is hoped that this alone will reduce the solids load in the waste water by 13,500 tons per year. "The solids load of the discharge from the sludge disposal site is to be reduced by 4,500 tons per year by 1993. Further pollution abatement is to be achieved in the areas of urea production (by 1995) and phosphoric acid production (1990-92) by treatment of waste water." The plant management hopes that pollution of the Elbe with the plant's waste water will be finally abated by 1995 when the Wittenberg/Piesteritz combined sewage treatment plant will be completed. In this plant, which is being subsidized by the German Environmental Protection Ministry, the municipal sewage from Wittenberg is to be jointly treated and purified with the industrial waste waters from Piesteritz. Prospects The pollution abatement program for waste water purification proposed by the Piesteritz agrochemicals plant seems feasible providing it can actually be financed. Although construction of a combined sewage treatment plant for the plant's waste water and municipal sewage can cause difficulties, any problem arising should basically be solvable by pretreatment of the individual streams of industrial waste waters in the chemicals plant. While carbide production in Buna is to be stopped completely, the Pieseritz plant is planning an ecological redevelopment of the production process. However, this will not be easy, as the process generates a variety of problematical impurities that cannot necessarily be converted to useful, ecologically safe products. One such process for the utilization of unavoidable by-products, the production of PMMA, is now supposed to be discontinued because it is not economically feasible. Hopefully this will not be at the price of increased volumes of toxic wastes such as cyanide-containing lime sludge! On the other hand, the strategy of avoiding the apparently easier way of switching to oil as the new base raw material and continuing to use local raw materials has its advantages. (This has also always been one criterium of the environmental movement: decentralized economic structures, utilization of local but renewable resources, avoidance of long-distance, energy-consuming and hazardous transport of raw materials!). Consequent follow-up of the first stages of pollution abatement combined with the development of newer, cleaner production processes can turn the Piesteritz agrochemicals plant into a company that is significantly less detrimental to the environment than it was in the past. Faced with a world where the avoidance of synthetic fertilizers seems increasingly compelling, the entire production range should be changed in the long run. Table Results of random testing of waste water from the VEB Kombinat Agrochemie Piesteritz (Greenpeace, March 1990). Collective parameters COD 74 mg/l Total cyanide 64.0 æg/l Total phosphate 1690 æg/l Conductivity 55 æS/cm Aromatic compounds Benzene 30.5 æg/l Toluene 70.7 æg/l Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 13.9 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 0.85 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 28 0.23 æg/l Heavy metals Copper 42 æg/l [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / The Mulde With the confluence of the Mulde near Roálau the quality of the Elbe water suddenly deteriorates. The oxygen deficiency of the Mulde water and its high organic load (up to 18 mg/l BOD/in 5 days and up to 100 mg/l COD/Cr) lower the oxygen concentrations in the Elbe to less than 2 mg/l. At the same time the nitrogen concentration sharply increases. The salt concentration also increases as well as heavy metal concentrations, especialy that of mercury. The main polluters of the Mulde are the industrial plants in the Bitterfeld-Wolfen area. However, it is already preloaded by the uranium mines at Schwarzenberg and the industrial area of Chemnitz. Owing to the industrial area of Bitterfeld-Wolfen the Mulde has not only a very high total organic load but, as shown by the AOX of 1,400 æg/l found by Greenpeace, an excessive load of organochlorine compounds, including a variety of solvents, chlorobenzenes, chlorophenols and pesticides. The heavy metals, lead and cadmium, are also carried into the Elbe by the Mulde. They originate, for example, from mining and metal smelting, but lead also comes from the exhausts of motor vehicles. The high phosphate concentrations in the Mulde are caused not only by the industrial polluters but also by washing detergents and agriculture. Table Results of Greenpeace analysis of random water samples from the Mulde (March 1990). Collective parameters COD 62 mg/l AOX 1400 æg/l Total cyanide 2.6 æg/l Total phosphate 830 æg/l Conductivity 460 æS/cm Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 88.0 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 0.59 æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes 0.62 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 0.17 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 21.3 æg/l Trichlorophenols 2.95 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 28 1.04 æg/l PCB 52 0.12 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) Carbon tetrachloride 3.61 æg/l Trichloroethylene 2.0 æg/l Tetrachloroethylene 3.64 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides p,p'-DDE 0.07 æg/l alpha-HCH 0.07 æg/l Aromatic hydrocarbons Benzene 1,69 æg/l Toluene 1.45 æg/l Heavy metals Arsenic 4,6 æg/l [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / VEB Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld (Bitterfeld State-Owned Chemicals Combine) The Halle region with the VEB Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld (CKB), the Wolfen film factory and other companies is known not only in the GDR but also worldwide as an ecological disaster area. Six thousand smoke stacks emit hazardous substances into the environment, but only 675 of these are registered with the authorities as emitters and are monitored by regulatory agencies. A detailed discussion of the CKB would be beyond the scope of this report but a short description will be given. Strip mining of brown coal in the Bitterfeld area was already begun in 1840. Favored by the location factors of brown coal, salt deposits and the Mulde water ("life-line of the chemicals industry"), an industry for production of caustic potash and castic soda solutions developed in Bitterfeld long before World War I. The growing textile, paper and glass industries created increasing demand for these basic chemicals. Following several mergers the Bitterfeld companies, which were also involved in the production of poison gas and explosives during both world wars, were integrated in the I.G. Farben group. With the breakup of the I.G. Farben after World War II, the Bitterfeld plants were combined into the VEB Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld. When production was begun again after 1945, food substitutes ("Bino") were produced in very simple plants. In the CKB several of the plants built in the first quarter of the century are still in operation. Since the CKB was hardly destroyed in World War II, most of the plants, provided they were not dismantled, could continue production after the war without modernization. New facilities were often added only when waste products from the existing plants were to be upgraded to marketable new products. In 1988 the CKB with 20,000 employees produced about two thousand finished products (for a summary refer to the table). No production without chlorine Chlorine is the key substance in the CKB production processes. It is inevitably formed as the coupling product of chlor-alkali electrolysis during production of caustic potash or caustic soda solution. In a methane chlorination, the chlorine is further reacted to chlorinated solvents and chlorofluorcarbons (CFC's, CFC-11, CFC-22). It is also used, for example, in the production of phosphorus chlorides, chlorobenzenes, chlorophenols, pesticides, organic dyes, silicones, etc. The production of pesticides alone accounted for more than 400 preparations with a total of 210 different active substances in 1984. Production of particularly long-lived and environmentally hazardous chlorinated pesticides like DDT, 2,4,5-T and lindan has been decreasing for several years or completely shut down. However, many of the active substances that are still being produced today, such as triazines (atrazine!) and phosphoric esters (eg parathion, parathion-methyl ("Wofotox", dimethoate, Bi58) also pose comparable threats to the environment, surface and drinking waters and human health. Working conditions in some of the plant's facilities are extremely detrimental to health, which is sometimes compensated for by additional pay. Certain occupational diseases (changes in finger bones, excrescences of the wrist joint) occur frequently. Not just the workers in Bitterfeld but also the residents have become sick. Children suffer from delayed bone maturation and are up to eight months behind normal children the same age in their development. Doctors frequently diagnose diseases of the respiratory system and a detrimental effect on lung function. The causes are the enormous pollutant loads emanating from the Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld and other neighboring companies. In 1989 alone these included 94,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 40,000 tons of dust, 9,700 tons of nitrogen oxides, 12,450 tons of carbon monoxide, 5,300 tons of sulfur compounds, over 600 tons of fluorine, more than 1,600 tons of chlorine and hydrogen chloride, 158 tons of ammonia and amines and 15,000 tons of hydrocarbons. Indiscriminate dumpings The numerous indiscriminate dumpings that have built up over the decades around the CKB are an immense problem. Two thirds of the countryside around Bitterfeld has been dug up to a depth of 70 meters for strip mining of brown coal in the past 150 years so that the area resembles a lunar landscape. No one knows the number of sites where brown coal ashes and highly toxic chemical wastes, such as waste salts, mercury wastes and residues from the production of chlorinated hydrocarbons, have been carelessly dumped in the plundered pits. The number of these highly dangerous abandoned polluted areas containing every imaginable toxic chemical from heavy metals to dioxins is estmated at one hundred to more than five hundred. In 1989 alone 65,000 cubic meters of industrial refuse, 230,000 cubic meters of building rubble and domestic refuse and 88,000 tons of excrement were dumped indiscriminately around Bitterfeld and Wolfen. THe geological formation of the subsoil makes it totally unsuitable for dumping of wastes. Hazardous substances can spread freely and penetrate into the ground water. Results of studies on individual highly toxic substance are becoming increasingly available. Thus HCH isomers from pesticide production were found in cow's milk. Soils from the area surrounding the plant are in some cases so highly loaded with dioxin that according to the recommendations of the Bundesgesundheitsamt (Federal Health Administration) children must be prohibited from playing there and gardens may not be used for growing vegetables. Pollutant load of the waste water from the Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld The total volume of waste water amounts to a good 200,000 cubic meters per day. The biggest problem in the waste water is mercury: the two chlor-alkali electrolyses, which operate according to the amalgam method, lose 5 tons of this heavy metal with the waste water annually and account for a quarter of the total load discharged into the North Sea by the Elbe every year. Other waste water problems are revealed by the measurements carried out by the Halle Wasserwirtschafts-direktion (WWD = Water Conservation Authority) in the discharge to the sewage channel: TABLE: Concentration of pollutants in the waste water of the Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld (WWD Halle - Measurement in the "sewage channel" discharge) Waste water volume 197,000 m3/day June 1990 Range at other times pH 7.7 - 9.1 2.3 - 7.3 Substances separable by filtration 240 - 243 1 - 32 Chloride 1039 - 1057 1020 - 1540 mg/l Nitrite 18 - 24 1 - 20.5 mg/l Nitrate 102 - 138 65 - 84 mg/l Ammonium 20 - 50 16 - 45 mg/l COD/Mn 109 - 294 122 - 213 mg/l COD 291 - 732 294 - 784 mg/l Volatile phenols 0.14- 0.8 0.9 - 4 mg/l BOD/in 5 days 235 - 248 77 - 264 mg/l Dissolved organic carbon 218 - 298 89 - 158 mg/l Volatile and chlorinated hydrocarbons 3.8 - 32.8 3.9 - 31.9 mg/l Org. bound nitrogen 31 - 113 8.6 - 36.3 mg/l A second waste water channel from the CKB passes through the Nord-Leine-Canal into the Leine. Here the Halle WWD found an even higher concentration of substances separable by filtration, equaling up to 1,000 milligrams per liter. The concentrations of other hazardous substances were comparable or somewhat lower than in the sewage channel discharge. The volume of waste water discharged into the Leine was "only" 13,400 cubic meters per day. What can be concealed behind such collective terms as "soluble organic carbon" or "chlorinated hydrocarbons" was revealed by gas chromatographic/mass spectrometric analysis in the Beluga's laboratory. The trimethyl ester of dithiophosphoric acid (possibly from pesticide production), 2,4,6-trichlorophenol, chloronitrobenzenes and chlorinated ethanes were found. These are all highly toxic pollutants that should not be in waste water at all. They are often hardly degradable, have by no means been fully investigated, and can exert a wide variety of deleterious effects on individual organisms and communities of species in the river. Beginnings of a cleanup? The damage to the environment caused by the Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld is so grave that it will take decades to repair. A convincing concept for pollution abatement understandably does not exist as yet. The only immediate action to date has been the shutdown of a few production processes. However, environmental groups have criticized that these shutdowns have been carried out primarily for economic reasons. Some of the most dangerous production lines in Bitterfeld are still in operation, for these products can most easily be marketed worldwide. The productions to be discontinued by January 1991 include the following facilities: aluminum I, hydroquinone (technical), liquid SO2 production, mercaptotriazine (pesticide), mephol- resorcin, potassium dichromate, mesamol, Sandersdorf heating house, beta-naphthol, chlor-alkali electrolysis I, sulfur paints and graphite pipe. According to the Halle Water Conservation Authority more than 20 individual measures have produced no significant improvement in the quality of the waste water. Construction of a central waste water treatment plant is not planned until 1996. By the mid-90's the Chlor-Alkali Electrolysis III plant is supposed to be shut down. It is to be replaced by a membrane electrolysis for production of chlorine and caustic potash solution. Other plans have been made to shut down the Aluminum II plant and the lime ammonium nitrate plant (will be reconstructed), as well as the production of some washing detergents, dyes, chemically produced metals and pesticides. In addition, some new plants, measures for purifying waste water and air emissions and final construction of the sanitary landfill for hazardous wastes are planned. In 1989 the Swedish companies, Cellchem AB and STAB, agreed to supply the VEB Bitterfeld with a chlorate factory capable of producing 32,000 tons of sodium chlorate and 8,000 tons of potassium chlorate per year. (Chlorate is used for production of explosives and as an oxidizing agent.) The usefulness of this investment is, however, questionable. The present chlorate plants are already operating at one-half their capacity because the production of this product which consumes high amounts of electricity is unprofitable. The Chemie AG (chemicals stock company) is now hoping for cheap electricity rates. The Bitterfeld managers are still putting their money on chlorine chemicals for the future: "We will need chlorine, even in the year 2000!" The planned new construction of a chlor-alkali electrolysis based on the membrane method makes this perfectly clear. Only a few unavoidable changes will be made in other production processes, for example, because the Montreal Protocol requires phasing out the production of the chlorofluorocarbons, CFF-11 and CFC-12. The intermediate product, carbon tetrachloride, will then no longer be required. Instead, more chloroform is to be produced as the precursor for CFC-22, a "substitute" that also destroys ozone but is still permitted. In this connection, the methyl chloride capacity is to be expanded to increase silicone production. The plans to date are more than inadequate. While in the western part of Germany a phase-out of all chlorine chemicals has been the central theme of chemicals policy discussions for several years with the result that installation of a new chlor-alkali electrolysis would be almost impossible politically, in Bitterfeld the ecologically obsolete production of chlorine is to be started up again in a new plant to be constructed. Here the chance has been wasted to eliminate the chlorine burden once and for all as part of the impending total redevelopment of a large chemical plant and to concentrate on production lines that are not detrimental to the environment. Meanwhile the people in Bitterfeld hope that the establishiment of new, clean industries on the newly disclosed commercial sites will provide new jobs for those workers who will be laid off in the near future by the moribund chemical giants. Products of the Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld: * chlor-alkali products * soda * aluminum * potassium permanganate and other manganese compounds * sodium chlorate * phosphorus chloride * CFCs * methylene chloride * formaldehyde * resorcin * sulfonamides * pesticides * organic dyes * catalysts * ion exchangers * silicones * detergent base materials * detergents, cleansers and disinfectants * optical brightening agents * photochemicals * technical coal products * auxilliary products for the textile, leather, paper and rubber industries Results of random testing of waste water from the Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld (Greenpeace, March 1990). Collective parameters COD 460 mg/l AOX 1400 æg/l Total cyanide 62.0 æg/l Total phosphate 3290 æg/l Conductivity 2460 æS/cm Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 1173 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 144 æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes 84.4 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 1.36 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 153 æg/l Trichlorophenols 56.7 æg/l Tetrachlorophenols 0.42 æg/l Pentachlorophenol 0.69 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 28 72.3 æg/l PCB 52 2.50 æg/l PCB 118 0.25 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) Chloroform 3350 æg/l Carbon tetrachloride 296.3 æg/l Trichloroethylene 913.8 æg/l Tetrachloroethylene 336.6 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides Aldrin 0.31 æg/l Dieldrin 0.82 æg/l Endrin 0.70 æg/l o,p'-DDD 0.22 æg/l p,p'-DDE 1.85 æg/l alpha-HCH 4.24 æg/l Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Naphthalene 17.4 æg/l Acenaphthylene 3.3 æg/l Aromatic hydrocarbons Benzene 134 æg/l Toluene 422 æg/l Xylene 15.8 æg/l Ethylbenzene 9.7 æg/l Heavy metals Cadmium 2.8 æg/l Nickel 18 æg/l Zinc 380 æg/l Chromium 291 æg/l Copper 103 æg/l Mercury 19 æg/l Lead 7.0 æg/l Individual substances identified by the ship's laboratory: Monochlorobenzene Monochlorotoluene Tetrachloroethane Pentachloroethane Pentachloropropane Hexachloroethane Dichlorobenzenes Dichlorophenols Trichlorophenols Nitrotoluene Chloronitrobenzene Dithiophosphoric acid-O,O,S-trimethyl ester [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / VEB Fotochemisches Kombinat Wolfen (Wolfen State-Owned Photochemicals Combine) The Fotochemisches Kombinat consists of the original plant, the VEB Filmfabrik Wolfen (Wolfen State-Owned Film Factory), and several other plants. In 1988 it had a total of 21,000 employees. Production encompassed besides magnetic tapes, films, photographic papers and photographic chemicals, also viscose fibers and cellulose. The volume of waste water is 125,000 cubic meters daily. It contains enormously high concentrations of oxygen-depleting substances: at almost 4,200 milligrams of COD, the random waste water sample taken by Greenpeace had the second highest load of the entire trip. From this a daily COD load of 500 tons can be calculated. The data of the Halle Water Conservation Authority show that this is no exception: TABLE: Pollutants in the waste water of the Fotochemische Combinat Wolfen (Halle WWD) Waste water volume 125,000 m3/day 6/18/90 6/20/90 Range at other times pH 8.2 7.6 3.1 - 6 Substances separable by filtration 211 200 11 - 167 mg/l Chloride 149 89 115 - 330 mg/l Nitrite 4 14 0.1 - 0.8 mg/l Nitrate 34.5 0 0 Ammonium 5 6 7.2 - 16.2 mg/l COD/Mn 194 71 610 - 2884 mg/l COD/Cr 297 291 1330 - 4026 mg/l Volatile phenols 0.22 0.03 0.2 - 2.6 mg/l The cellulose production which is the source of high pollutant loads was out of operation on June 18 and 20, 1990. A total cleanup of this disastrously polluted waste water is nowhere in sight. Although isolated shutdowns will undoubtedly bring considerable reductions, according to the Halle Water Conservation Authority the Wolfen film factory will not have its own neutralization and sedimentaion plant until 1998. In addition to these pollutants Greenpeace determined extremely high chlorobenzene and phosphate loads and elevated concentrations of heavy metals. The latter, however, could have resulted from the preload resulting from industrial use of the Mulde water. Plans for the future Viscose fiber production already ceased in December 1989 and the production of sulfate wood pulp (n-wood pulp) was discontinued in the summer of 1990. Production of sulfite wood pulp (s-wood pulp) is still operating at 10% capacity in order to reduce the wood stocks, but this plant is also supposed to be shut down in January 1991. By then a Swiss consulting company is supposed to have worked out a plan for what a woodpulp production in Wolfen can look like in the future. The plant management itself has said that it "no longer wants any half-measures" but would like to phase out chlorine bleaching entirely. The production of films and magnetic tapes is supposed to continue. In this sector Agfa-Gevaert AG, a subsidiary of the Bayer group, wants to cooperated with Wolfen in the future. Agfa- Gevaert hopes this will give it access to the Eastern European markets. The plan is to process Agfa movie films in Wolfen and to deliver them from there to the countries of Eastern Europe. The Silbersee (Silver Lake) The "Silbersee" is an environmental scandal without precedence. Into this unsealed abandoned strip mining pit, formerly call "Grube Johannes" (John Pit), 5,000 cubic meters of untreated waste water are pumped through an open, brick-lined channel, which is the "main line" and another 5,000 - 6,000 through an additional, "illegal" sewage pipe, which is the former drain pipe of the mine. This pit serves literally as the sedimentation basin, a function for which it is totally unsuited, before it flows into the Spittel and subsequently into the Mulde. In the 1920's this pit was filled with water. This means that it is presumably still in contact with the water table. Initially ash and lime sludge were dumped here before discharge of the waste waters from wood pulp production was begun here in 1936. Over the years the pit, which is 3 meters deep at the edge and up to 13 meters deep in the middle, has almost completely filled up with sludge from the Wolfen waste water. The Greenpeace activists found an eerie sight when they visited the scene: a lake full of foam with dark brown water and only dead trees along the shore. The area resembles a lunar landscape. Since chlorine bleaching has always been used in Wolfen, it seemed reasonable to assume that dioxins and other chlorinated hydrocarbons could also have been discharged into the pit with the wood pulp waste waters. Fortunately, analysis of the upper sediment layer by the GfA in Mnster-Ruxel commissioned by Greenpeace did not confirm the worst fears. At 25 - 70 nanogramms of dioxin (expressed as the toxicity equivalent, TE) per kilograms of dry substance, the sludge does contain increased amounts of dioxin but not of the order that would alone warrant an immediate cleanup. This is similarly true for the chlorobenzenes and chlorophenols (the total concentrations here were between 1 and 10 mg/kg, but there was a hexachlorobenzene concentration of 0.53 mg/kg in just one sample). These loads must certainly be taken seriously, but an immediate cleanup program must be instituted because of the loads of heavy metals in the sludge. At over 3 grams of zinc and almost one gram of lead per kilogram dry substance, in addition to arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, nickel and mercury, the "Grube Johannes" resembles a mine, even though the management of the Wolfen film factory asserted that the sludge contained absolutely no heavy metals! TABLE: Analysis by the GfA Mnster-Ruxel Heavy metal concentrations in a sludge sample taken by Greenpeace from the "Silbersee" (Data based on dry substance (DS)). Arsenic 16.5 mg/kg DS Lead 917 mg/kg DS Cadmium 9.1 mg/kg DS Chromium 50.3 mg/kg DS Copper 119 mg/kg DS Nickel 149 mg/kg DS Mercury 6.1 mg/kg DS Zinc 3010 mg/kg DS It has since been admitted that lead and zinc may have originated from the production of viscose fibers. Zinc sulfate was used in this process as a catalyst and lead could have been extracted from the lead-coated spinning machine. Currently attempts are being made to check the threat emanating from the "Silbersee" by dumping building rubble at the edge in order to confine the water surface to the lake region only. The embankments are being stabilized with ash from the power plant at Bitterfeld and Wolfen. Afterwards they are to be covered with top soil and grass planted on the shoreline. No program as yet exists for the deeper parts of the pit although this is urgently needed since no one knows whether the pollutants on the bottom of the "Silbersee" are diffusing into the ground water. Should dredging and treatment become necessary, the chlorobenzenes and chlorophenols could prove to be a gigantic problem, as they could generate additional dioxins when the sludge is smelted or burned. Table Products of the Fotochemische Kombinat Wolfen: * Films (color reversal, positive, negative, process, cinematographic raw, X-ray, copying, roll, movie, miniature and TV reversal films) * Films and plates for science and technology * Light filters * Tracing papers * Photochemicals * Dye coupling developers * Microfilms * Photographic papers * Magnetic tapes * Gelatins and adhesives * Bone processing * Viscose, acrylic and PVC fibers Results of random testing of waste water from the Filmfabrik Wolfen (Greenpeace, March 1990). Collective parameters COD 4189 mg/l AOX 4300 æg/l Total cyanide 11.0 æg/l Total phosphate 27,900 æg/l Conductivity 1070 æS/cm Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 25.6 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 1.03 æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes 0.21 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 0.81 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene 0.14 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 2.21 æg/l Trichlorophenols 1.80 æg/l Tetrachlorophenols 0.38 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 180 0.43 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) Chloroform 15.7 æg/l Carbon tetrachloride 11.9 æg/l Trichloroethylene 7.54 æg/l Tetrachloroethylene 4.01 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides Dieldrin 0.23 æg/l Endrin 0.10 æg/l o,p'-DDT 0.35 æg/l o,p'-DDE 0.06 æg/l alpha-HCH 0.14 æg/l gamma-HCH 0.28 æg/l Aromatic hydrocarbons Benzene 3.42 æg/l Toluene 31 æg/l Heavy metals Cadmium 2.1 æg/l Nickel 13 æg/l Zinc 460 æg/l Copper 17 æg/l Lead 43 æg/l Individual substances identified by the ship's laboratory: Derivatives of cyclopentenone Methoxyphenols Chlorophenols Alkylphenols [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / VEB Fotochemisches Kombinat Wolfen (Wolfen State-Owned Photochemicals Combine) The Saale With its confluence with the Elbe at Barby the Saale inflicts another blow to the already ailing main stream. Its contribution to oxygen-depleting substances alone accounts for 4.9 per cent of the total load of the Elbe measured at Schnackenburg. Added to this are large amounts of nutrients, salts, cyanides, heavy metals, phenols and chlorinated hydrocarbons, in short, once again the whole horror of chemical water pollution from A to Z. Four large groups of polluters are chiefly responsible: the potassium industry, the mining and smelting of metals, brown coal processing and the chemicals industry. Other polluters include the pulp industry in Blankenstein and Merseburg as well as the Chemiefaserkombinat Schwarza (Schwarza Synthetic Fibers Combine). The nitrogen concentrations of the Elbe increase sharply after the inflow of the Saale and values of up to 4 mg of nitrate nitrogen or ammonium nitrogen are attained. The high nitrogen load of the Saale emanates primarily from the discharge of waste water by the chemical industry, in particular the Leuna Works, and municipal sewage discharge in the Halle area. Phosphate is also added to the Elbe in substantial amounts by the Saale. The sources here are again mainly the chemicals industry around Halle but also runoff from fertilizers used in agriculture and inadequately treated municipal sewage. In a random sample taken from the Saale Greenpeace found almost 1000 æg/l of phosphate, which is twice as high as the phosphate content of the Elbe above the mouth of the Saale. The extremely high salt content of the Saale is caused by the potash industry in the Saale-Unstrut area. The amounts of salts discharged require about one hundred stream kilometers before they have completely mixed with the body of water of the Elbe below Tangermnde and still account for two-thirds of the total salt load of the Elbe at the Boizenburg measuring site. Mining and metal smelting along the Unstrut and Wipper tributaries add to the Elbe high amounts of toxic heavy metals like lead, nickel, copper and zinc (see the high values found by Greenpeace in the Saale) as well as cadmium and chromium. The companies responsible are, for example, the copper-silver works in Hettstedt and the silver-nickel works of the Mansfeld combine. The copper-silver works in Hettstedt are an example of the intolerable air pollution caused by these metalluurgical works. Yearly emissions could be reduced by 4681 tons of sulfur dioxide, 68 tons of sulfur trioxide and 7410 tons of carbon monoxide just by shutting down the Besemer contact facilities. Heavy metals are discharged not only by the metallurgical industry but also by large chemicals plants. The current release of 20 kilograms of mercury daily from the Buna works is particularly problematical (see the Buna chapter). In addition, Greenpeace also discovered chromium, copper and nickel in the Leuna waste water. The high concentrations of chlorinated hydrocarbons (AOX) in the Saale originate not only from Buna and Leuna but also from the pulp industry. The Greenpeace staff found in the Saale, for example, the highest river concentrations of dichlorobenzene (106 æg/l). Low temperature carbonization of brown coal A totally different type of polluter complex is formed by the large combines of B”hlen and Espenhain. In the petrochemical combine in B”hlen both oil and brown coal is processed. It has a cracking installation for production of ethylene and propylene from crude oil, which are subsequently used as the basis for olefin chemistry. High environmental loads emanate in B”hlen, as in Espenhain, from the large-scale low temperature carbonization of brown coal. Both combines use the rivulet, the Pleiáe, as the sewage channel, which drains into the Saale via the White Elster. During low temperature carbonization brown coal is heated to 450 to 600 C to expel volatile components. In the process, tar and low temperature carbonization coke are formed. The latter is used as the fuel in the carbonization power plant to generate energy. One carbonization oven has a daily throughput of 450 to 500 tons. In Espenhain there are 30 such ovens and in B”hlen 24 are installed. The carbonization gas expelled from the brown coal is composed of methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and approximately 50 % nitrogen. It has only a low thermal value and is used mostly as a dry gas or heating gas and is sometimes mixed with town gas. Waste water from the low temperature carbonization plant is an unwanted by-product from which phenols, cresols and xylenols are obtained by alkaline washing or the phenolsolvan method. Up to now treatment of this carbonization waste water has been highly unsatisfactory with phenols and other hazardous contaminants being introduced into the Pleiáe. Facilities to remove phenols from the carbonization waste water should be installed by the end of 1993 in Espenhain. This should reduce the yearly waste water load by 8472 tons of aqueous ketone separation phase, 1592 tons of ammonia concentrate and 159 tons of phenolsolvan extract. In the petrochemical combine in B”hlen installation of a recooling plant is supposed to reduce the yearly waste water load by 800 tons of light crude oil, 400 tons of sulfur and 100 tons of phenolsolvan extract. The amounts of pollutants released into the air are probably a more serious problem than the pollution from carbonization waste water. Their reduction would require such complicated technology that shutdowns are planned instead. * The B”hlen low temperature carbonization plant (including the Espenhain power plant) is supposed to cut back production by 25% starting in 1990 and be completely shut down as of 1992. This will reduce yearly emissions by 7610 tons of dust, 10290 tons of sulfur dioxide, 560 tons of hydrogen sulfide, 150 tons of mercaptans, 520 tons of tar, 140 tons of ammonia, 1130 tons of hydrocarbons and 5290 tons of nitrogen oxides. (All of these pollutants have been emitted up to now!) * Up to now the yearly emissions from the Espenhain low temperature carbonization plant have included 8250 tons of dust, 145,900 tons of sulfur dioxide, 3450 tons of hydrogen sulfide, 1980 tons of drag chain gas, 925 tons of dilute carbonization gas, 275 tons of neutralization exhaust vapors, 340 tons of mercaptans, 1910 tons of tar, 610 tons of ammonia and 5010 tons of hydrocarbons. Production is to be cut back 20% as of 1990 and completely shutdown as of 1992. (This could make the planned plant for removal of phenols from the waste water of the low temperature carbonization plant superfluous.) ______________________________________________________________ Table Results of random testing of water from the Saale (Greenpeace, March 1990). Collective parameters COD 55 mg/l AOX 289 mg/l Total cyanide 13.0 æg/l Total phosphate 960 æg/l Conductivity 1720 æS/cm Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 105.6 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 7.43 æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes 0.46 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 0.29 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 52 0.14 æg/l PCB 180 0.41 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) 1,1,1-Trichloroethane 5.24 æg/l Trichloroethylene 14.1 æg/l Perchloroethylene 5.66 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides Methoxychlor 0.06 æg/l o,p'-DDT 1.25 æg/l Lindan 0.09 æg/l Aromatic hydrocarbons Xylene 1.36 æg/l Heavy metals Nickel 12 æg/l Zinc 400 æg/l Arsenic 4.7 æg/l Copper 35 æg/l Lead 12 æg/l [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / VEB Chemische Werke Buna, Schkopau (Buna State-Owned Chemical Works in Schkopau) The Buna chemical works in Schkopau is the largest producer of polymers ("plastics and elastomers") and one of the biggest chemical producers in all of the territory of the former GDR. The annual sales of the combine with over 20,000 employees was 2.2 billion DM (9.2 billion East German marks) at the time of the currency reform. The company's name alone suggests its best-known product, synthetic rubber produced from sodium butadiene (in German Butadien-Natrium). As part of the I.G. Farben group, the Buna plant was responsible for providing the army with necessary war materials during World War II. This included chiefly rubber for tires but also polymers and other products. Relevant research projects and process developments were already being carried out before the war as part of the autarky efforts of the German Reich. After termination of rubber deliveries from Southeast Asia it was only the Buna works together with the other I.G. Farben companies that made the start and continuation of the war possible. Until 1990 carbide production from the local raw materials, lime and coke, which was begun in 1939 and expanded in 1962, served as the basis for production of synthetic chemicals in the Buna works. Chlorine is used to produce the base product, acetylene, from which more complex chemicals and products are then formed in a wide variety of plants. Carbide production reached its peak level in the period from 1980 to 1985 with an annual production of about 1 million tons. However, this production process has a number of disadvantages. The massive air emissions (eg dust) and the waste water (cyanide, etc.) should really be treated, which is costly and has never been carried out. Consequently, for every ton of product synthesized, up to three tons of lime sludge are generated as toxic wastes. (The waste water of the affiliated sludge dump is discharge into sewage channel 3 of the Leuna works through a hole at Groákaynz.) At the same time just one of the twelve carbide furnaces currently operating in Buna consumes as much energy in one hour as the city of Leipzig in one day. This makes production so expensive that at the present world market prices it is unprofitable compared with production of organic basic chemicals from the cheaper crude oil. In 1938 Buna already started large-scale production of the newly developed polymer, PVC. PVC is produced by polymerization of the carginogen, vinyl chloride. It in turn is formed by the reaction of chlorine, which is produced in Buna in the four chlor-alkali electrolysis plants according to the mercury-amalgam method, with acetylene, which is formed on a large scale by reaction of calcium carbide with water. Until 1990 the plants from the pre-war period had not been modernized or improved to provide more environmental protection. However, Buna has expanded its vinyl chloride capacity by a second line in which not acetylene, but ethylene is chlorinated to give ethylene dichloride (EDC) and then reacted further to vinyl chloride. In this so-called balanced process, the HCl gas split off from the EDC in the new line is added to acetylene in the old line. Introduction of this second line years ago marked a gradual change-over from carbochemistry to petrochemistry that will now finally be completed in the course of redevelopment and modernization. Plant emissions Because of totally inadequate filtering techniques the Buna chemicals combine has been polluting the air and water for decades in a manner that is unacceptable. Dust and sulfur dioxide emissions constitute the major air pollutants. Added to this are amounts of nitrogen oxides that are almost as high. Sulfur dioxide originates mainly from power and heating plants fired by brown coal. These also emit large amounts of dust consisting largely of brown coal ashes. In contrast, the dust emissions from the carbide furnaces consist of 55 - 80% burned lime, as well as metal oxides, carbon and traces of carbide. In 1989 a total of 112 tons of dust were emitted daily. The SO2 emissions were even higher than 200 tons per day. Large amounts of hazardous substances were also discharged into the Saale with waste water (230,000 m3 daily). A major problem to date is the extremely toxic heavy metal, mercury, of which over 20 kilograms are discharged into the Saale daily. It emanates on the one hand from chlor-alkali electrolysis plants and on the other hand from the production of more than 300,000 tons of acetaldehyde yearly. In this plant where mercury sulfate was used as the catalyst mercury puddles collected on the floor. Workers could not be employed here for more than four weeks; afterwards they were so highly contaminated by mercury that they had to be transferred to another job location. Other problem substances in the Buna waste water are * cyanides from the wash water in the carbide process: In 1989 the concentration of these toxic substances in the waste water averaged 0.8 mg/l corresponding to a discharge of 184 kilograms per day. * ammonium: The average concentration in 1989 was 14.8 mg/l, which corresponds to 3.4 tons per day. * oxygen-depleting substances: The chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the Buna waste water averaged 492 mg/l in 1989. This means that over 100 tons of oxygen in the water of the Saale and Elbe must be consumed daily to degrade the organic pollutants in the Buna waste water. * surfactants from production, handling, filling of tank cars and transport. These are not degradable and bring the waste water treatment plant to a standstill. At a waste water concentration of 7.3 mg/l (1989), 1.7 tons of surfactants were discharged into the Saale daily. * volatile and chlorinated hydrocarbons: In 1989 these were discharged into the Saale in an average concentration of 6.2 mg/l corresponding to 1.4 tons per day.1 One of the reasons for the high the pollutant concentrations in the waste water was that the waste water volume exceeded the capacity of the biological sewage treatment plant. Consequently, partial waste streams bypassed the treatment plant. The situation has improved since part of the carbide production with its high water demand for purification of the CO gas (5000 m3 per hour) has been discontinued and all the waste water can be disposed of via the treatment plant. Shutdowns have also reduced the mercury load in the waste water from more than 20 kg/day to 7 kg/day. In the future, surfactant recovery and an expansion of the biological treatment plant should provide further improvements. Routine monitoring of individual pollutants by means of modern analytical techniques, such as mass spectrometry, is also planned. Planned restructuring While in the past about 60 per cent of the Buna plants based their production on carbide, this technology is to be completely phased out in the coming years. It is hoped that this will bring a substantial reduction in emissions and toxic wastes as well as great economic benefits that will ensure the future economic efficiency of the Buna plants. Carbide substitution is already in full progress: eight of the twelve previous carbide furnaces have been shut down so far. To permit continued production of the final products, intermediates like acetaldehyde and acetic acid required for the new production plants are being purchased from other countries (eg the USSR). Due to the high energy savings, production costs could even be lower than they were prior to substitution. In the next few years the synthesis of the starting materials well be redesigned on the basis of cleaner petrochemical processes. Plans include: * production of acetic acid from synthesis gas (carbon monoxide and hydrogen) supplied by the Leuna works * production of butanol and ethyloctanol via oxosynthesis (likewise using synthesis gas) * construction of a plant for oxychlorination of ethylene (using oxygen and hydrochloric acid) for production of the PVC precursor, 1,1-dichloroethylene. The last carbide furnace will be shut down on completion of the oxychlorination facility, which is planned for 1993. This will also permit discontinuation of lime production. Discontinuation of acetaldehyde production had been announced for October 31, 1990, so there should no longer be any Hg-emissions from this source. Production of aluminum chloride (catalyst for ethylbenzene production) will also cease. Further abatement of pollution around Buna should be achieved through construction of a power plant fired by hard coal to replace the existing plant fired by brown coal. This will have an impact primarily on the release of sulfur dioxide (target emission reduction: 30,000 t/a), soot (15,000 t/a) and nitrogen oxides (60,000 t/a). At present it is unclear what role chlorine chemistry will play in the plans of Buna's management in the future. On the one hand all but one of the old chlorine plants with their high mercury emissions have been shut down (the last one is to be converted to the mercury-free membrane process); furthermore it has been stated that production of chlorinated solvents is to be cut back. On the other hand, vinyl chloride facilities that have already been shut down are to be totally replaced by new plants by 1993. Today chlorine is already being purchased from the USSR and future purchases of vinyl chloride and EDC cannot be ruled out. This creates the problem of increasing transport of hazardous substances, which represents an unacceptable threat to the population. Since the opening of the former GDR the Buna works has intensified its cooperation with the West German Hls AG, which is a subsidiary of VEBA. Since Hls AG is also heavily engaged in the production of chlorine, PVC and other chlorinated hydrocarbons, statements by the Buna management that the importance of chlorine is diminishing, seem questionable. Perhaps Hls is planning to move activities with a low level of acceptance in western Germany to the Halle area, which is plagued by fears of unemployment.2 Currently a route is being planned from Recklinghausen (Hls AG) to Schkopau for the crude oil supply as well as transport of other goods that are too dangerous for roads or rails to carry. This solution is supposedly cheaper than constructing a cracking facility in Buna. Production: * Chlorine * Caustic soda * Calcium carbide * Acetylene * Acetaldehyde * Acetic acid, acetic anhydride, ethyl acetate, acetaldol, 1,3- butylglycol ("Butol"), butyraldehyde, n-butanol, hexanol, hexanetriol, hexyl acetate, octyl acetate * Vinyl acetate, polyvinyl acetate * Chloroacetic acid (from trichloroethylene) * Methane chlorination products * 1,1-Dichloroethylene (EDC) * Vinyl chloride * Other chlorinated hydrocarbons * Ethylene oxide and propylene oxide * Glycols, polyols * Ethylbenzene, styrene * Butadiene * Plastics (eg PVC, polyacrylate, LDPE, PS) * Consumer goods made of plastic, eg floor coverings, PVC tubing and profiles * Synthetic rubber (special rubber, tire rubber, lattices for paper and rub coatings, oil-resistant rubber, rubber for medical usage etc. (altogether 150,000 tons per year)) * Detergent base materials * Fertilizers * Maleic anhydride * Phthalic anhydride * Plasticizer alcohols * Plasticizers (DEHP, other phthalates) * Dispersing agents * Emulsifiers * Stabilizers * Catalysts * Raw materials for coatings * Water soluble latex paints (on the basis of acrylates and polyvinyl acetate) - enlargement of capacities planned * Solvents (chlorinated and nonchlorinated) * Adhesives * Active substances for pharmaceuticals [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / VEB Leuna-Werke "Walter Ulbricht" ("Walter Ulbricht" State-Owned Leuna Works) The Leuna works has almost 30,000 employees (1988). Like the Buna works (see table) it has a wide product range. However, the product range in Leuna is based on crude oil for which there is a yearly processing capacity of 4.5 million tons. The former BASF subsidiary has been operating a plant for the synthesis of ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen since 1916. The plant is a considerable nuisance to its surroundings, for example, due to the permanent odor of diesel oil and phenol. Greenpeace found massive pollutant concentrations in preliminary samples of waste water from the Leuna Works taken in March 1990 (see table). The amounts of chlorinated hydrocarbons (AOX), solvents and the heavy metals in discharge channel 4 were especially dramatic. The enormous amounts of waste water3 discharged by the Leuna Works contribute substantially to the total load of the Saale and thus also of the Elbe. According to estimates by the Halle Water Conservation Authority nitrogen emissions from the use of crude oil and of catalysts constitute a major problem; the nitrogen loads here are the highest of any of the other sections of the Elbe, including even the emissions by the Piesteritz agrochemicals plant. Besides emitting nitrogen compounds, the Leuna works is also one of the biggest emitters of oxygen-depleting substances: its contribution to the total pollution of the Elbe at the former border community of Schnackenburg was estimated at 4 per cent! The oxygen content of the Saale has been reduced to zero often enough after the discharge of effluents by Leuna. Other pollutants in the Leuna waste water, which are also regulated by fixed emission standards, are phenols, hardening constituents, sulfite, extractable substances, surfactants and cyanides. Permanent automatic waste water monitoring of phenols, ammonia and pH is carried out. Future plans First steps for reducing the waste water load have been planned (expected date of completion in parentheses): - Lime sludge treatment (6/91) - Scrubbing hydrogen sulfide/ammonia (12/93: Anti-pollution effect, 291 kg/h of nitrogen (corresponding to 2550 tons per year), 1400 tons of SO2 per year - Reconstruction and expansion of the central waste water treatment stages 1 and 2 (12/91 and 12/93 respectively). The managing board of the Leuna works is currently (September 1990) working on a new corporate plan that is to ensure an "ecologically safe and competitive company that will endure". This type of plan is required by the trust company whenever bankruptcy proceedings that are otherwise inevitable are to be avoided. A reduction of the workforce in three years to 19,000 employees is planned. An ammonia plant built in 1916 as well as fertilizer production are supposed to be shut down. However, the full introduction of olefin chemistry ("profitable and ecologically safe") with Leuna know-how is planned. ______________________________________________________________ Production: * Methanol * Formaldehyde * Adhesive resins and adhesives * Amines * Ethylene, propylene * Butadiene * Cumol * Phenol * Acetone * Caprolactam * Ammonia * Ammonium chloride * Fertilizers * Pesticides * Polymers * Phthalic anhydride * Plasticizer alcohols and plasticizers * Ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol * Detergent base materials * Raw materials for coatings * Glues * Waxes * Solvents * Emulsifiers * Technical gases * Catalysts * Bitumen * Fuels (diesel, gasoline) * Methyl-t-butyl ether Table Results of random testing of waste water from the VEB Leuna- Werke, old plant Collective parameters COD 53 mg/l AOX 180 æg/l Total cyanide 2.2 æg/l Total phosphate 1370 æg/l Conductivity 1180 æS/cm Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 3.49 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 0.58 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene 0.05 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 3.17 æg/l Trichlorophenols 1.24 æg/l Tetrachlorophenols 0.12 æg/l Pentachlorophenol 0.1 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 28 0.63 æg/l PCB 180 0.15 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) Chloroform 6.56 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides Endrin 0.10 æg/l Aromatic hydrocarbons Toluene 2.9 æg/l Xylenes 1.09 æg/l Heavy metals Zinc 340 æg/l Chromium 30 æg/l Copper 52 æg/l Results of random testing of waste water from the VEB Leuna- Werke, landfill Collective parameters COD 130 mg/l Total cyanide 5.8 æg/l Conductivity 2410 æS/cm Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 3.57 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 0.86 æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes 0.41 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 0.66 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene 0.35 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 0.67 æg/l Trichlorophenols 1.03 æg/l Tetrachlorophenols 0.1 æg/l Pentachlorophenol 0.1 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) Chloroform 24.2 æg/l Trichloroethylene 7.46 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides Methoxychlor 0.15 æg/l alpha-HCH 1.13 æg/l Aromatic hydrocarbons Benzene 4.62 æg/l Toluene 3.26 æg/l Xylene 24.2 æg/l Heavy metals Nickel 24 æg/l Copper 27 æg/l Results of random testing of waste water from the VEB Leuna- Werke, petrochemicals plant Collective parameters COD 1184 mg/l AOX 123000 æg/l Total cyanide 16.0 æg/l Total phosphate 1210 æg/l Conductivity 1640 æS/cm Chlorobenzenes Trichlorobenzenes 18.8 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 3.22 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene 0.05 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 9.44 æg/l Trichlorophenols 8.31 æg/l Tetrachlorophenols 2.19 æg/l Pentachlorophenol 0.21 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) Chloroform 52.96 æg/l Carbon tetrachloride 0.17 æg/l Trichloroethylene 112.8 æg/l Tetrachloroethylene 1.65 æg/l Aromatic hydrocarbons Benzene 1.64 æg/l Toluene 95.8 æg/l Xylenes 13 æg/l Heavy metals Nickel 70 æg/l Zinc 340 æg/l Arsenic 4.0 æg/l Copper 41 æg/l Mercury 1.3 æg/l [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / VEB Fahlberg-List, Magdeburg The largest pesticide plant in the territory of the former DDR is located on the left bank of the Elbe in Salbke, a district of Magdeburg and used to belong to the Agrochemie Kombinat Piesteritz. On the grounds, which have been used for industrial purposes since 1886, a variety of agricultural chemicals are produced in addition to sulfuric acid and pharmaceutical products. Belonging to the group of agricultural products are fertilizers (superphosphate) and pesticides, including numerous insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and caustics. Of these substances the mercury-containing caustic ("Falisan") and the organochlorine pesticides (eg "Melipax") are especially problematical. Because they are nondegradable in the environment not only their production but also their usage and thus their willful release has a detrimental impact on the environment and health. Other products include preparations such as the sweetener saccharine, the disinfectant, chloramine T, ephedrine, the cough medicine, bromhexin (based on bromobenzene) and various barbiturates. Large amounts of raw materials and products are stored on the plant's grounds. Production residues are also stored in drums on concrete surfaces in the open. An inventory list of substances contains over 2,000 individual substances. A total of about 2,500 products are manufactured of which about 250 end up on the market. Environmental pollution from the plant Every hour the VEB Fahlberg-List discharges 500 m3 of waste water via two sedimentation basins with two discharge sites each into the Elbe. Greenpeace took a random sample of this waste water in March 1990. The results: The waste water contained substantial amounts of hazardous substances but primarily organic pollutants and mercury. There were dangerously high concentrations of the aromatic compounds, benzene, toluene and xylenes, as well as numerous chlorobenzenes (including hexachlorobenzene!) and chlorophenols, chlorinated solvents and pesticides (see table). During the Beluga tour these findings were confirmed by the ship's laboratory, which also identified other hazardous substances1 . To avert a direct threat to the environment and the population, the Greenpeace campaign team sealed the plant's waste water discharge pipe. On entering the plant grounds the Greenpeace staff also determined that they were permeated with an intense odor and dust emanating partly from highly toxic pesticides and partly from the superphosphate fertilizers. Statement of the plant management Immediately after the waste water pipe had been sealed the responsible production manager shut down all production to prevent greater damage. In the subsequent discussion he confirmed that a major portion of the substances found by Greenpeace in the waste water were produced or processed in the plant. However, he had no explanation for the presence of lindan and the related substances, alpha- and beta-HCH, as production of these substances had already been stopped in 1981. The fact that these substances could still be detected in the waste water indicates that they have accumlated so heavily in the soil that they can still be leached out in detectable amounts! Explanations for the other waste water constituents: Benzene and naphthalene are required as raw materials for synthesis. Toluene, xylene and carbon tetrachloride are used as solvents, the latter being used primarily in the production of Melipax (other common name: toxaphene). The chloroalkyl ethers identified by the Beluga's laboratory are precursors for the morpholine-based pesticides. Nitrobenzene is processed to azoxybenzene and sold as an arachnicide. No emission standards exist for any of these substances. They are monitored only by the collective parameter "chemical oxygen demand (COD). Greenpeace demands that discharge of these toxic waste waters be prohibited immediately and for good. Moreover, it is suspected that the plant's grounds are contaminated by dioxins. The plant manager stated that the grounds would be inspected. VEB Fahlberg- List already has plans to cease all production of chlorine pesticides. This applies mainly to the production of Melipax (toxaphene) which until now has been exported through intermediaries to other countries including Columbia. The plant manager, however, does not feel that a general ban on waste water discharge is necessary but that only the discharge of highly toxic substances from the pharmaceuticals division and from pesticide production must be prohibited. The Greenpeace representatives pointed out that threats to the environment emanate not only from the generation of waste waters but also from the use of highly toxic, nonbiodegradable products. Consequently, they demanded an immediate stop to the production of the caustic, phenylmercury acetate (Falisan) for this reason and not just because of the waste water load. In a follow-up talk involving Greenpeace, the plant management and the Magdeburg Water Conservation Authority the director of the VEB Fahlberg- List stated that shutdown of this production had been planned for the end of 1990 even before the Greenpeace campaign. Furthermore, Greenpeace feels that a study of the Elbe sediment in the vicinity of the mouth of the waste water pipe and an appropriate cleanup programm for treating or disposing of the poisoned Elbe sediments are essential. Achievements/measures The Greenpeace campaign revealed details of the toxic components of the waste water of VEB Fahlberg-List to the public for the first time. Although the responsible Magdeburg Water Conservation Authority had suspected that some of the substances found by Greenpeace were in the waste water, it had not been in a position to analyze them. Accordingly no emission standards had been established as they could not have been monitored anyway. Besides this most significant achievement of making the condition of the VEB waste water public, some immediate relief was also obtained for the abused Elbe: * Production of Melipax (toxaphene) was not restarted. * Discontinuation of production (falisan) and cutbacks (ephedrine) together with collection equipment for distillation residues containing pollutants has reduced benzene emissions by about 80%. * Discontinuation of falisan production has eliminated mercury emissions. * According to the Magdeburg Water Conservation Authority the condition of the waste water will be further improved by discontinuation of the sulfochlorination production process (intermediate process for saccharin and chloramine T production), proximpham, fentoxan, falimorph (fungicide) and the new carbendazime plant. Although exemption permits have again been granted temporarily prior to final shutdown to enable processing of intermediate products that cannot be sold or utilized, on the whole most of the intolerable pollution has probably been permanently checked thanks to the publicity created during the Beluga trip. Control measurements of the waste water of the VEB Fahlberg-List by the Magdeburg Water Conservation Authority in May 1990 have shown that the waste water load has already been significantly reduced. Farther-reaching demands/prospects Naturally, simply stopping numerous production processes for reasons of environmental protection cannot be the objective. However, immediate discontinuation of the syntheses of particularly hazardous substances, such as mercury caustics and chlorine pesticides, are essential. For other company areas, it must be a matter of determining what can be done to ensure that future production will not be detrimental to human health and the environment. Here it will be important to integrate measures for preventing pollutant emissions into each individual process and not to rely on end-of-pipe technologies, such as central waste water treatment or filtration plants. This is a demand that the responsible water conservation authority has evidently been making for years. The most important measures of this type are: phasing out dangerous production processes and toxic in-process materials; using instead substances and processes that are not detrimental to the environment. Production processes that have been shut down for good must be replaced by new production processes that are ecologically safe and that perhaps must still even be developed. A start has been made but a change can only really be instituted in close cooperation with the consumers, in this case chiefly the agricultural sector. The key concepts here are: ecological land cultivation, biological pest control, manufacture of products on the basis of natural materials. This could be a chance to restructure agriculture in the area of the former GDR and the sectors supporting it in such a way that it will play a leading role internationally in the future. -------------------------------------------------------------- Table Results of random testing of waste water from the VEB Fahlberg- List (Greenpeace, March 1990) Collective parameters COD 1222 mg/l Adsorbable organochlorine compounds 2.2 mg/l Conductivity 174 æS/cm Aromatic hydrocarbons Benzene 957 æg/l Toluene 1206 æg/l Xylenes 2323 æg/l Naphthalene 0.8 æg/l Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 703 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 83.8 æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes 36.5 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene 0.68 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 65.2 æg/l Trichlorophenols 4.36 æg/l Pentachlorophenol 9.7 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 101 7.55 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) Chloroform 56.4 æg/l Carbon tetrachloride 324 æg/l Trichloroethylene 7.15 æg/l Tetrachloroethylene 3.74 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides Endrin 7.8 æg/l Methoxychlor 46.2 æg/l o,p-DDT 4.5 æg/l o,p-DDD 2.55 æg/l alpha-HCH 37.8 æg/l beta-HCH 15.0 æg/l Lindan 37.8 æg/l Heavy metals Nickel 19 æg/l Mercury 5.7 æg/l Individual substances identified by the ship's laboratory: n-Dibutyl ether 2-Ethyl-1-hexanol 2-Ethyl-2-hexanol Dibutyl carbonate 2-Methylcyclopentyl acetate Nitrobenzene Methyl benzoate 1-Phenyl-1-propanone Hexanedicarbonic acid dibutyl ester a-Hexachlorocyclohexane (transformation product of lindan, t-HCH) [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / VEB Groágaserei Magdeburg (Mgdeburg State-Owned Gasworks) The Magdeburg gasworks and the coking plant in Zwickau supply over one-third of the blast furnace coke currently required by the former GDR (altogether 2.5 million tons per year). The remaining blast furnace coke must be imported. The Magdeburg gasworks has approx. 900 employees and is the second largest town gas producer of the former GDR. In a gasworks, coke and town gas are produced by carbonization of coal out of contact with air. The gasworks in Magdeburg uses brown coal briquettes as the starting material. The coal is heated in an oven, first driving off residual water as sulfur water. Afterwards the briquettes are carbonized at temperatures ranging from 1000 to 1200 C. The coke formed is cooled and sprayed with water. The gaseous products are drawn off and tar and middle oil (tar oil) separate from the condensate. The remaining gas is processed to town gas. Phenol and ketones are synthesized from the gasworks waste water. From the waste water of the carbonization plant, which is an undesirable by-product, phenol, cresols and xylenols are obtained by alkaline scrubbing. Environmental pollution The Magdeburg Gasworks discharges 700 cubic meters of waste water into the Elbe daily. This waste water is composed of coke quenching water, waste water from condensation and waste water from the cracking plant. The waste water is treated only by a gravity phase separation which, however, fails to retain a large proportion of hazardous substances. True purification stages, such as a biological treatment of waste water, do not exist. Therefore, previous attempts to reduce the emissions of highly toxic pollutants in the waste water, such as phenols, cyanides and ammonia, have had only minor success. Accordingly, the quality of the waste water discharged into the Elbe is as follows: In a random waste water sample taken by Greenpeace in March 1990 dramatically high concentrations of cyanides, benzene, toluene and xylenes as well as polycyclic aromatic compounds were measured. Since the inflow was below the surface of the water, this sample had already been diluted by Elbe water.1 Another sample was taken from the waste water of the aromatic compounds/ammonia scrubber: in this sample 250,000 æg/l of cyanide were even found in addition to 18,000 æg/l of benzene, 2800 æg/l of toluene, 900 æg/l of xylene and over 16,000 æg/l of polycyclic aromatic compounds. Furthermore, over 200,000 æg/l of sulfide, large amounts of phosphate (8200 æg/l) and a COD of 6300 mg/l were measured. Although it is improbable that this water is discharged undiluted into the Elbe in this composition, because of the totally inadequate treatment methods all of the water-soluble components including cyanide, sulfide and phosphate and at least part of the organic toxic materials find their way into the Elbe. The gasworks pollutes not just the Elbe but also the air to an intolerable extent. The primary impact is on the workplaces, where the employees are exposed to excessively high concentrations of hazardous substances. The leaky oven batteries (they have been in operation since 1930 and repeatedly repaired) allow carbon monoxide (CO) to escape. Therefore the carbon monoxide concentrations at the oven range from 170 to 350 mg/m3, which significantly surpasses the TLV applicable in the GDR up to now (55 mg/m3 for the long-term value and 110 mg/m3 for the short-term value2). The workers are probably not only exposed to high carbon monoxide concentrations but also to aromatic compounds like benzene, toluene and xylene as well as to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, aromatic amines and a number of other carcinogens. Allegedly there are nevertheless rarely any occupational diseases, except perhaps chronic bronchitis. Systematic examination of the workforce for serious diseases like lung cancer and cancer of the bladder are essential. Statement of the plant management When confronted with the toxic substances found by Greenpeace in the waste water, the plant management frankly admitted being one of the major polluters of the Elbe. According to its own data the plant discharges 1800 tons of ammonium, 700 tons of phenols and 20 tons of cyanides into the Elbe every year. However, the waste water effluents had been reduced in recent years, even though necessary investments had been repeatedly postponed or prevented by the state. The Magdeburg Wasserwirtschaftsdirektion (WWD = Water Conservation Authority) confirmed that the gasworks has engaged in extensive activities to reduce the discharge of water pollutants in the past few years. These measures, however, have not contributed much to minimizing Class I water pollutants like phenol, cyanides, ammonia, etc. There has been, however, an average reduction in the "major water pollutants" of 18 per cent, and the extractable substances have been reduced by 39 per cent. A general solution will only be achieved when the planned wet desulfurization and biological treatment plants go into operation. The WWD has been demanding these measures since 1974 but the state had not instituted them. The plant management and WWD made contradicting statements on what limits became effective for what pollutants on what exact dates. The legal water permit of 1983 prescribed more stringent emission standards effective 1987 but the plant management spoke of emission standards effective 1989 that had been deferred because process difficulties had arisen. At any rate, the test protocol of the WWD of 1989 still shows emissions surpassing the tolerable limits: Waste water effluents from the Magdeburg gasworks in 1989 (WWD findings) Waste water volume: 700 m3/d gas condensate Waste water value Limit Substances separable by filtration: 137 mg/l 50 mg/l COD/Cr 4,580 mg/l - BOD/in 5 days 2,260 mg/l 100 mg/l Extractable substances 515 mg/l 20 mg/l Steam distillable phenols 1,007 mg/l 20 mg/l Ammonium 5,043 mg/l 200 mg/l Cyanide 64 mg/l 10 mg/l Sulfide 791 mg/l - The results of waste water studies over several days in March show that the situation had not improved up to the spring of 1990. Although the pollutant concentrations of individual measurements can deviate by up to a factor of 10, they are still in the same order of magnitude as for 1989. Prospects In 1991 construction of a waste water treatment plant is to be commenced. It is supposed to be completed by 1994. The Elbe will then be spared 4,900 tons of nitrogen, 435 tons of phenols and 22 tons of cyanide each year. Furthermore, the oven batteries will be successively replaced and a method for wet desulfurization is also planned as a pilot project. The question of course is whether these substantial investments even make sense. In the medium term a conversion of the municipal gas supply to cleaner natural gas should be expected. The loss of this important customer will make operation of the Magdeburg gasworks unprofitable. Conversion of the municipal gas supply to natural gas will, however, take a number of years, because the supply lines will have to be totally replaced. Thus the dilemma arises that the gasworks will at least have to stay in operation during the transition period. Since the oven batteries are ancient and leaky, they will have to be replaced for reasons of industrial safety alone. ______________________________________________________________ Table Results of two analyses of random waste water samples from the Groágaserei Magdeburg (March 1990) Waste water from Total arom. compounds/ waste water ammonia scrubbings (diluted with (partial stream) Elbe water) Collective parameters COD 517 6300 mg/l AOX 140 20800 æg/l Total cyanide 88 250000 æg/l Total phosphate 20400 8200 æg/l Sulfide 213000 æg/l Conductivity 1630 æS/cm Aromatic hydrocarbons Benzene 4406 17676 æg/l Toluene 1229 2845 æg/l Xylenes 751 903 æg/l Ethylbenzene 107,5 44,8 æg/l Phenols Phenol 16000 æg/l Cresols 13000 æg/l Xylenols 2700 æg/l Trimethylphenols 190 æg/l Naphthol 890 æg/l Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Naphthalene 3920 13200 æg/l Acenaphthylene 165 2100 æg/l Acenaphthene 854.7 æg/l Fluorene 276.4 æg/l Phenanthrene 161.9 æg/l Anthracene 38.4 æg/l Fluoranthene 96.3 770 æg/l Pyrene 59.8 æg/l Benzo(a)anthracene 27.9 175 æg/l Chrysene 21.7 142 æg/l Benzo(b)fluoranthrene 2.3 120 æg/l Benzo(k)fluoranthrene 1.4 65.6 æg/l Benzo(a)pyrene 2.8 140 æg/l Dibenzo(ah)anthracene 58 æg/l Benzo(ghi)perylene 260 æg/l Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 3.42 6.68 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 1.20 0.31 æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes 0.68 0.36 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 0.61 0.08 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene 0.31 0.05 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 3.17 25 æg/l Trichlorophenols 3.93 2.1 æg/l Tetrachlorophenols 0.42 æg/l Pentachlorophenol 0.19 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 118 0.9 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) Chloroform 7.76 æg/l Carbon tetrachloride 8.88 æg/l Trichloroethylene 1.93 æg/l Tetrachloroethylene 1.17 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides Heptachlor 11.3 æg/l Heptachlorepoxide 0.99 æg/l Aldrin 0.05 æg/l Dieldrin 0.05 0.3 æg/l Endrin 11.8 æg/l Methoxychlor 0.05 æg/l a-Endosulfan 1.88 æg/l b-Endosulfan 1.45 2.1 æg/l p,p-DDD 1.68 æg/l o,p-DDE 3.2 æg/l p,p-DDE 1.04 æg/l beta-HCH 0.6 æg/l [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / VEB Zellstoff- und Zellwolle-Werke Wittenberge (Wittenberge State-Owned Cellulose and Viscose Works) The cellulose and viscose plant is located approx. 20 kilometers below the mouth of the Havel. The plant previously was part of the Chemiefasercombinat Schwarza (Schwarza Synthetic Fibers Combine) and had 2100 employees. Up to now it has produced 36,000 tons of paper pulp, 26,000 tons of viscose fibers, 3,000 tons of regenerated cellulose films, and 7,000 tons of tall oil products and cellulose acetate membranes every year. The plant was built in 1938. In 1973 the wood chemicals plant went into operation. Survey of the individual production lines Paper pulp is produced in what is called the sulfate process.1 Pine wood chips are digested in an alkaline medium with caustic soda and sodium sulfide. These alkaline pulps have good tensile properties but are darker and heavier than sulfite pulp. Up to now part of the wood pulp produced in Wittenberge was bleached with chlorine gas. Customers include companies in the FRG. Viscose fibers are produced from wood pulp. This wood pulp is obtained from Pirna and Rosental. The wood pulp is digested with caustic soda. When carbon disulfide is added a so-called xanthogenate is formed that is regenerated to cellulose with dilute sulfuric acid. This cellulose is drawn into long, thin fibers. The main difference between viscose staple fiber and viscose is that the regenerated cellulose is processed to curled fiber bundles that are "wool-like" and spun into threads. Acetate viscose is an acetate of cellulose instead of regenerated cellulose. When plasticizers are added, it can be used to produce non-combustible films and foils. Tall oil (pine oil) is formed as the by-product during the production of wood pulp by the sulfate method. From this tall oil fatty acids, resin acids and vegetable fats can be isolated by destillation. It can also be esterified with glycerol and combined with linseed oil as a coating material, emulsion additive and flotation agent and as an additive for alkyd resins. Tall oil is used in the paint industry for varnishes as well as in the soap and plastics industries. Environmental pollution from the plant "The facilities are extremely worn. Pollution of the environment and workplaces is extremely high."2 Wood pulp production via the sulfate process results in a high pollution of the atmosphere with hazardous, vile-smelling sulfur compounds. If far-reaching measures (condensation of waste gas, alkali treatment and afterburning of waste gases) are not taken to stop the waste gases from escaping into the environment, then substances like methylmercaptan, dimethyl sulfide, carbon disulfide and terpentine will be discharged into the surroundings. The workplaces especially are exposed to high emissions of carbon disulfide from production of viscose and regenerated cellulose films. (Carbon disulfide is explosive; it causes, among other things, coronary heart disease). During spinning of the viscose fibers a large proportion of the carbon disulfide is also converted to the toxic hydrogen sulfide and escapes into the air. To reduce these loads the waste gases must be captured, passed over activated carbon and the chemical components recovered. The alkali-containing waste waters are partly concentrated and burned. The highly polluted condensates formed are discharged untreated into the Elbe. They contain large amounts of organic materials and produce a high oxygen demand in the river. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) has been 19 tons, the biological oxygen demand (BOD) 11 tons daily. The bleaching plant waste waters, which are also discharged untreated into the Elbe, are an additional major source of chlorinated organic compounds including even dioxins. In the random waste water samples taken in March Greenpeace found high values for the AOX, the chemical oxygen demand and chloroform. In addition, various chlorophenols and chlorobenzenes, including even 1.24 æg/l of the virtually nondegradable hexachlorobenzene, were measured (see table). The elevated zinc values also found in the waste water probably originate from viscose production. The Magdeburg WWD pointed out that carbon disulfide is also contained in the waste water. This probably also originates from viscose production. Statement of the plant management When confronted with the pollutants in the waste water the plant management confirmed that a high environmental pollution emanates from the plant but that they did not have Greenpeace's analytical capabilities. They pointed out that the plant had been built in 1938 and that the structures had started to deteriorate. Despite these deplorable conditions the state still refused to approve any modernizations in 1989. Half of the waste water originates from the wood pulp production. The AOX level of 480 kg/d for 100 t/d of wood pulp cannot be reduced any further, as production of sulfate wood pulp without chlorine bleaching is impossible. Because of overdue modernizations the only abatement of environmental pollution has come from production cutbacks in 1989: * Viscose production was cut back from 32,000 tons to 26,000 tons (the carbon disulfide emissions were accordingly reduced by approx. 20%). * The production of regenerated cellulose films was reduced to 2500 t/a and will be entirely stopped in the course of this year. This will mean a further pollution abatement of air and waste water but also 200 unemployed. * Bleaching is also supposed to be discontinued in the course of this year. This will lower the AOX. In addition, the plant management is considering the following three areas of pollution-abatement: - Redesign of the waste water treatment - Anti-pollution measure for the viscose production - Restructuring of wood pulp production. The plant is negotiating with various companies from the FRG on the matter of waste water treatment. A biological waste water treatment plant is to be subsidized by Bonn's Environmental Protection Ministry. According to these plans, this is to be a combination treatment plant for the waste waters from the M„rkische ™lmhle Wittenberge (M„rkische oil mill in Wittenberge), from the wood pulp mill in Wittenberge and the sewage of the district town of Perleberg. The latter consists not only of domestic sewage but also waste water from a meat combine as well as waste waters from several business establishments. If all goes according to plan, the waste water treatment plant will be in operation by the beginning of 1994. Greenpeace takes a more skeptical view of these plans. Often combined treatment of different types of waste water gives worse purification results than if the waste waters generated are treated individually by special means. Although the end result of a combined treatment is probably compliance with emission standards, this is often only a dilution effect. New methods of wood pulp production The Wittenberge pulp mill plans to convert to the new ASAM process for wood pulp production. This would create approx. 1,000 jobs. In the ASAM process, digestion is by means of alkaline sulfite solution with addition of anthraquinone and methanol. The first industrial-scale plants using this process will not be completed before 1993, ie a completely new technology has to be installed. This method is supposed to greatly reduce the organic load of the waste water and even reduce the AOX to almost zero. The Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Rheinwasserwerke (IAWR, International Association of Rhine Waterworks) still has reservations: "In terms of water and environmental protection the development of this process must be watched carefully to ensure that no new problems arise from the solvents and catalysts used." A major prerequisite for an approval of this process should therefore be a closed circuit operation, which is evidently what Wittenberge also plans. Another advantage of the ASAM process is that bleaching of this wood pulp can take place without chlorine. Ozone- extraction- peroxide-bleaching and oxygen-ozone-extraction- peroxide- bleaching are being tested as the bleaching sequences. If all these plans are realized and the wood pulp produced is ecologically safe3, then Wittenberge could become one of the cleanest pulp mills in the world. Table Results of random testing of waste water from the Zellstoffwerke Wittenberge (Greenpeace, March 1990) Collective parameters COD 690 mg/l Adsorbable organochlorine compounds 5.6 mg/l Conductivity 1900 æS/cm Aromatic hydrocarbons Toluene 157.6 æg/l Xylene 7.03 æg/l Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 11.1 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 1.26 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 1.29 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene 1.24 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 3.33 æg/l Trichlorophenols 7.14 æg/l Tetrachlorophenols 7.32 æg/l Pentachlorophenol 3.52 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 180 0.08 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) Chloroform 3276 æg/l Carbon tetrachloride 2.76 æg/l Trichloroethylene 9.61 æg/l Tetrachloroethylene 1.11 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides o,p'-DDT 0.86 æg/l Heavy metals Cadmium 3.8 æg/l Zinc 1400 æg/l Copper 63 æg/l Individual substances identified by the ship's laboratory: Naphthalene Methylnaphthalene à-Pinene, á-pinene and other terpenoid tree constituents 4-Ethyl-2-methoxyphenol 1,2-Dimethoxy-4-(1-propenyl)-benzene 1-(4-Hydroxy-3,5-dimethoxy)-phenylethanone Trichlorophenols 4-Ethyl-2-methoxyphenol 4,5-Dichloro-2-methoxyphenol Sulfur [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Hamburgs contribution to pollution of the Elbe As a center of population and industry in the Lower Elbe area, the Hansestadt Hamburg with the Hamburg Harbor has a considerable impact on the conditions of the Elbe. Eleven per cent of all the inhabitants (three million) of the entire drainage area of the Elbe live in the region from Schackenburg to Cuxhaven. Approximately half of these (5.5%) live in Hamburg. The portion of the drainage basin in the former FRG accounts for 16.8% of the total drainage area of the Elbe. The Hansestadt accounts for a large number of major polluters that sometimes contribute significantly more to total pollution than would be expected from the percentage area and population of the city. Thus according to the Emissions Land Register of 1986 of the city of Hamburg, relative to the preload, 3% COD 6% BOD/in 5 days 12% ammonium 21% ortho-phosphate 6% copper 3% cadmium 3% lead and 0.3% arsenic are discharged into the Elbe in the area of the Hansestadt. According to more recent findings of the Hamburg Environmental Protection Authority there has been some improvement in the last four years but pollution abatement possiblities in Hamburg have by no means been exhausted. Hamburg's effluents still account for a substantial amount of the Elbe's pollution. For the navigable waters there are still 1,100 water permits regulating approx. 3,000 discharge locations [5]. Added to this are a large number of widespread discharge locations that are not or cannot be registered and whose numbers can only be estimated. In summary, there are several major polluters in the Hamburg area. A more detailed description or these polluters follows. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Norddeutsche Affinerie AG (North German Refinery) The Norddeutsche Affinerie (NA), located in the southeastern region of Hamburg, is one of the largest nonferrous metallurgical plants and the largest copper mill in Europe. It has 3,260 employees (end of 1983) and is one of Hamburg's largest payers of trade tax. Besides smelting of copper ores, the NA is also engaged in the recycling of used metals and more recently has also begun smelting of computer and electronic scrap. The NA is Hamburg's biggest industrial discharger of heavy metals. In 1986 direct emissions into the surface water alone were 5,455 kg of copper (22% of Hamburg's total emissions), 167 kg of cadmium (48%), 86 kg of lead (2.7%), 59 kg of nickel (2.7%) and 61 kg of arsenic (20.5%). Added to these are indirect emissions of the NA via the sewage treatment plant in K”hlbrandh”ft/Dradenau as well as widespread emissions from drifting soot, waste gas deposits and water seeping through the sheet pilings of the plant's grounds. Although the refinery has never had a discharge permit for chlorohydrocarbons (CHCs), the surrounding water sediments show one of the highest CHC waste loads. The concentration of hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and the pesticide DDT are the highest in the entire Hamburg harbor. The DDT concentration is 750 times higher than the background load. Other CHCs, from solvents to dioxins, are also present in greatly increased sediment concentrations. It is probable that DDT originates from the company's past pesticide production, while the other CHCs are generated during the metallugical smelting process. Lubricating oil industry and oil refineries A major portion (34%) of the approximately 3,000 hectares of land comprising the Hamburg harbor is used by the basic materials processing and oil refining industries. Of the basic materials and production industries, the oil refining industry generates the largest amounts of waste water. In 1983, 73% of the 184 million cubic meters of cooling and waste waters were discharged into surface waters or the subsoil. Aside from the sewage treatment plants, the oil refineries were the biggest direct dischargers of ammonium (Shell: 4.5%, Holborn: 2.4%) at least until 1986. The DEA (formerly Texaco), at 1,100 tons/a in 1986 (7.1%), was the largest industrial direct discharger of chlorinated hydrocarbons (AOX). According to air measurements by the Hamburg Environmental Protection Authority in 1986 the highest loads of 1,2- dichloroethane (DCE) in the air are found in the vicinity of Texaco. According to the authorities these high loads are a result of sporadic peak concentrations of individual high emitters from the lubricating and crude oil refining sector. Correspondingly high values are found in rainwater and wet deposits. It is therefore not surprising that there are substantial concentrations of 1,2-DCE, trichloroethylene and other volatile CHCs in the water and sediment of the Reiherstieg near the DEA. Sewage treatment plants Because the Hamburg area is thickly settled, it produces a large amount of municipal sewage from households, small and medium- sized businesses and the industry. Large parts of the sewage and rain water of the city are carried to the huge K”hlbrandh”ft/Dradenau sewage treatment plant. In 1989, 135 million m3 of sewage were treated here. Despite substantial reduction of the pollutant load in the treatment plant, the discharged treated water still constitutes a heavy load for the Elbe. In 1989 the K”hlbrandh”ft/Dradenau plant discharged 600 t/a of ammonium, 3,600 t/a of total nitrogen and 400 t/a of phosphorus into the Elbe even though the sewage treatment plant removes two-thirds of the nitrogen and over 70 (in 1990 even more than 80) per cent of the phosphorus from the waste water. In 1989 the K”hlbrandh”ft/Dradenau treatment plant discharged 18,300 t on COD, 1,200 t of BOD (in 5 days), approx. 6 t of AOX, approx. 5.1 t of copper, approx. 100 kg of cadmium, approx. 1.9 t of lead, approx. 3.5 t of nickel, approx. 11.8 t of zinc, approx. 1.6 t of chromium and approx. 220 kg of arsenic (1986) through its outlet into the Elbe. The sewage sludge contains more than 5 times the amount of heavy metals discharged into the Elbe. This provides some relief to the Elbe but does not solve the environmental problem as a whole. Analysis of a random sample taken from the waste water of the Dradenau sewage treatment plant on the Beluga trip confirmed the contribution of the treatment plant to Hamburg's pollution of the Elbe (see table). Table Results of random testing of waste water from the Dradenau sewage treatment plant near Hamburg (Greenpeace, March 1990). Collective parameters AOX 98 æg/l Total cyanide 4.8 æg/l Total phosphate 1200 æg/l Chlorobenzenes Trichlorobenzenes 0.44 æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes 0.06 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 0.83 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 0.35 æg/l Trichlorophenols 0.77 æg/l Tetrachlorophenols 0.16 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) 1,1,1-Trichloroethane 0.44 æg/l Carbon tetrachloride 0.27 æg/l Trichloroethylene 0.43 æg/l Tetrachloroethylene 0.25 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides alpha-HCH 0.11 æg/l gamma-HCH 0.14 æg/l Aromatic hydrocarbons Benzene 8.31 æg/l Toluene 4.31 æg/l Xylene 3.28 æg/l Heavy metals Nickel 75 æg/l Copper 29.4 æg/l Lead 8.6 æg/l ______________________________________________________________ The high benzene concentration was particularly striking, as it was substantially higher than the preload of the Elbe. This indicates inadequate pretreatment or prevention of waste water generation by industrial dischargers. The sewage plant's emissions of nitrogen-containing substances can produce critical oxygen concentrations for fishes, especially in the summer months when the water is characterized by high temperatures and low volumes. Even if the preload in the territory of the former GDR were significantly reduced, Hamburg's effluents would still have to be lowered in order to raise the oxygen concentration of the Elbe to a level that is no longer critical for fishes. Even the best sewage treatment plant will be inadequate as long as all steps to prevent and treat hazardous waste waters where they are generated are not taken. Shipping and shipyards Shipping and shipyards in the Hamburg harbor exert a variety of detrimental effects on the Elbe that are difficult to quantify individually. In 1988 13,300 sea-going vessels and 14,100 inland waterway vessels moored in the Hamburg harbor. Another 936 vessels were used in the harbor to maintain harbor operations and 12,200 vessels passed through the harbor. Uncontrolled pollution of the harbor results from waste waters from these vessels, as well as from widespread and intentional discharge of oil-containing (bilge) waste water. Added to this are shipyard wastes, such as sand blasting materials and paint residues that are still often not collected but simply discharged into the water. Deepening of navigation channels Because of the importance of Hamburg as the largest German harbor, the Elbe must always be navigable even for large ships. Due to the continual sedimentation of suspended particles on the bottom of the river, which is very high especially in areas of tidal water like those of the Elbe, measures must be taken to artificially maintain a depth of the river that is sufficient for sea-going vessels. In the Hamburg harbor alone around 2 million m3 of harbor sludge is dredged every year. Because it is highly contaminated by pollutants it must be treated separately or stored. The currently favored method of disposing of dredged materials is to dump them on land on flushing fields. On the one hand this destroys huge areas previously used for other purposes. On the other hand the mud dumped on the fields has a high water content, so that highly contaminated flushing field waste waters are generated. In 1986 these increased the heavy metal inflow from direct dischargers into the Elbe by another 7-10%. Another 600,000 m3 of sediment were harrowed in 1989 in the area of the Hamburg harbor. With this method that is far more deleterious to the environment than dredging a mud harrow is dragged along the bottom of the river while the tide is going out. The sediment is swirled up and the light, suspended particles to which hazardous substances are mainly adsorbed are transported downstream with the water of the Elbe. Besides swirling up suspended particles, harrowing is also responsible for a high remobilization of the adsorbed harmful substances. They dissolve in the water and again become readily accessible to the biological cycle. Mud harrowing leads to a high local contamination of the river with toxic substances. If we equate mud harrowing with a local pollutant emission and take the data given by the Hamburg Environmental Protection Agency as the hazardous substance loads bound to dredged materials, then every year 7.5 t of lead, 15 t of copper, 70 t of zinc, 3.7 t of nickel and 9 t of chromium as well as a multitude of organic compounds that had already been removed from the water are set in motion again. Both dredging and harrowing destroy large proportions of the already highly decimated young fishes and spawns. Although the spawns are only swirled up by harrowing, they are subsequently buried under a layer of mud, as a rule making any further development impossible. The source of pollutants in the sediment cannot always be identified unequivocally. There are, however, strong indications that large amounts do not originate from the area of the former DGR but are "homemade". Comparison of river samples with reference samples having specific pollutant compositions can indicate a possible emitter. The occurence of certain pollutants in the sediment is like a fingerprint that can identify a specific polluter. Using this method it is possible to clearly demonstrate that many of the pollutants in the sediment are abandoned pollutant wastes that have been produced locally. The Nordeutsche Affinerie, Johann Haltermann, the BP subsidiary ™lwerke Julius Schindler, DEA (formerly Texaco), Holborn (formerly Esso) and Boehringer have been or still are outstanding examples of how this can happen. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / DOW Stade GmbH, Btzfleth The Dow Stade plant on the Btzflether Sand was founded in 1969 as part of an industrial complex that also includes a nuclear power plant and an aluminum mill. Important location factors for Dow were the nearby salt deposits of Harsefeld, the huge plant grounds covering 560 hectares, cheap electricity and the Elbe navigation channel that is deep enough for sea-going vessels. The first stage of plant construction, two gas turbine power plants and production facilities for chlorine, glycerol, solvents, 1,2-dichloroethane (EDC) and propylene oxide/ propylene glycol (PO/PG), went into operation in 1972. By 1975 a second chlor-alkali electrolysis, a methane chlorination and production facilities for methylcellulose and trichloroethane had been added. Currently the third phase of plant construction, which includes various increases in capacity as well as new production facilities for "high quality" polymers like epoxide resins, chlorinated polyethylene ("Tyrin"), polyurethane components and polycarbonates, is in the final stages. Construction of a hazardous wastes incineration plant for the plant's own wastes is also part of this stage of plant construction. Today Dow has approx. 1400 employees who, at an average annual sales volume of 1.5 billion DM, generate an annual profit of 150 - 200 million DM. Total dependence on chlorine Every Dow production process starts with crude oil and chlorine. Oil refining and processing provide the input materials, ethylene, propylene, methanol, phenol, etc. that are treated with chlorine or organochlorine compounds in Dow's production plants. Chlorine is produced by chlor-alkali electrolysis from brine, which is obtained via pipeline from caverns near Harsefeld belonging to Dow. Dow is the biggest chlorine producer in the FRG. The approved production capacity is 1.25 million tons per year of which approximately 1 million tons are currently being utilized. The plant is totally dependent on chlorine. Not one of Dow's production plants could operate without chlorine (or secondary chlorine products) as it is currently installed. However, over the years a change has taken place. The plants of the first construction phase still produce relatively simple substances and the products often also contain chlorine (eg highly chlorinated solvents). In the newer plants, however, more complicated substances are manufactured that are often chlorine- free but are generated via chlorine intermediates. Examples include the epoxide resins (via epichlorohydrin) as well as the polycarbonates and polyurethanes (via phosgene and propylene oxide/propylene glycol). One reason for this change has been increasing criticism of organochlorine products because of their deleterious properties. This has resulted in a noticeable decrease in sales, for instance of chlorinated solvents, at least on the domestic market. In the newer processes chlorine is used only as a reactive intermediate that is removed from the product, which generates 2,500 tons of sodium chloride per day (8,000 t/day are permitted) and considerably pollutes the Elbe. However, even among the new Dow products there are highly chlorinated substances, such as chlorinated polyethylene known by the trade name TyrinR. Plant emissions When the plant first went into operation the criticism of environmentalists focussed on the scandalous amount of 6 tons of chlorohydrocarbons (CHCs) that could be discharged with the waste water into the Elbe every day. It seemed incomprehensible that Dow could be allowed to start production without a functioning waste water treatment plant. However, since the Biox treatment plant has gone into operation the CHC emissions have been significantly reduced and according to the company were decreased from 800 kilograms daily in 1980 to less than 100 kilograms per day in 1986 (permitted value: 450 kg/day). The annual emissions of chlorinated substances into the Elbe were 10 tons according to Dow. A problem specific to Dow is the long-lived and accumulable hexachlorobenzene (HCB), which up to now has been discharged into the Elbe in an amount of 2,500 grams daily. These emissions have since been reduced to 100-200 grams per day. Although this still represents a substantial added annual load of 100-200 kg of HCB to the already polluted Elbe, it is no longer the company's main ecological problem. For years the sewage sludge from the Biox plant were taken to West German domestic landfills and in the past few years increasingly to the sanitary landfill in Vorketzin in the former GDR. Dow has now developed a "chemolysis" process, by which the previous sewage sludge volume of 12,000 tons per year can now be reduced to 1,200 tons. The residual amount is no longer dumped but burned in the plant. In the first few years of production there were often complaints from those living in the vicinity of a putrid smell emanating from the plant and there were a number of chlorine gas leaks and other accidents. These problems have since been alleviated; air emissions are predominantly "diffuse emissions" that can still be perceived as an unpleasant odor in the vicinity of the plant but that can no longer be measured quantitatively. These diffuse emissions escape, for example, at pipe connections, sealing elements, flanges, valves and fixtures. They consist of hydrogen chloride, chlorine gas and various partly chlorinated hydrocarbons and can amount to several hundred kilograms per year and plant or a total of several tons per year for the entire Stade installation (see table). Further emissions emanate from cleaning and maintenance operations when the facilities are opened. Added to this are volatile chlorinated hydrocarbons escaping from the waste water drains before the water leaves the plant. To reduce the waste volume that must be burned or dumped outside the plant, Dow Stade has for years been expanding its own special wastes incineration capacities. However, even after burning there are still residual filter dusts and ashes that must be disposed of according to the most stringent safety precautions. The large amounts of chlorinated toxic wastes regularly generated by Dow processes is a constant problem. An estimated 6,000 tons of hexachlorobenzene are generated by chlorolysis alone, which are either taken to an underground landfill or burned in the plant's own incinerator. The liquified and gaseous residues regularly produced in various parts of the plant are burned in several incineration plants sometimes specifically assigned to individual production facilities. Resin and tar residues from production, polymer residues, ion exchangers, catalysts, laboratory wastes, rubbish and sewage sludge are also burned. The final data for the central residues dressing plant for solid wastes are as follows: from the annual solid residues of 30,000 tons, 100,000 tons of steam, 5,000 tons of hydrochloric acid (5%), 5,000 tons of ashes and 1,000 tons of filter dusts are generated that must be disposed of. Trace pollutants like dioxins and furans, hexachlorobenzene and a large number of other similar compounds that inevitably escape from modern sewage incineration plants must also be mentioned. As in other industrialized nations, the general pollution of the environment with these ultratoxic substances is much too high in the Federal Republic of Germany. Since these substances are as good as nondegradable in the environment, any contribution, no matter how small, is intolerable if the high pollution level is to be lowered to an acceptable level some day. The most hazardous emission: the products In modern production facilities operated according to what is termed the "state-of-the-art" as at DOW Stade, neither air emissions and waste water effluents nor the generation of toxic wastes during production are the most serious sources of damage to the environment, but the products themselves. Sometimes the products are of themselves hazardous substances. Sometimes they serve as the media for spreading highly toxic substances like hexachlorobenzene or dioxins, which today leave the plant in substantially greater amounts as trace impurities of the products than as direct emissions. At the top of the list of such products are the chlorinated solvents, which, on the one hand, cause extensive damage to organisms and, on the other hand, like the CFCs, contribute substantially to depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer. The production capacity for perchloroethylene and trichloroethane alone exceed 200,000 tons. When these compounds are used for the first time, roughly 50%, ie about 100,000 tons, evaporate directly into the atmosphere. In comparison, solvent emissions in the waste water account for only 10 tons per year (according to Dow's data). This comparison clearly reveals that an abatement of chemical pollution of the environment cannot be achieved by a reduction in the waste water loads alone. A comprehensive ban on the use of solvents by dry cleaners, the metallurgical industry, etc. must be the immediate goal. Other unacceptable products include epichlorohydrin, 1,2- dichloroethane and allyl chloride as the key building blocks of chlorine chemistry. According to more recent findings of the German Environmental Protection Ministry, it must be expected that these substances are contaminated by PCDD/F (see below). Glycerol and propylene oxide/propylene glycol can also be produced by a chlorine-free route, so there is no need to use chlorine for this process. Redefining wastes as products The accusation that production wastes are not "disposed" of by environmentally safe methods but instead are pushed onto the market by dubious means is aimed primarily at products from the so-called chlorolysis plant. In this plant the residues from several production facilities are completely chlorinated. In the process the substances, perchloroethylene and carbon tetrachloride, are formed. These two products are sold mainly as solvents without any consideration being given to the impact on the environment during and after their use. Carbon tetrachloride is also sold as the starting material for CFC-production. Marketing of 1,3-dichloropropene, a waste product from allyl chloride production sold by the name of "Telone" as a soil fumigation agent, is totally unacceptable. Telone has already been found many times in high concentrations in the ground water and drinking water in The Netherlands. In the Federal Republic of Germany the use of 1,3-dichloropropane in agriculture is banned effective January 1, 1991. The highly toxic waste from epichlorohydrin production, 1,2,3-trichloropropane, is sold as the starting material for pesticide production. The DOW polymer production The large amounts of both chlorinated and unchlorinated polymers produced at Dow Stade are cause for stong misgivings. Tyrin, a chlorinated polyethylene, differs little from PVC, although it is produced via another process and, like PVC, it is used for tubings, films, cable sheaths and plastic casement sections. Naturally, it poses the same disposal problems as PVC, ie primarily an increased risk of dioxin formation during waste incineration. The imminent start of production of the polyurethane starting material, methylene diisocyanate, is also cause for concern. Although chlorine-free alternatives are available, Dow plans to use a process that will require approx. 80,000 tons of phosgene annually, which will result in a risk of accidents that should not be underestimated. Furthermore, the foaming of PU for various applications by manufacturing companies consumes at least an estimated 2,000 tons of CFCs per year. Since chlorine-free polymers, such as polycarbonates, epoxide resins and the polyurethane components, MDI and propylene glycol, are also synthesized using chlorine-containing chemicals, chlorinated residues are generated in all of Dow's polymer production lines. Further processing or burning of these residues involves risking the release of dioxins and similar substances. The polymers ultimately become a climate factor as sooner or later the products made from them must be disposed of in waste incineration plants with evolution of CO2. Carry-over of ultratoxic substances One of the ways in which ultratoxic substances like dioxins or hexachlorobenzene have a global environmental impact and which has previously found too little attention is by the spread of these substances as trace impurities with products. The phenomenon first came to light through court cases of US veterans of the Vietnam War. (The victims on the Vietnam side were at least as numerous as among the American soldiers.) Many of the signs of poisoning, in particular the late symptoms like infertility, cancer and deformed children, reported after the use of the defoliant, 2,4,5-T ("Agent Orange"), produced by Dow Chemical and other companies, were not caused by the active ingredient itself but by its contamination with 2,3,7,8-TCDD and other dioxins during production. Recent findings have revealed that these dioxin impurities are not limited to 2,4,5-T and other chlorophenols like pentachlorophenol. A research project at the University of Bayreuth commissioned by the German Environmental Protection Agency has revealed that numerous other chemical processes, such as the production of certain chlorinated aromatic and aliphatic compounds, can likewise lead to the formation of dioxin under the suitable conditions. These types of impurities have also been identified in the industrial products, perchloroethylene, epichlorohydrin and 1,2-dichloroethane. The latter three substances are produced by the Dow Stade GmbH on a 100,000 ton scale. The discharge of dioxins, furans and hexachlorobenzene as product impurities is today probably at least equal to the direct emissions of the Stade plant and could actually exceed them. The German Environmental Portection Ministry report assumes that substances already contained in the product must surely be generated in still higher concentrations as residues in the plant. Other carry-over possibilities result from the presence of elemental bromine in the Dow processes. Bromide enters the chlor-alkali electrolysis plant as an impurity of rocksalt. Here pure bromine is formed as an electrolysis product and can spread throughout all the plants, reappearing as organobromine compounds in various products, residues, etc. Statement of the plant management At the end of their Beluga trip on the Elbe the Greenpeace activists blocked Dow's plant gate to force the plant management to engage in talks with the Beluga crew. The talks took a completely different turn than many of the preceding talks with the management of other plants. Greenpeace's criticism was here, after all, not directed toward discharges of harmful substances from the production facilities into the Elbe. Instead Greenpeace fundamentally questioned the products and the production processes of the plant even though the waste water load could not actually be criticized. The arguments presented by the Dow management in the course of the two-hour talk will be documented here in detail as they are symptomatic of the basic conflict between the way of thinking that prevails in the chemicals industry and an ecologically responsible approach. The Dow representatives immediately pointed out that in their opinion the scope of chlorine production of any country reflects the level of development of its society. Necessary products like pesticides, paints or pharmaceutical products would be unthinkable without chlorine. The five billion people that populate the world could not even be fed without modern technology, and without the mass polymer PVC entire forests would have to be chopped down and processed to building materials, which would be much worse. Admittedly, the handling of chlorine does involve some risks but these can be controlled and the hazard to the environment and health reduced to an acceptable minimum. This also includes reduction of product impact by instituting a return program. A total phase-out of chlorine is out of the question, as it is essential to industrial chemicals production: 70% of the chemicals industry depends on chlorine. Chlorinated solvents, which are also produced in Stade, were the subject of a longer discussion. Dow employees described how the solvents began their victorious march in the early 1950's with the advent of chemical cleaning of synthetic fibers. Dirt and dust were dissolved optimally without the material being attacked and in addition chlorinated solvents had the advantage over hydrocarbons like mineral spirits that they were not inflammable ("inherent safety"). When asked about the extensive emissions into the atmosphere the Dow people admitted that this is a problem that must be taken seriously but that no one could have foreseen when these substances first came into use. Twenty years ago the first adverse effects were determined. Prior to this no analytical capacities existed for these substances. The suggestion that massive release of solvents without knowledge of how they would behave in the environment was irresponsible was firmly rejected; after all, back then no one could and even today no one can predict the damage originating from new substances. It is wrong to ban substances with an unknown impact; instead, once disadvantages have been recognized, the effects should be minimized. Perchloroethylene is "fantastically good" even though it does have some adverse effects but these are known and could be minimized. Possible substitutes also have adverse effects on the environment and no system is 100% safe. Finally, the Dow managers introduced their new return program: Perchloroethylene is filtered out of the customer's exhaust air by means of a specially developed absorption resin and is then recovered by Dow. However, when asked for the current solvent return quota or a definite date when production of new perchloroethylene would become superfluous due to 100% recycling of the substance, no answers could be given. An attempt was being made to persuade the customers to participate in this recycling system and to have their residues "utilized" by Dow. Ultimately, the responsibility lay with the customer himself and not with Dow. The Dow management firmly denied the accusation that Dow production wastes, such as 1,3-dichloropropane ("Telone"), were marketed for questionable applications. Telone has an indispensible positive impact on agriculture and its purity has continuously been enhanced over the past ten years at a cost of millions - the by-products alone are detrimental. Dow has nothing to do with any appearance of the active substance in drinking water. Unfortunately some customers still use excessive amounts of pesticides, but this is a matter of human error and not the fault of the substance per se. Telone is not some waste product one wants to get rid of - it is simply in demand because no better pesticide has as yet been discovered. If there were a better agent the customers would stop buying Telone. If this should happen, Dow has already found a way of disposing of the substance that generates only hydrochloric acid. At the end of the talks the Dow people reaffirmed their belief that the Greenpeace visit to their plant had been a waste of time. The main task of environmental protection today should be improving the return of the products and cleaning up problem companies in the GDR... Prospects Like many other chemical companies, in the past Dow Stade GmbH has put some effort into reducing the flow of residual substances from the plant into the waste air, waste water and special wastes. They have thus at least to a large extent put into practice the central demand of the environmental movement for "closed production cycles". No one, however, should be blinded by these technical emission reductions by the plant and now think Dow is a "clean plant". As long as chlorinated products and substances synthesized using chlorine-containing chemicals continue to be produced, as long as massive emissions of problem and ultratoxic substances are spread even when used as directed and later when the products are disposed of, this is an irresponsible risk to the ecosystem and human health. The plant management at Dow Stade GmbH must be asked how they intend to alter the production spectrum in order to take into account the growing realization of the ecological and health risk of chlorine chemistry products and processes. What has been done so far is not enough! Table 1 Results of random testing of waste water from DOW Stade GmbH, Btzfleth (Greenpeace, March 1990). Collective parameters COD 81 mg/l AOX 196 æg/l Total cyanide 2.6 æg/l Total phosphate 560 æg/l Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 4.34 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 0.97 æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes 0.37 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 0.73 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene < 0.05 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 0.93 æg/l Trichlorophenols 2.20 æg/l Tetrachlorophenols 0.46 æg/l Pentachlorophenol 0.22 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 28 0.17 æg/l PCB 118 0.06 æg/l PCB 180 0.08 æg/l PCB 52, 101, 138, 153 < 0.05 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) 1,1,1-Trichloroethane 0.40 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides Lindan 0.06 æg/l Heavy metals Nickel 82 æg/l Copper 26.9 æg/l Lead 6.5 æg/l Table 2: DOW production (nominal capacity; estimated prod.) Chlorine (1,250,000 t; 1 million tons): Basic building block for all organochlorine products and production processes; bleaching agent; disinfectant Chlorinated methane: Methyl chloride (18,000 t): Chemical starting materials for refrigerants, solvents and propellants, also used for the production of silicones and methylcellulose Methylene chloride (90,000 t): paint remover, degreasing agent, solvents for paints, rubber, polymers, etc., extracting agent for caffeine-free coffee Chloroform (15,000 t): solvent, extracting agent, starting material for the production of HCFCs and teflon Carbon tetrachloride (can be alternately produced in chlorolysis): solvent, CFC-precursor Perchloroethylene (170,000 t; 100,000 t): Chlorinated solvent for dry cleaning, cold cleaner, metal degreaser, extracting agent 1,2-Dichloroethane (450,000 t; > 100,000 t): PVC-precursor, solvent, lubricating oil extraction 1,1,1-Trichloroethane (130,000 t; 130,000 t): waste substance, used for metal degreasing, Tippex, adhesives, furniture polish, brush cleaner 1,1,2-Trichloroethane (for capacity see 1,1,1-trichloro-ethane): Polymer precursor for PVDC (polyvinylidene chloride) production Epichlorohydrin (115,000 t/a); 62,500 t/a): Basic building block of chlorine chemistry, including epoxide resins; solvent for resins, rubber, cellulose esters and similar substances. Allyl chloride (110,000 t; 59,000 t): Basic building block of chlorine chemistry Propylene oxide/propylene glycol (PO/PG) (452,000 t; currently being increased to 612,000 t): Starting material for polyurethanes and polyester resins, disinfectants and detergents, anti-freeze, brake fluid - chlorine-free production alteratives exist! 1,3-Dichloropropene (production decrease, 11,500 t): Is sold by the name TeloneR as ground fumigation agent Glycerol (40,000 t; 35,000 t): For cosmetics, shoe creams, drugs, adhesives, etc. - chlorine- free production alternatives exist. 1,2,3-Trichloropropane (production waste, more than 3,000 t): This waste substance is sold as the starting material for pesticides. Bisphenol A (100,000 t; at present being increased to 140,000 t): Starting material for epoxide resins, phenol resins and polycarbonates Epoxide resin (45,000 t/a; 45,000 t): Used for casting resin, skis, electronic switchboards, car coatings, two-component adhesives, laminating resin for boats, etc., high-vacuum sealing materials, repair and composite materials for concrete Epoxide-Novolak resin (10,000 t; 10,000 t): Used for electronics, construction of airplanes Tyrin (approx. 22,000 t/a): Chlorinated polyethylene (similar to PVC), is used for films, tubings, cable sheathings, window frames, aviation and aerospace (Dow produces other products in Stade, eg methylcellulose, DowexR-ion exchange resins, glycol ether, etc.) Planned additions: MDI (85,000 t/a): Polyurethane component for use in upholstered furniture, sporting goods, car construction, refrigerators, shoes, floor coverings, insulating materials, matresses, medical applications (substitute for plaster casts) Polycarbonate (45,000 t/a): High-quality polymer, used in the automotive industry, electronics, optical instruments, glasses, CD-records, sporting goods, medical devices Table: Diffuse emissions from some of Dow's newer plants Bisphenol A plant 49.5 kg/a phenol 2.5 kg/a acetone ___________________ 52 kg/a total PO/PG plant 44.9 kg/a chlorine 20.7 kg/a HCl gas 26.1 kg/a propylene 53.6 kg/a propylene chlorohydrin 126.8 kg/a propylene oxide (carginogenic!) 13.9 kg/a propylene dichloride 3.6 kg/a other compounds __________________________ 290 kg/a total Thermal oxidation plant (for 39,000 tons/a residues from the PO/PG plant) 2.9 kg/a 1,2-dichloropropane, propane, propene 6.3 kg/a dichloroisopropyl ether 1.1 kg/a other substances from transfer lines for liquid residues ________________ 10.3 kg/a total Thermal oxidation plant (for 42,000 tons/a residual gases and residual liquid components from various plants) 75.6 kg/a from waste gas take-over facilities 94.1 kg/a from tranfer lines for liquid residues ________________ 169.7 kg/a total [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Temming AG The Temming AG in Glcksstadt on the Lower Elbe produces graphical papers, packing papers and recycling papers from wastepaper as well as wood pulp for further chemical processing. The starting material for this cellulose production is "linters". These are cotton threads that are too short for textile processing. To obtain a high degree of whiteness the cellulose is bleached with chlorine before being further process for instance to cellulose acetate. The Temming AG produces 40,000 tons of linters and 90,000 tons of paper annually. The paper production is supposed to be increased to 200,000 tons. Environmental pollution Here we will be considering pollution caused by cellulose production from linters, since environmental impact from the processing of wastepaper seems negligible in comparison. The greatest environmental loads originate from bleaching with chlorine chemicals: The outer skin of the cotton seeds contains dark lignin constituents that are destroyed by bleaching and thus lose their color. Currently bleaching is carried out in three stages at Temming: first with elemental chlorine where 60 - 70 % of the total chlorinated hydrocarbons (AOX) are generated. Following this there is a bleaching with hydrogen peroxide or chlorate where another 20 - 25 % of the AOX are evolved. The remaining AOX emissions are produced by the third bleaching stage, a chlorine dioxide bleaching. Temming's total emissions into the Elbe from the linters bleaching is 25 kg of organically bound chlorine, which are measured as AOX. During combustion of the waste liquors (together with those from paper production) a substance belonging to the group of dioxin- like chlorinated furans was found while measuring dioxin in the waste gas. Statement of plant management After the Beluga had moored in Glckstadt, Greenpeace asked the Temming AG to cease using chlorine and its compounds and to stop the AOX emissions. Representatives of the company dismissed this request on the grounds that Temming has to bleach to meet the customers' requirements. Nowadays it just happened to be fashionable to wear glasses frames that are completely transparent. The linters cellulose produced by Temming is the highest grade cellulose and is 30 - 50 % more expensive on the world market than rayon pulp. This highly bleached cellulose is used in paper production wherever great importance is attached to non- yellowing, ie in the area of paper production for lithographic papers, water-color papers, for restoration of old books, for banknotes and filing papers that make up one-third of the Temming production. Regarding the waste water the management declared that the AOX (1,100 æg/l) measured by Greenpeace was a normal average value for the company. For 20,000 m3 of waste water this corresponds to an AOX of 0.2 kilograms per ton of cellulose produced which is within the legal limits. Over 90 per cent of this pollutant load emanated from the linters production; the aerobic sewage treatment plant can only reduce part of the AOX load of the waste water. The other results of the Greenpeace analysis were totally new to the management, as data on individual substances had not been recorded. Only the water hazard class (it is 2) was known. In the near future two anti-pollution measures were planned at Temming: an addition to the sewage treatment plant and conversion of the bleaching process. An anaerobic stage is supposed to be added to the sewage treatment plant. The pilot plant was already supposed to go into operation in 1990. The technology was to be tested in a one-year test operation and optimized so that the anaerobic sewage treatment plant can go into final operation in the 2nd half of 1993. After this plant has gone into operation the COD of 230 - 270 kg generated per ton of cellulose produced, which is now reduced by the existing sewage plant to 30 kg will be lowered even further to 15 - 20 kg/t of cellulose. Investments planned for the linters operation include phasing out chlorine and chlorate from the bleaching process. However, the current state-of-the-art makes it impossible to completely phase out chlorine dioxide. This has been shown by 2 years of research that is still in progress with peracetic acid. A 20% reduction in the AOX is aimed for by the end of 1990. In the 2nd half of 1991 it should be reduced by 50 % and in the second half of 1992 by 75 % relative to the current AOX. Prospects The cellulose production from linters is a big source of pollution due to chlorine bleaching. Even after conversion of the bleaching process, some chlorine chemicals will still be used and thus organochlorine compounds will continue to enter the Elbe. The burning of production residues will most likely continue to involve a dioxin risk. Moreover, Temming plans to expand linters production so that a part of the AOX reduction will be compensated for by increased production. Here it is absolutely necessary to make sure that the reduction is not overcompensated by the planned expansion, resulting in an increase instead of a decrease in the AOX load. In addition, production expansion should not be on the ecologically valuable ground in front of the dike as planned. In the paper and cellulose production, there must be a total ban on the use of chlorine chemicals as soon as possible. The planned reduction in AOX does not go far enough. The goal must be an AOX value of zero, which can only be achieved by a total phase-out of chlorine chemicals from the bleaching process. Table 1 Results of random testing of waste water of Temming AG (Greenpeace, March 1990). Collective parameters COD 385 mg/l AOX 1,100 æg/l Total cyanide 2.8 æg/l Total phosphate 560 æg/l Aromatic hydrocarbons Toluene 4.2 æg/l Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 2.84 æg/l Trichlorobenzenes 0.36 æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes 0.09 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 2.5 æg/l Chlorophenols (not analyzed) Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 180 0.19 æg/l Heavy metals Nickel 30 æg/l Copper 54 æg/l [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / BAYER AG, Brunsbttel BAYER Brnsbttel is the newest plant of the Bayer group in the Federal Republic of Germany. The plant was founded after the state of Schleswig-Holstein had made numerous concessions for development of a new industrial area on the Elbe. The state government first invested approximately 500 million DM in measures such as purchase of real estate, resettlement of inhabitants, provision of an infrastructure and direct subsidies to companies willing to establish businesses. The State General Accounting Office evaluated this process in 1984 in retrospect as follows: "The original impact of the underlying economic policy anticipated from the industrial settlement measures did not fully develop. The state revised its development concepts (...) several times. Nonetheless its financial contributions were much higher than had originally been intended. In addition, increasing burdens will be placed on the budget by the real estate purchases. Complete accounting records are still missing for a number of the measures. ... The State General Accounting Office must therefore ascertain that up to now neither the investment volume nor the number of jobs has been realized, which were the basis of the state subsidy measures approved by the finance committee in 1970." Establishment of the BAYER AG plant was pushed through by all political parties of the state against the will of environmental groups and part of the local population. The following passage in the establishment contract between the state and BAYER had serious consequences for the licensing procedure, which according to the Federal Emissions Protection Law had to include public hearings, : "The State will aid BAYER in every way possible in obtaining the licenses required according to the trade regulations and other official permits." The State of Schleswig-Holstein bound itself by contract to actually ignore the rights of those persons affected by the establishment of this plant and restrict their influence on the licensing procedure. Up to now BAYER has constructed plants in the newly developed Brunsbttel industrial area * for the production of the polyurethane base materials, methylenediphenyl diisocyanate and tolylene diisocyanate (plant capacity: 135,000 t/year) * for production of precursors for dyes (aminosulfonic acids of naphthalene, the so-called letter acids: H acid, laurent acid, perri acid, tobias acid, gamma acid, I acid, etc.) (plant capacity for the main product, H acid: approx. 6,000 t/year). * for production of over 100 different organic dyes (azo dyes) (amount per year: about 8,000 t) * for production of the pesticide precursor methylethyl-aniline (capacity unknown) * for production of Vulcanox 20/40, an antioxidant for rubber (including the use of chloronitrobenzene and diphenylmethane with tertiary aminogroups) (capacity unknown) * and for burning toxic, aqueous wastes from its own facilities, PCB-containing oils from the mining industry in Nordrhein- Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalia) as well as a variety of other liquid toxic wastes from all parts of the former FRG. (plant capacity for aqueous and inflammable liquid wastes: 60,000 t/year) Facilities for producing aniline and iron oxide pigments are planned or under construction. BAYER with 1,714 employees has yearly sales of 713 million DM. Exports account for 89%. Production The BAYER products are manufactured from very hazardous substances like chlorine and phosgene. Phosgene: For instance, 11 t of phosgene are always present in the MDI production facilities. This gaseous substance damages the lungs in the shortest period of time. Consequently, it was used in World War I as a poison gas. In case of accident or failure of the provided safety equipment the health of those living in the vicinity of Brunbttel can be seriously damaged by phosgene. The BAYER production plants still have no containment facilities, as are commonly found at other MDI producers (eg DOW Stade). Chlorine: In 1989 the BAYER AG produced altogether about 26% of the chlorine generated in the Federal Republic of Germany. The BAYER plant in Brunsbttel used 2.7 % of the chlorine consumed in the FRG (for 1987) for the production of phosgene, which is in turn the starting material for TDI/MDI. BAYER Brunsbttel must therefore be classified as a manufacturer of chlorine chemicals, although it differs from other chlorine chemical companies in that * there is no mass production of chlorinated products * and only a small amount of chlorinated wastes is generated. Salt: Large amounts of salt are generated by the manufacture of products in the paints sector. According to its own data, BAYER AG in 1989 emitted about 60,000 t of salt into the Elbe. In addition 16,000 t of sludge from waste water purification were generated as waste. In comparison, the volume of dyes and dye precursors produced was less than 20,000 t/year. The products Polyurethanes (PU) are plastics that have been produced on an industrial scale in the Federal Republic of Germany since the early 1950's. Up to now BAYER AG has been the sole producer in the FRG1. The polyurethanes are mass-produced polymers along with polyethylene/polypropylene, PVC and polystyrene. Its best-known application areas are * flexible foams for furniture, matresses and car seats, * rigid foams in the building sector, * insulating foams for air conditioning and cooling technology, * paints and adhesives as well as * textile coatings and shoe soles. Polyurethane is formed by reaction of TDI or MDI with polyols. In other words, BAYER does not produce the finished polyurethane but only one of the two reaction components. The polyurethane base materials, MDI and TDI, are regarded as toxic and allergenic. TDI in particular has a high vapor pressure and is already hazardous to health in concentrations below the odor threshold. Since MDI and TDI are often processed further in smaller factories and shops that do not have adequate safety equipment, this property profile is especially problematical. Polyurethanes are relatively safe as finished, completely reacted plastics. However, numerous toxic additives or additives that are detrimental to the environment are used in "composing" the finished synthetic products. For example, ozone-depleting CFCs are used in the production of insulating foams and flame retardants in building materials. The German Environmental Protection Agency gave the volume of CFCs used in polyurethane foams as 17,000 t/year for 1986. This is about 17 to 25 % of the total CFC consumption in the FRG in 1986. The application areas using the highest amounts of polyurethanes are the furniture and matress industry (22%), the automotive industry (28%), the building sector (15%), the shoe industry (11%) and the cooling equipment sector (7%). Currently there is no system for useful recycling of the PU material in the polyurethane wastes from these sectors. The amount of polyurethane from scrap cars alone is about 70,000 tons. This polyurethane combined with other kinds of plastics, metal parts, paint residues and oil residues is deposited as so-called shredder refuse on the FRG's sanitary landfills for domestic refuse. Water requirements and waste water volume of BAYER Brunsbttel BAYER withdraws its water primarily from the Nord-Ostseekanal (North Sea/Baltic Sea Canal) (70,000 to 80,000 m3/day according to our calculations, 20 million m3/year according to BAYER's data) and a smaller amount from the ground water (approx. 3.3 million m3/year corresponding to about 9,000 m3/ day). Cooling and process waters are discharged into the Elbe via two pressure pipelines at the stream kilometers 690.4 and 694.3 of the Elbe. The present capacities of the pipelines are 1,500 m3/hour (west pipe) and 5,000 m3/hour (east pipe). The outlets are located several meters below the water surface. The daily total waste water volume of the plant was about 86,200 m3 in 1990 (ie about 31 million m3/year or about 3,600 m3/ hour). For the east outlet 1990 BAYER AG reported an hourly volume flow of 2,300 m3 on March 21 (corresponding to 55,200 m3/day) consisting of 63 % cooling water and 37 % process water. Under normal operating conditions cooling water is discharged via the west outlet (up to 36,000 m3 per day corresponding to the pipe capacity). The total_discharge capacity is currently about 156,000 m3/day (ie about 57 million m3/year). The permitted daily volume is 1.1 million m3 according to the water log entry of May 17, 1988, the hourly volume 45,000 m3 and the annual volume 400 million m3. Therefore, BAYER utilizes less than 10 % of the permitted discharge volume. The Brunsbttel plant has four waste water treatment lines: * wet oxidation for salt-containing waste water with organic, hard to degrade sulfur compounds (eg sulfonic acids) including the nitrogen and phosphorus fractions. (BAYER gives a COD efficiency of 98.7 % for waste waters from production of naphthalenesulfonic acids.) * burning of waste water with an upstream concentration stage and downstream flotation for treatment of alkaline waste waters polluted by organic compounds from the azo dye and rubber chemicals production. According to BAYER AG these waste waters contain the following substances: * simple aromatic amines, aromatic esters, aromatic ethers, phenols, aromatic sulfonic acids * simple nitro, amino and halogenated aromatic compounds * linked amino and nitro aromatic compounds * aliphatic keto compounds * aromatic hydrocarbons * hydroxy-, sulfo- and aminonaphthalenes * halogenated nitrogen heterocyclic compounds and their hydrolysis products * azo dyes and their by-products * acetates, sulfides, sulfites, fluorides, chlorides, nitrites, phosphates, silicates, sulfates, ammonium salts, carbonates * the biological waste water treatment plant, which is constructed as a multi-level biological tower with intense ventilation. At a residence time of 40 - 60 hours, even substances that are hard to degrade can supposedly be eliminated there. * neutralization of salt-containing, inorganic waste waters by mixing separate waste water streams or addition of hydrochloric acid. The partial waste water streams can be estimated as follows: * cooling water, untreated: about 65,000 to 70,000 m3/day * process water polluted by organic compounds after treatment in the wet oxidation facilities (about 20 m3/hour), in the waste water incineration plant ( 100 to 200 m3/hour) or in the biological treatment plant (120 to 200 m3/h): approximately 6,000 - 6,500 m3/day * process water polluted by inorganic compounds after treatment in the neutralization facilities: about 400 - 600 m3/hour or roughly 10,000 to 15,000 m3/day The amount of inorganic pollutants, oxygen-depleting substances and AOX (collective value for organochlorine substances) effectively discharged by the BAYER AG in 1989 is reported as the following data (in parentheses the annual loads extrapolated to the next order of magnitude: * salts 171 t/day (60,000 t/a) * chemical oxygen demand 1.47 t/day ( 500 t/a) * biological oxygen demand 0.14 t/day ( 50 t/a) * nitrogen compounds (N) 1.27 t/day ( 500 t/a) * phosphorus compounds (P) 15 kg/day ( 5,500 kg/a) * organochlorine compounds (AOX) 7.65 kg/day ( 2,800 kg/a) * copper 3.62 kg/day ( 1,300 kg/a) * nickel 3.64 kg/day ( 1,300 kg/a) * lead 0.36 kg/day ( 100 kg/a) * chromium 0.39 kg/day ( 100 kg/a) * cadmium 6.9 g/day ( 3 kg/a) * mercury 9.5 g/day ( 3 kg/a) The Greenpeace measurements The average waste water loads for 1989 reported by BAYER (BAY I) are the same order of magnitude as the values obtained for waste water samples taken from the east pipe on March 21, 1990. Parallel measurements of pollutants were performed by Greenpeace (GP) and BAYER (BAY II). Both analyses are incorporated in the following evaluation. The loads were calculated using the waste water flows given by BAYER for March 21, 1990. Inorganic and oxygen-depleting substances as well as AOX (all data round off to the next order of magnitude in kg/day) Substance BAY I BAY II GP Salt 171,000 331,000 n.d. Fluoride n.d. 130 n.d. COD 1,500 3,000 4,900 BOD 220 140 n.d. Total nitrogen (N) 1,300 900 n.d. Total phosphorus (P) 15 11 10 AOX 8 10 23 Nickel 4 2 4 Copper 4 5 6 It must of couse be taken into account that about 30-40 % of the COD load, 20-40 % of the AOX load and salt load, 25 % of the nitrogen load and most of the phosphate load measured in the samples of March 21, 1990 originated from the preload (water from the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal). For nickel, copper and fluoride the preload accounts for 20 %. (For the samples of March 21, 1990, parallel samples were taken from the cooling water inflow.) A comparison of the extrapolated annual load from BAYER with the total annual load transported by the Elbe into the North Sea reveals that BAYER's contribution to the load of organochlorine compounds (AOX), nitrogen, nickel and copper accounts for more than 0.1 to max. 1% of the Elbe load. For the COD load and the salt load of the Elbe, especially fluoride, there are no available reference data2. A comparison of the waste water loads with the preload of the Elbe above Brunsbttel gives corresponding results (data according to ARGE-Elbe 1989, filtered samples for nickel and copper): Substance Preload BAY II GP of the Elbe Nitrogen mg/l 4 - 9 16 n.d. AOX æg/l 20 - 30 190 417 Copper æg/l 3 - 4 88 114 Nickel 5 - 7 70 36 There is a large difference between the chemical oxygen demand and the biological oxygen demand of the discharged waste water (about a factor of 10). This difference is indicative of a load of harmful substances that is especially hard to degrade by chemical and biological processes. It has passed the BAYER waste water treatment plants despite waste water incineration and wet oxidation. Organic trace substances Of the individual organic substances measured, the following substances can be identified in the BAYER waste water at significantly increased levels. This means that the respective substances are either not detectable or only detectable in low concentrations in the inflowing cooling water or in the Elbe water. Dichlorobenzene 2.53 æg/l (GP) Hexachlorobenzene (HCB) 1.2 æg/l (GP) (Elbe preload, 1-4 ng/l) Aniline 2.1 æg/l (BAY II) Methyl-3-nitroaniline 2.7 æg/l (BAY II) In addition, several other organic phosphorus and nitrogen compounds were found in BAYER's analytical data in concentrations ranging from 1 to 3 æg/l. Concentrations ranging from 1 to 5 æg/l produce a waste water load of 20 to 100 kg/year and substance. Hexachlorobenzene Extrapolation of the March 21, 1990 value would give an annual HCB load of roughly 25 kg for hexachlorobenzene. If other HCB measurements, which are urgently recommended, should show that the March 21, 1990 value actually is a representative value, then the HCB load of the Elbe, which totals 190 kg per year, would be increased by 25 % by the waste water of the BAYER AG. In view of the fact that HCB is hardly degradable this is unacceptable. BAYER was unable to identify any HCB in the parallel sample taken on March 21, 1990. However, this is not really surprising, since they worked with a detection limit of 1 æg/l. The laboratory commissioned by Greenpeace worked with a detection limit of 0.05 æg/l, which is the limit commonly worked with today. Because of the high volume flows of waste water BAYER should establish lower detection limits or carry out partial stream measurements in the future. This applies not only to hexachlorobenzene but also to the whole range of less volatile organic trace pollutants in the BAYER waste water. The detection limit used for monochlorobenzene (MCB), reported as 5 æg/l by the laboratory commissioned by BAYER, is also cause for concern. This corresponds to a detection limit for MCB of 100 kg/year, which is much too high. Two of the collective parameters measured suggest the presence of possible unknown concentrations of problematic waste water components: * The results of the analyses for the individual substances alone cannot explain an AOX value of more than one hundred micrograms. Thus the collective parameter for chlorinated hydrocarbons indicates the presence of unidentified organochlorine compounds. * The COD value indicates a very high potential of hard to degrade substances. The fraction of these that are of an organic nature cannot be derived from the currently available documents because the total organic carbon content in the waste water (TOC) was not determined by BAYER or Greenpeace. Sources of significantly increased pollutant concentrations Nitrogen: At BAYER numerous nitrogen-containing input materials and intermediate products are used or generated during production processes: nitroaromatic compounds, aniline derivatives and nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds as well as inorganic nitrogen compounds. Waste water incineration followed by flue gas scrubbing converts most of the organically bound nitrogen to nitrate. The ammonium loads most likely originate from catalytic wet oxidation and the biological waste water treatment plant. Corrective action: In view of the eutrophication of the North Sea nitrogen should be eliminated, for example, by denitrification. Copper and nickel: Copper and nickel are used at BAYER as catalysts: copper for the wet oxidation and nickel for hydrations in the production process. Criticism: The release of metals into aquatic ecosystems must be reduced to a minimum, as there have been drastic accumulations in sediments in the past 100 years. Although copper and nickel do not strictly belong to the priority metals, pollution of the inner Deutsche Bucht (German Bay) with copper is considered significant. Moreover, copper in particular is highly toxic to bacteria. In the aquatic system significant effects can already be expected at concentrations of 100 æg/l. Salts: BAYER emits approximately 60,000 tons of salt per year into the brackish water region of the Elbe. Consequently BAYER makes only a minor contribution to the salt load of the Elbe. (Compare here the DOW's salt load, which is more than 10 times higher and discharged into the fresh water region of the Elbe at Stade.) However, the composition of the discharged salts should be studied more closely, as it can be presumed that the salt composition resulting from production will not correspond to that of seawater. Thus more attention should be paid for instance to the relatively high fluoride load. Comparable data for the Elbe and the North Sea are not availble. AOX and HCB: Organochlorine compounds are handled at BAYER primarily in the paint sector (reactive paints), as solvents for the production of MDI and TDI (monochlorobenzene and dichlorobenzene) and as the combustion product in waste water incineration. Since the major portion of the organochlorine load could not be identified by analysis of individual substances, it is impossible to determine the source of the AOX load. The HCB found in the waste water could originate from three main sources: from combustion of organochlorine substances in waste water incineration, possibly from regeneration processes in the solvent cycle of TDI and MDI production or from production of reactive dyes. Corrective measures: Organochlorine compounds may not be discharged into the aquatic environment because of their ecotoxic potential. The types of organochlorine substances discharged by Bayer into the Elbe needs elucidation. The analytical capabilities of the plant must be improved. In the process it should be checked whether the methods used provide reliable AOX values. The HCB concentrations detected on March 21, 1990 must be urgently reduced. HCB is a substance that is extremely difficult to degrade. Moreover, significant HCB concentrations always give reason to suspect the presence of dioxins. The most effective method for reduction of organochlorine loads is a ban on the use of the corresponding chemicals. Other organic substances: The detection limits of the BAYER analyses ranges from 25 to 100 kg/year for each substance. This seems inadequate considering the wide range of emitted substances that are largely unknown. BAYER should quickly increase its knowledge of the substances emitted by the plant by improving its analytical capabilities and by performing partial stream measurements. After more than 10 years of paint production at the Brunsbttel site the unsatisfactory state of waste water analyses at BAYER is inexcusable. In summary, there is a need for action at BAYER with regard to the discharged nitrogen, AOX, copper and nickel loads. The HCB content of the waste water found on March 21, 1990 is also a matter of special concern. A further reduction in the COD loads and retention of part of the salt amounts is desirable as well. Improvement of BAYER's in-house analyses with regard to the detection limits and the range of organic trace substances measured is urgently needed. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / [PART II OF BAYER] Amounts of harmful substances in a historic perspective Compared with the waste water loads originally permitted in 1974 the current pollutant effluents are small. The annual waste water volume of 680 million m3 (cooling and process water) contained in the 1974 permit would have allowed the BAYER AG to discharge the following pollutant loads: * chemical oxygen demand 80,000 t/a * copper 650 t/a * nitrogen and phosphorus compounds unlimited In the early 1970's the BAYER AG and its responsible licensing authorities thought the Elbe could withstand these kinds of pollutant loads. Today's loads, as becomes clear by comparison with the actual data, are more than 100 times lower than originally planned. Aside from the stagnating expansion of the Brunsbttel plant, this has been a result of political pressure from the environmental movement in the 70's and 80's and a corresponding development of pollution control technology. That this has partly been just a shift in the pollutant streams is made clear, for example, by the amounts of residues emanating from the BAYER's waste water incineration plant. According to the BAYER's permit application, 16,000 t/year of sludge from treatment of flue gas scrub water are taken to the Ecklak sanitary landfill. Prospects The BAYER AG has reduced its waste water loads in the past 15 years by orders of magnitudes relative to the level planned in the mid-70's by construction of waste water techniques that are specific to individual waste water streams. Nevertheless, BAYER still emits loads of several pollutants ranging from 0.1 to 1% of the preload, which is unacceptable. However, it is the HCB values found in the BAYER waste water of March 21, 1990 that are really alarming. If they are extrapolated to the annual load this would result in a 25% increase in the HCB load of the Elbe. This requires immediate investigated. In the total ecological balance the impact of the products of the plant in Brunsbttel is more serious. Current findings indicate that this is especially true for the use of the CFCs associated with polyurethane applications and the still unsolved problem of separate collection and ecologically useful utilization of polyurethane wastes. Whether the azo dyes and rubber additives will give rise to new problems remains to be seen. It is, however, certain that substances that are highly active even in small concentrations must be expected especially in this sector. Whether this will be an advantage (low material throughputs) or a disadvantage (possibly high toxic potential of small amounts, combined effect of harmful substances) from an ecological point of view cannot be decided from what is known today. However, no matter how this assessment problem is resolved, now is the time to ask whether there will be a long-term demand for these kinds of amounts of synthetic dyes. It will be necessary to initiate a public discussion in the coming decade on whether the luxury of "synthetic colorfulness" still has a place in an ecologically and socially oriented economy. Results of random testing of waste water of the BAYER AG (Greenpeace, March 1990). Collective parameters COD 59 mg/l AOX 264 æg/l Total phosphate 3,200 æg/l Aromatic hydrocarbons Benzene 17.8 æg/l Toluene 15.8 æg/l Xylenes 45.0 æg/l Ethylbenzene 13.8 æg/l Chlorobenzenes Pentachlorobenzene 0.38 æg/l Chlorophenols Dichlorophenols 0.20 æg/l Trichlorophenols 1.09 æg/l Polychlorinated biphenyls PCB 28 0.05 æg/l Volatile chlorohydrocarbons (solvents) 1,1,1-Trichloroethane 2.01 æg/l Trichloroethylene 0.96 æg/l Heavy metals Nickel 25 æg/l Copper 16.4 æg/l Lead 8.8 æg/l Results of random testing of waste water of the BAYER AG (Greenpeace, March 1990). Collective parameters COD 89 mg/l AOX 417 æg/l Total cyanide 13.0 æg/l Total phosphate 530 æg/l Chlorobenzenes Dichlorobenzenes 2.53 æg/l Pentachlorobenzene 0.94 æg/l Hexachlorobenzene 1.17 æg/l Chlorophenols Trichlorophenols 2.02 æg/l Organochlorine pesticides gamma-HCH 0.05 æg/l Heavy metals Nickel 70 æg/l Copper 114.5 æg/l [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Drinking water "Water is life" - this sentence applies equally to plants, animals and humans. Drinking water is the most important foodstuff. In temperate zones humans need at least about three liters of water a day, or one m3 per year, to exist. In the temperate latitudes of the world the volume of water available for use is several times higher than the subsistence level. Consequently, huge amounts of water have been used for washing (of cars, too!), as the means of transporting excrement and waste chemicals from trades and industries and as the cooling agent for power generation and industrial production. In Europe every inhabitant has an average of 3000 m3 of water per year at his/her disposal. In the former GDR this amount is just somewhat more than 1000 m3, in dry years only 500 m3. This area must therefore be considered to have a low supply of water compared with the rest of Europe. The current annual per capita water demand in the GDR is about 450 m3 and thus just below the supply limit in dry years. The utilization ratio is correspondingly high. For instance, the water of the Saale is used up to 13 times in dry periods. Between 1980 and 1988 water consumption in the GDR increased by almost 10% (1990 Environmental Report). About 75 % of this increase can be attributed to agricultural uses, about 12 % to domestic uses and about 13 % to other uses in the public and business sectors. The industrial water demand declined by about 2.5% in the same time period, primarily through construction of closed cooling circuits. At 138 l/day, the current amount of water consumed per capita in the private sector of the former GDR is just below that of the level in the former FRG (145 l per day). An increase in water consumption of private households in the new states of the FRG to the level of the old states would raise water consumption by less than 1%. Because of the high utilization ratio of water in the former GDR and the lack of purification technologies in the industrial and municipal sectors the people living along the large rivers and particularly along the Elbe are currently forced to drink "diluted waste water". This applies to the offshore filtrate, ie the river water pumped from wells that are about 10-100 m away from the banks of the Elbe. Over the decades so many hazardous substances have accumulated in the ground through which the water passes that it has lost any filtering effect. Both the types and concentrations of organic pollutants in the Elbe reappear in the drinking water (see below). The environment report of the GDR published in March 1990 classified 45% of the water courses as unsuitable for the drinking water supply and only 20% as suitable for the drinking water supply. The remaining 35% require very costly purification techniques. The use of ground water for the drinking water supply is no real alternative for a number of reasons. Basically only that amount of water can be taken from the ground water for the water supply that is replaced by recharging. In many parts of the FRG, such as the Nordheide or the Hessian Ried, this relationship has been ignored and the result has been a lowering of the water table and associated ecological damage. The use of fossile ground water reserves from depths greater than 100 m only delays the acute water crisis until the fossile reserves are depleted or dry up. The use of ground water from aquifers near the surface is questionable due to massive pollutant effluents. Especially massive fertilization, liquid manure and pesticide effluents of industrial agriculture are major causes for exceeding the drinking water emission limits in the territory of the former GDR. Other hazards include: indiscriminate dumping, brown coal processing including dumping of chemical wastes in brown coal mining areas, wastes and effluents of the chemicals industry and the very poor condition of the sewerage system. In the 1990 Environment Report the German Environmental Protection Ministry data published on the pollution of ground water with nitrates covered the whole territory of the GDR. According to this data the nitrate content of the ground water was significantly higher than the EC standard in 10% of the samples. In 7.6 % the concentration exceeded the old GDR limit of 40 mg/l. In addition, the pumping required for strip mining of brown coal causes widespread lowering of the water table. The amount of water pumped out of the mines equals about five times the amount of brown coal extracted. For a yield of 310 million tons of brown coal in 1988 (GDR Environment Report) this gives a lifted ground water volume of about 1.5 billion m3 per year. This corresponds to 18% of the water requirement and is greater than the retention volumes of all the catchment basins in the territory of the former GDR. Considering the strained water situation, this is a gigantic waste. A total of 15.5 million inhabitants (this corresponds to 93 % of the entire population of the former GDR) draw their water from the public drinking water supply. For 7.6 million inhabitants (GDR Environment Report, p. 98), it is impossible to always guarantee a supply of drinking water that complies with the standards. The key problems here are nitrate concentrations that exceed the limits (1.6 million inhabitants), complaints of bad odors (0.95 million inhabitants) and microbial contamination (1.4 miliion inhabitants). [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Sewerage systems and sewage treatment plants In the middle of the last century large European cities began construction of central sewerage systems for collection of waste waters from households and the trades and their discharge into rivers, lakes or seas. These sewerage systems have not been altered over large areas even to the present. The waste water losses underneath the cities are accordingly high. Waste water experts estimate, for instance, that in the territory of the former GDR up to 50 % of the sewage entering the municipal sewerage system is lost. The construction of central combined systems was linked to the increasing use of drinking water for the purpose of transporting excrement into the sewerage systems. No distinction was made between using water for transport purposes, washing purposes and drinking purposes or between different types of waste water. The combined sewerage system discharged rain water, excrement waste water, wash water and industrial waste water into the rivers and later into the mechanical sewage treatment plants. The construction of sewage treatment plants in Europe proceeded very slowly. For example, in 1975 about 25% of the water from the sewerage system in Hamburg flowed untreated into the Elbe. Major European cities like Brussels, Li‚ge, Naples and Venice do not have any sewage treatment plants to date. The construction of biological sewage treatment stages was only commenced in Europe about thirty years ago. The main objective was to reduce the microbial count in the waste water and to provide relief to the river's oxygen household by shifting the oxygen-depleting degradation processes from the river to the sewage treatment plant. Very efficient plant designs for this purpose have since become available. However, biological sewage treatment stages are unsuitable for degrading stable organic pollutants or for eliminating heavy metals or nutrients from the waste water. The stable chemicals remain for the most part in the sewage sludge and then represent a disposal problem. The nutrients enter the river or sea and produce overfertilization effects. In the rural areas of Central Europe construction of ring sewerage systems and community sewage treatment plants first commenced in the 60's and 70's. Thus the proportion of rural communities with less than 1000 inhabitants in the FRG with access to sewerage systems was only about 60% (Environment Data), whereas the proportion of the total population was about 90%. In rural areas domestic sewage is purified in a wide variety of home treatment stages. 72.5% of the population in the territory of the former GDR have access to public sewerage systems and 57.7% of these to public sewage treatment plants as well. About 12 % of the centrally collected municipal waste waters are discharged untreated into waters, 36 % are treated mechanically and 52 % are treated biologically and mechanically. The lack of sewage treatment plants can lead to a high microbial contamination of the river water and the drinking water obtained from it. Since the treatment of drinking water taken from the offshore filtrate operates primarily with sand bed filters, drinking water is chlorinated before it enters the distribution network. Chlorination of drinking water not only can have an adverse effect on the taste and smell of the water. The chemical reaction of organic components of the waste water with chlorine can also generate halogenated hydrocarbons, in particular chloroform and carbon tetrachloride, which are hazardous to health. The negative impact of drinking water chlorination on the quality of drinking water is clearly revealed by comparison of raw water data with pure water data (water after treatment but before discharge into the distribution network). Whereas regular analyses of raw water in 1989 revealed only traces of chloroform and carbon tetrachloride, there was up to 14 æg/l of chloroform in pure water following chlorination. The Greenpeace measurements Besides taking river and waste water samples, Greenpeace also had the opportunity to take random samples at seven waterworks in the territory of the former GDR, including three in Dresden. Characterization of the tested waterworks Hosterwitz, Dresden The Hosterwitz drinking water plant handles offshore filtrate. It also carries out artificial filtration. At present it handles 70,000 m3/d and an increase to 120,000 m3/ is planned. The water is currently not treated with activated charcoal. Tolkewitz, Dresden This waterwork also handles offshore filtrate. The wells from which 40,000 m3 per day are drawn from a depth of 10 m are located approx. 50 - 100 m from the banks of the Elbe. Part of the water handled (approx. 30 %) is passed over powdered charcoal. The major part of the water is only subjected to flocculation with aluminum sulfate to remove manganese. By addition of excess lime undissolved or colloidal substances, such as lignin sulfonic acids, flocculate and are retained. In the pure water of this plant the Greenpeace ship's laboratory could identify 2,4,5-trichlorophenol, which is emitted in substantial amounts by the Pirna pulp works located above the water works, and pentachlorophenol. According to data of the VEB Wasserversorgung (State-Owned Water Supply) the ammonium content of the pure water is 1 mg/l. The analytical capabilities of the waterworks itself are inadequate. Extensive analyses could only be carried out externally. It is possible that the relatively high ammonium value results from the use of chloramine for drinking water chlorination. It is significantly higher than the emission limit of the Drinking Water Regulations. Trinkwasserwerk Saloppe, Dresden The Saloppe waterworks, the oldest waterworks in Dresden, also handles offshore filtrate. Some of the wells are located only a distance of approx. 10 - 15 m from the banks of the river. Other wells are located 70 m away from the Elbe. The water is obtained from a depth of 6 - 8 m. The daily amount drawn is 30,000 - 40.000 m3. The water is not treated with activated charcol, lime or aluminum sulfate. The water quality is influenced decisively by the water level of the Elbe. At high water the water quality is poorer. Wasserwerk Brockwitz, Meiáen In the Brockwitz waterworks 11,500 m3/d are handled for the city of Meiáen. The wells are located at a distance of approx. 100 m from the banks of the Elbe and draw water from a depth of 10 - 12 meters. Siebeneichen, Meiáen 5,000 m3 of water are drawn daily from a depth of approx. 13 meters. The distance of the wells from the banks of the Elbe is approx. 60 - 100 m. Manganese is removed from the raw water by sodium hydroxide solution. Wasserwerk Piesteritz, Wittenberg The wells of the Piesteritz waterworks are located 200 m to several kilometers from the banks of the Elbe. From a depth of approx. 20 meters, 20,000 - 23,000 m3 are drawn daily. Manganese is removed from the water by aluminum sulfate; the water is chlorinated by chlorine dioxide. In addition, the water is treated by addition of lime and water glass. The waterworks supplies almost all of Wittenberg with drinking water. Some of the wells had to be closed because of the agrochemicals plant in the immediate vicinity. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Measuring results and interpretation The measurements revealed that pure water was often highly polluted with chloroform, chlorinated solvents, chlorophenols, chlorobenzenes and aromatic solvents. The measured AOX values (organically bound halogens) can be used as the collective parameter for pollution of the drinking water with halogenated organic substances. These values lie in a concentration range from 100 æg/l to 300 æg/l for all waterworks. In comparison, the AOX values measured for Elbe water were as a rule between 50 æg/l and 100 æg/l. The background value for unpolluted ground water can be taken as 10 æg/l (Milde 86). Three hypotheses can be initially formulated from these findings: 1. The concentration of halogenated organic substances in pure water is higher than in the Elbe itself. This means that there is an accumulation of halogenated organic substances in the water during offshore filtration and/or during treatment of the water. One factor that definitely contributes to this accumulation is drinking water chlorination. Especially the Tolkewitz, Saloppe and Bockwitz waterworks showed chloroform concentrations greater than 100 æg/l in pure water on March 3, 1990. 2. The concentration of halogenated organic substances in drinking water from the offshore filtrate is more than 10 times higher than that of drinking water from unpolluted ground water. 3. The total concentrations of halogenated organic substances in pure water did not differ significantly among the waterworks tested. A possible explanation for this could be the prescribed residual chlorine concentration of 0.1 mg chlorine/l for disinfection of raw water, which can lead to increased AOX values. It is, however, also possible that the very similar AOX values for all the waterworks is an indication of the widespread pollution of surface waters with halogenated organic substances. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the AOX and chloroform values found show practically no statistical dependency on each other. Individual substances: The test results for individual substance groups were interpreted by comparison either with the WHO standards, the emission standards of the FRG Drinking Water Regulations or the EC standards. The EC standards for "The Quality of Water for Human Use" for organic pollutants in drinking water proved to be the most stringent. The EC distinguishes between approximate figures (target values) and maximum allowable concentrations. It assumes collective values for substance groups. The following EC values apply to the studied substance groups: Chlorinated organic substances (without pesticides): 1 æg/l (target value) 25 æg/l (maximum value) Petroleum extractable hydrocarbons: 10 æg/l (maximum value) Pure water of the Tolkewitz and Saloppe waterworks in Dresden obtained from the offshore filtrate as well as pure water of the Brokwitz Waterworks (offshore filtrate) at Meiáen showed chloroform values greater than 100 æg/l. These concentrations significantly surpass the WHO target value of 30 æg/l. In the Drinking Water Regulations of the FRG there is no emission standard for chloroform. The Drinking Water Treatment Regulations do, however, provide a limit of 25 æg/l for trihalogenated methanes (chloro- and bromomethanes). In addition, chloroform is included in the list of substances for which there is a well-founded suspicion of a carcinogenic potential. Besides chloroform, other volatile chlorohydrocarbons could also be identified in the drinking water of the waterworks tested. The concentrations found are summarized in Table 1. Here both the WHO target values listed and the collective parameters of the Drinking Water Regulations (for 1,1,1-trichloroethane (1,1,1- TRI), trichloroethylene (TRI), tetrachloroethylene (PER) and dichloromethane (methylene chloride)) of 25 æg/l were used as the reference values. Neither the WHO target values nor the limit of the Drinking Water Regulations was exceeded. Table 1: Chloromethanes and chlorinated solvents Chloroform in æg/l (WHO target value: 30 æg/l) 1,1,1-Trichloroethane in æg/l Carbon tetrachloride in æg/l (WHO target value: 3 æg/l) Trichloroethene in æg/l (WHO target value: 30 æg/l) Perchloroethene in æg/l (WHO target value: 10 æg/l) Hosterwitz Tolkewitz Saloppe Brockwitz 3.43 109 126 103 < 0.1 0.17 < 0.1 0.14 0.25 0.59 0.44 0.64 1.84 13.1 10.5 1.53 0.89 6.67 1.21 0.49 Siebeneichen Piesteritz Barbie Gnevsdorf 15.7 21.1 11.3 < 0.4 < 0.1 < 0.1 < 0.1 < 0.1 < 0.1 < 0.1 < 0.1 < 0.1 3.40 7.13 1.55 < 0.2 0.21 < 0.1 < 0.1 < 0.1 However, the margin of safety for the Tolkewitz and Saloppe Waterworks is extremely small due to the high TRI and PER values. It appears the limits could be exceeded at any time. The self- monitoring protocols of the Tolkewitz Waterworks available to Greenpeace reveal that over 50% of the measuring data from 1989 exceed the limits. In this connection, it must be mentioned that the TRI and PER values are the same in raw water as in pure water, whereas the concentrations in the Elbe do not exceed 1 æg/l. This allows the following conclusions: 1. Water treatment cannot lower the TRI and PER concentrations in drinking water. 2. The remarkably high pollutant concentrations do not result from the Elbe load alone but from accidents with solvents on land. Possible sources here are primarily metal-working companies, workshops, dry cleaners or storage facilities. Another possible source of pollutants on land is the sewer running from Heidenau on the left bank of the Elbe to the Kaditz sewage treatment plant. Sewer leaks can result in massive contamination of ground water. Finally, it should be pointed out that aside from 1,1,1-TRI all solvents listed are, like chloroform, found in the list of substances that are suspected of being carcinogens. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Chlorophenols and chlorobenzenes In addition to volatile chlorinated organic substances, chlorophenols and chlorobenzenes were also found in the pure water of the waterworks (Tables 2 and 3). Table 2: Dichlorophenols in æg/l Trichlorophenols in æg/l (WHO target value:1 10 æg/l) Tetrachlorophenols in æg/l Pentachlorophenol in æg/l (WHO target value: 10 æg/l) Hosterwitz Tolkewitz Saloppe Brockwitz 0.32 0.62 2.00 0.21 1.46 1.90 4.52 0.63 < 0.1 < 0.1 < 0.1 < 0.1 < 0.1 < 0.1 0.37 < 0.1 Siebeneichen Piesteritz Barbie Gnevsdorf 0.46 0.24 0.49 0.62 1.88 0.46 1.59 1.40 < 0.1 0.72 < 0.1 < 0.1 < 0.1 0.18 < 0.1 < 0.1 Table 3: Dichlorobenzenes in æg/l Trichlorobenzenes in æg/l Tetrachlorobenzenes in æg/l Pentachlorobenzene in æg/l Hosterwitz Tolkewitz Saloppe Brockwitz 2.41 1.6 2.92 3.13 0.80 0.11 0.57 0.76 < 0.05 0.05 < 0.05 < 0.05 0.11 0.08 0.09 0.09 Siebeneichen Piesteritz Barbie Gnevsdorf 1.85 3.23 1.10 < 0.1 0.62 0.52 0.93 < 0.05 0.07 < 0.05 < 0.05 < 0.05 0.08 0.08 0.13 0.12 In all of the waterworks chlorophenols and chlorobenzenes were found in concentrations significantly higher than the detection limits. The order of magnitude of the concentrations in pure water corresponded to those determined in the Elbe near Dresden. Consequently, the chlorophenols and chlorobenzenes are eliminated neither by offshore filtration nor by raw water treatment. The Saloppe waterworks had significantly higher concentrations of chlorophenols, in particular trichlorophenols, than any of the other waterworks. A simple explanation for this could be that the wells of this waterworks are located too close to the banks of the Elbe, ie the ground filtering distance is too short. Considering the chlorophenol and chlorobenzene concentrations determined by Greenpeace in pure water, it must be concluded that there is widespread contamination with these substances in this area. Possible sources are pulp mills, pharmaceutical plants, pesticide manufacturers and agriculture. Since the present study program analyzed only a small number of samples and chlorinated aromatic substances, relevant groups of substances in drinking water may not have even been identified up to now. The AOX values listed above must be interpreted with this in mind. Finally, the loads of chlorinated organic substances in the drinking waters of all the waterworks studied exceeded the target value of 1 æg/l several times over. Moreover, the Tolkewitz and Saloppe waterworks reached the maximum acceptable concentration defined by the EC. Aromatic hydrocarbons Table 4: Benzene in æg/l Toluene in æg/l Xylene in æg/l Ethylbenzene in æg/l Hosterwitz Tolkewitz Saloppe Brockwitz < 0.2 < 0.2 < 0.2 3.2 1.36 9.67 9.52 23.8 2.79 1.27 1.22 5.02 < 0.5 < 0.5 < 0.5 2.61 Siebeneichen Piesteritz Barbie Gnevsdorf < 0.2 1.76 < 0.2 < 0.2 2.25 6.24 4.57 4.24 9 < 0.5 < 0.5 < 0.5 < 0.5 < 0.5 < 0.5 < 0.5 For dissolved and emulsified hydrocarbons the maximum acceptable concentration in the EG is 10 æg/l. The Tolkewitz, Saloppe, Brockwitz and Siebeneichen waterworks surpass this value for the substances named above, while the Piesteritz waterworks is just below this value. The pure water values of the waterworks for toluene and xylene are somewhat higher than the values determined at and above Dresden (2 - 6 æg/l for toluene and < 0.5 æg/l to 3 æg/l for xylene). However, no conclusions can be drawn from these values for any of the waterworks except the Brockwitz waterworks. For this waterworks, the hypothesis that there is added pollution of the drinking water from contamination with organic solvents from the land should be investigated. Further evidence for a solvent contamination originating from the land can be seen in the AOX content of the Brockwitz pure water, which is the highest of all waterworks tested. Before distribution to the consumers the waters from the different waterworks are mixed. This ensures compliance with the limits of the Drinking Water Regulations and the maximum concentration of the EC Drinking Water Guidelines. However, in view of the widespread contamination the leeway provided by this type of mixing strategy is small especially in the summer months. Moreover, consideration must be given to the fact that ground water reserves suitable for mixing with the offshore filtrate are limited in the territory of the former GDR due to use of large amounts of pesticides in agriculture, liquid manure production and contamination of the ground water aquifers near the surface by abandoned pollutant wastes. The mixing strategy is no solution especially for substances that are hard to degrade and thus can accumulate in the human organism. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / The drinking water situation in Dresden Dresden's drinking water situation can be described as follows: 1. In the "Study on the Viral Risk of Infection and Cell Toxicity of Elbe Water in Its Upper Course in the GDR and Studies on the Cancer Risk of the Population Receiving Drinking Water from the Elbe" directed by Prof. Dr. Renate Walter in 1989, a study group of the Institute of General and Community Hygiene of the Medical Academy of Dresden came to the following conclusions: a. Of 143 water samples taken from the Elbe near Dresden from March 1987 to January 1989, 128 (89.5%) contained viruses. The average virus concentration at the border water depth gauge at Schmilka was 5 particles per liter. Below Dresden it rose to 12 particles per liter. A level of 1-2 viruses per liter already poses a risk of infection to sensitive persons. For comparison, the authors of the study give the concentration of microorganisms pathological to humans in the Danube near Vienna, which is one tenth the value found below Dresden. b. In the toxicological evaluation of the Elbe water using test cultures of human embryonic cells no toxic effects could be determined at the border water depth gauge. Below Pirna 13.8 % and below Dresden 47.5 % of the test cells were damaged. Compared with the Danube, the Elbe once again had a toxic load that was 10 times higher. c. The known carginogenic effect of organochlorine compounds led the Dresdner research group to evaluate 10,000 cancer cases occurring from 1968 to 1984 in the regions of Riesa, Pirna and Dresden. The drinking water of these cities was suspected of being polluted by halogenated organic compounds from the pulp industry, the pharmaceutical industry and drinking water chlorination. Areas with a drinking water supply from catchment basins and ground water served as the control group. The authors of the study ascertained a significant incidence of cancer of the stomach, liver, pancreas, large intestine, rectum, gallbladder and bladder in the cities supplied with Elbe water. According to the findings of the study group the risk of getting cancer of the liver in Riesa and Pirna is on the average 50% higher than in the rest of the former GDR. Major loads of the drinking water are: 1. The organic load from Pirna-Heidenau (cellulose): The organochlorine compounds cannot be retained by offshore filtration. Because of the lack of sewage treatment plants the organic load from municipal sewage is high. In addition there are (illegal) solvent effluents. 2. The high organic load results in formation of other organochlorine compounds after chlorination. 3. The drinking water is loaded with viruses. This is also a consequence of the lack of sewage treatment plants. 4. In the existing ground water wells (Dresden-Waldpark, Radebeul/Coswig) tri- and perchloroethylene contaminants were determined (dry cleaning, metal-working). How threatening is the situation in Dresden? Under the heading "Dresden's Drinking Water is Better then its Reputation" the "Handelsblatt" published a brief article on June 26, 1990. Citing a study by the Gelsenwasser AG, it stated: "Dresden's drinking water is better than its reputation. This is the result of studies by the Gelsenwasser AG, Gelsenkirchen, which provided the Dresden Waterworks with its most modern laboratory equipment. The results were all the more surprising, as the Elbe has been repeatedly reputed to be "on the brink of death". According to the study of the Gelsenwasser scientists the drinking water tested from four Dresden waterworks was faultless microbiologically." In the "Sddeutsche Zeitung" of June 27, 1990 the following appeared under the heading "Drinking Water in Dresden is Better than its Reputation": "Palefaced, Dresden cancer victims drink a yellow, toxic soup. According to Peter Scheerer (spokesman of the managing board of Gelsenwasser, the author), this summarizes the tone of media reports following the Greenpeace Easter campaign against Elbe pollution in the upper Elbe valley. ... The Gelsenwasser AG has serious scientific analyses to repudiate the panicmongering of the media." In the "UNION" of May 28,1990 the Dresden Hygiene Inspection issued the following statement on the Greenpeace measurements: "The Greenpeace campaign in Dresden on the drinking water problem and the accompanying publicity have created a great deal of uncertainty among the population. The data published by Greenpeace were repudiated unequvocally by the Fresenius Institute of the FRG ("Bild Zeitung" of April 5, 1990).. We, the District Hygiene Inspection in Dresden, as the official regulatory agency now find it necessary to intervene to clarify the situation. We test Dresden's drinking water ... regularly for organochlorine substances. Because there are no binding limits for these compounds in the GDR, we have based our evaluations on the recommendations of the World Health Organization and more recently on the Drinking Water Regulations of the FRG. The limit specified in these regulations of 25 æg/l has been determined by extensive human toxicological studies and epidemiological studies. Limits are based on the daily intake that has been shown to be absolutely safe by the methods named above ... In the water of the Saloppe and Hosterwitz waterworks, which is pure offshore filtrate, the concentrations of organochlorine substances is 25 to 30 and 5 micrograms/liter respectively. Since the Saloppe water is mixed with the Hosterwitz water before discharge into the supply lines, the limits are complied with in the supply area. In the Tolkewitz waterworks, where industrial influences have led to a contamination of the ground water, the value, at 25 micrograms/liter, is borderline. At 40 to 50 micrograms/liter, there is a greater impact on the water in the Waldpark waterworks, which is therefore no longer approved for use for the permanent water supply. A short-term usage during extreme shortages can be tolerated from the point of view of hygiene, since the water is mixed with that of the Tolkewitz waterworks. The Radebeul-Mitte alt, Coswig-Sachsenstraáe and S”rnewitz waterworks are more highly contaminated by organochlorine substances. These waterworks have been approved for short-term usage. A complete shutdown would result in the total breakdown of the drinking water supply. ..." The statements of the Gelsenwasser AG and the District Hygiene Inspection reveal some odd similarities: 1. Greenpeace is spreading panic. 2. The measurements of Fresenius and Gelsenwasser repudiate those of Greenpeace. 3. There is no threat to the population. Examination of the statements made by the Gelsenwasser and the District Hygiene Inspection reveals the following facts: 1. The Fresenius Institute analyzed 30 water samples from households in the territory of the former GDR for the "Bild Zeitung". One of these samples was from Dresden (Dresden Nord, Bautzener Str. 102). The results were: 1 æg/l trichloroethylene 1 æg/l perchloroethylene 13 æg/l chloroform and brominated methanes (so-called haloforms) Chlorophenols, chlorobenzenes and aromatic solvents were not analyzed. The analysis of the Fresenium Institute in Dresden Nord cannot be taken to repudiate the Greenpeace measurements. It was taken on the consumer's premises, ie not at the same location as the Greenpeace samples. It had a smaller analytical scope. The substances analyzed were in the same concentration ranges as those found, for example, by Greenpeace at the Hosterwitz waterworks. 2. The data measured by Gelsenwasser in the waterworks confirm the Greenpeace results for PER, TRI and carbon tetrachloride and in part for AOX. Only the chloroform values differed significantly. The values obtained by Gelsenwasser on May 24, 1990 for the Tolkewitz and Saloppe waterworks were 10 % less than the concentrations determined by Greenpeace on March 11, 1990. It is impossible to decide from the available data whether these differences are attributable to sample taking and analytical techniques or whether the drinking water chlorination process has since been altered. Pentachlorophenol and trichlorophenols were not found in the Gelsenwasser AG samples. This could be explained by differences in analytical techniques or altered water levels in the Elbe as well as by a reduction in the waste water load of the Pirna pulp works from March to May. In their measurements, the Gelsenwasser AG determined a number of pollutant concentrations exceeding the limits of the Drinking Water Regulations. These included the atrazine concentrations in the pure water of Hosterwitz and Saloppe and ammonium concentration in the pure water of Saloppe. Considering that the Greenpeace and Gelsenwasser samples were taken two months apart and that only one sample was analyzed, these results agree quite well on the whole. An suitable explanation must only be found for the deviations between the chloroform values. 3. The District Hygiene Inspection has committed two serious errors in its estimation of the importance of limits and adverse effect of choroform on the human organism. In the first place the limit for halomethanes (also chloroform) of 25 æg/l is not a value based of toxicological findings in the sense of the Drinking Water Regulations. In fact the regulations contain no limit for chloroform. Secondly, for a lifetime intake of drinking water having a chloroform concentration of 20 æg/l, a cancer risk of 1: 33,000 can be expected (according to LAHL) 1981), which means that one out of every 33,000 persons would contract cancer. On the whole it seems obvious that the Gelsenwasser AG and the District Hygiene Inspection are working politically hand in hand in order to play down the situation in Dresden. The scientific studies of May 1990 given in defence of the situation are with one exception in complete agreement with the findings already published by Greenpeace in March, considering both were based on single measurements. Ways out of the drinking water crisis In summary, the Elbe region under consideration presents the following picture: The water supply in the drainage area of the Elbe is practically exhausted and the utilization ratio of the river is extremely high in same cases. Because of the lack of sewage treatment techniques and the pollutant-intensive production facilities on the Elbe, the drinking water of the Elbe communities is often more apt to be inadequately diluted waste water than a healthy nourishment. The measurements carried out by Greenpeace in March 1990 at seven waterworks along the Elbe clearly demonstrate that pollutants from the industry and agriculture eventually end up in Dresden's drinking water. The contamination of drinking water with chemicals is actually increased by sterilization of the water by means of chlorine. For at least two of the waterworks studied there is evidence of additional pollutants effluents entering the waterworks from the land. The emission limits of the Drinking Water Regulations for chlorinated solvents are almost exhausted in the pure water of two waterworks. It is likely that the emission limits are regularly surpassed. There is absolutely no scientific basis for the remarks of the Dresden District Hygiene Inspection of the Water Conservation Authority and of the Gelsenwasser AG, which play down the danger of situation or for the assertion that the Greenpeace measurements were incorrect. There is an acute drinking water crisis. The strategies now followed to cope with this crisis will decide whether the problems will actually be solved in the long term or whether they will only be shifted in time and place. The following strategies are currently being discussed: 1. Water scientists, authorities and suppliers (Water Conservation Authority and Gelsenwasser) favor a diminished use of river water and the construction of a long-distance water supply from the S„chsischen Schweiz. This would mean using primarily ground water from this area. According to this plan the water resources of the S„chsichen Schweiz will be serve to dilute the fraction of river water still used with enough water of higher quality to ensure that all applicable limits are complied with. In addition to construction of a long-distance water supply, the river waterworks near Dresden are to be expanded immediately and made into "water factories" under the expertise of West German companies. According to plans of the water suppliers to improve the condition of the water in the Elbe, saving water, using different qualities of water for different purposes and thinking about transition plans that would be quickly effective play only a minor role. 2. According to Greenpeace a permanent solution to the drinking water crisis can only be achieved in the territory of the former GDR by means of a whole set of measures of a very different nature: * To protect the population activated charcoal filters and other state-of-the-art water treatment processes must be immediately installed. Use of wells providing very highly contaminated water must be discontinued until treatment techniques have been installed. * Besides using water-saving strategies and redevelop-ing the distribution pipes, a dual purpose water distribution network should be installed in the Dresden area. This would make it possible to provide consumers with water of food quality and to use water of poorer quality exclusively for industrial purposes. That this strategy would significantly relieve the drinking water situation is clearly shown by the fact the industry now takes one quarter of the drinking water from the Dresden distribution pipeline. * The population must be given immediate access to industrial wells that draw high-quality drinking water. Except for the food industry, all industrial plants must convert to the using surface waters. * Regardless of what the long-term water supply of the Upper Elbe Valley looks like, it will still be necessary to take some drinking water from the Elbe. Therefore, a reduction in the municipal and industrial waste water loads is urgently needed. In addition to improving the situation specifically in the Upper Elbe Valley it is also necessary to * stop the waste of water resulting from strip mining of brown coal, * reduce the agricultural use of water to an ecologically acceptable level, * stop further pollution of the ground water reserves from production of liquid manure and pesticides, * immediately ban the use of chlorine in the pulp chemicals and pharmaceutical industries, * construct state-of-the-art municipal and industrial waste water treatment plants, * give the population access to the drinking water reserves normally used by the industry and * ensure the long-range use of Elbe water for drinking water through efficient water treatment facilities. To make sure that drinking water can be obtained from the Elbe in the long term the waterworks along the Elbe should follow the example of the Rhine waterworks and form an association. Playing down the situation and exhausting emission limits, the common strategy of the District Hygiene Inspection and Gelsenwasser AG, stand in the way of a medium range improvement in the drinking water situation. The attempt to solve the water crisis by constructing a long-distance water supply system will only shift the problem to a later time and another place. Limits of the Drinking water regulations in mg/l Arsenic 0.04 Lead 0.04 Cadmium 0.005 Chromium 0.05 Cyanide 0.05 Fluoride 1.5 Nickel 0.05 Nitrate 50 Nitrite 0.1 Mercury 0.001 PAC 0.0002 (Fluoranthene, benzo(b)fluoranthene, benzo(k)fluoranthene, benzo(a)pyrene, benzo(ghi)perylene, indene(1,2,3-cd)pyrene) Organochlorine compounds 0.025 (1,1,1-Trichloroethane, trichloroethylene, tetrachloro-ethylene, dichloromethane) Carbon tetrachloride 0.003 Pesticides and their degradation products 0.0001 Total 0.0005 Polychlorinated, polybrominated biphenyls and terphenyls 0.0001 Total 0.0005 Aluminum 0.2 Ammonium 0.5 Iron 0.2 Potassium 12 Magnesium 50 Manganese 0.05 Sodium 150 Silver 0.01 Sulfate 240 Surfactants Anionic 0.2 Non-ionic 0.2 [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Evaluation and conclusions As devastating as the conditions found by the Beluga at a number of companies in the former GDR may be, the trip revealed that there is one area where they have been far ahead of the FRG since the Fall of '89. This is in the exemplary willingness of many of those in responsible positions to provide information and to talk openly about company problems. In comparison, the (old) Federal Republic could almost be called a developing country. Data on the types and amount of materials produced and marketed as well as on emissions are still being held back on the grounds that they are company secrets. The chemicals industry is still bitterly defending its information monopoly. Considerations of how to clean up the Elbe often include a glance at the Rhine where progress has unquestionably been made in the past 15 years. However, pollution abatement is stagnating and past results are by no means sufficient. The concentrations of some heavy metals in the Rhine have even increased significantly in the past few years. And: Reduced concentrations of heavy metals and other long-lived hazardous substances do not necessarily represent an improvement but only a slower deterioration of the state of the environment. The Rhine with its pollutant load is still the biggest single source of pollution of the North Sea, whose condition is continuing to deteriorate despite a certain degree of success in cleaning up the Rhine. Problematic production processes have only actually been discontinued in rare cases. Usually a decrease in the direct load of the river with hazardous substances is achieved by accepting an increase in indirect loads in the form of trash, widespread emissions or pollution from products and their usage. From our point of view the road taken here is extremely unsatisfactory and West German politicians and industrialists have absolutely no right to pat each other on the back. The long-standing criticism of the way the West has been exploiting nature and health is still valid despite the dramatic conditions in the former GDR. Making the GDR into a mere copy of the former FRG, as industry and government are trying their best to do, will also mean taking on all the mistakes of the West. The economic system of the West is characterized by large-scale production of short-lived (ie intended for consumption and not for use) goods accompanied by a wide product range. Almost none of the sources of materials and energy exploited are renewable (natural resources such as ores and oil). A constantly increasing number and amount of synthetic substances are being produced and marketed. Their behavior and impact are largely unknown, for the most part uncontrollable and not necessarily identifiable. This economic process gives rise to huge amounts of refuse (these are residual substances and emissions from production and every product after use). In other words, nothing but refuse is produced, although some of it can be used for a limited time period. This means, however, that all substances involved in this process will sooner or later end up in the soil, air or water. Sometimes their odysee takes them through plants, animals and humans. The consequences of this type of economics are not all known. We know that some of these substances destroy our basis for life because they cause irreversible changes in our environment or disturb the balance of natural systems. We do not know what new equilibria will look like (for example has the atmosphere-ocean-biosphere system, which determines our climate, departed from equilibrium with human assistance?) and what species will still be able to exist under the new equilibrium conditions. Technical pollution control measures (for example, filters, sewage treatment plants or plants that exploit energy more efficiently) are important but by no means sufficient. Such measures, as they have been increasingly instituted in the Federal Republic of Gemany in the past two decades, have not been able to abate continued destruction of our basis for life. They are only "end-of-the-pipe" measures starting at the end of a detrimental process, not at the beginning. Often their effects are negated by the higher goal of "growth". (For example, the sharply increasing number of cars has increased the emission of air pollutants despite introduction of the catalyst.) Humans are a part of nature and subject to its laws as are all living beings. We should learn from nature where reliable survival techniques have existed for ages. Every production process, every conversion of materials consumes energy that must first be generated. Its generation and usage is usually associated with pollution (this applies especially to non-renewable sources of energy: thus emission of CO2 from combustion of coal and oil enhances the so-called "greenhouse effect"). The large amounts of substances that we use in our economic processes cause environmental problems not only during production but even more so after the products have been put on the market. This is particularly true if these are heavy metals or synthetic substances, such as chlorohydrocarbons (CHCs). The conversion of materials and energy consumption must therefore be minimized. The question, "Can we afford a new car (walkman, TV, etc.) every few years?", should not be a matter of the current retail price. From procurement of raw materials through production of the product until fate of the product materials after use, it all has to be taken into account and the overall ecological balance drawn up. Whoever does this will come to the conclusion that the car, like so many other goods, has such a "cheap" sales price only because we produce, use and discard it at cost to the environment (ie today's living community and future generations). The question just asked could probably sooner be worded: Can the human race afford to buy a new car (walkman, TV, etc.) every few years? We have to learn to think through the processes associated with our lifestyle from beginning to end and ask ourselves whether we can or want to expect for ourselves or others a certain product, type of production or lifestyle. The assertion repeatedly made that products are put on the market to meet the needs of the consumers misrepresents the facts. Today a market is first created for a majority of products. Then the consumer is made to believe he/she needs the product. An entire branch of industry, the advertising industry, makes its money creating markets for products that are really not needed. The environmental problems associated with the product are not mentioned. It is impossible to ask about the "adverse effects" of a product even after damage has been done. The freedom of companies to decide what product to produce and how to produce and distribute it places the burden resulting from the adverse effects of these creations on the general public. Instead there should be public discussion on what should be produced and how. Only then will society be capable of handling the ecological challenge of the future. However, the basis for any wide discussion is free access to information. In the past manufacturing and industrial groups have not always had the best reputation for providing information. The myth of the industrial secret has even been successfully used in court up to now with the consequence that the consumer, environmental groups, scientific institutions and government regulatory agencies have been forced to grope in the dark while the environment was being ruined. This must be stopped. What does all this have to do with the Elbe, the interested reader might now ask. Our answer is: Everything! The Elbe is suffering, like many other ecosystems, from the effects of our lifestyle. The questions arising from the impact of our economic system and lifestyle on our environment and future generations must be discussed and decisions made on a wide political basis. Science can be a useful aid in this process but should not be seen by politicians and society as a convenient "final authority". Furthermore, these questions may never be decided by the industry "for all of us" exclusively on the basis of sales and power. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / To be concrete - the positive goals that must be pursued to improve the current state of the Elbe and the rest of nature are: 1. A conversion of our economy to renewable resources. In the territory of the former GDR a conversion from brown coal to oil as the source of energy and raw materials is currently taking place. A superficial comparison of the two resources shows oil to be more favorable both ecologically as well as economically. However, converting chemical production to an oil basis cannot be the only long-term goal of an ecological redevelopment policy. This only pushes a number of problems out of sight. Basic trends of current industrial production, which consumes large amounts of raw materials and energy, in the direction of a global ecological catastrophe are not even being considered: * destruction of the environment through depletion of the reserves in oil-producing countries and the oceans * use of very distant resources instead of local resources, therefore permanent loading of the environment through losses during transport, storage and handling as well as through accidents (see the Exxon Valdez tanker accident) * dependence of the entire economy on the world market for oil * the greenhouse effect. 2. Traffic reduction and promotion of public transportation for passengers and goods and the use of bicycles The automobile is today one of the biggest sources of environmental pollution. Air traffic inflicts heavy damage on the earth's atmosphere. We will have to give consideration to how much mobility we can afford in view of the costs to the environment and future generations. 3. Attempts to achieve maximimum recycling Once the economy has been converted to maximum use of renewable resources it will still be essential to achieve a maximum recycling of the nonrenewable natural resources still needed in small amounts. However, recycling "per se" does not necessarily make a positive contribution to the environment. The question to ask is, what is being recycled to what. (The production of park benches and flower pots from used PVC window frames does not deserve to be called recycling!) 4. Products and technologies must be designed to be repairable. This should apply both to the products and technologies themselves and to any possible negative effects they might have. To reduce consumption of raw materials and energy, products should be designed to be long-lived, ie repairable. The products themselves often emit the highest amounts of pollutants into the environment. They act as widespread sources of pollutants and their impact is usually irreparable, especially if they are virtually nondegradable and are bioaccumulable. (Examples: many applications of halogenated hydrocarbons, such as polymers and polymer additives, solvents, pesticides or flame retardants). 5. Development of an ecologically oriented chemicals policy The chemicals producers should not be granted freedom to produce or convert chemicals as they wish. Likewise, instead of presuming the innocence of new chemicals proof of their safety must be compulsory. The idea of prevention must be translated into real action not just in colored brochures but as a central policy of the chemicals industry. 6. Ecological land cultivation To prevent loading of ground and surface waters with nutrients, fertilizing should be restricted to those amounts that can be taken up again by plants from the soil. To date, immense damage has been caused by pesticides designed to interfere with natural systems to destroy them. Contrary to claims by pesticide producers, restricting the duration and spread of pesticide effects is still an unsolved problem. Bioaccumulable and persistent pesticides must be totally banned. Instead other methods of plant protection like integrated land cultivation, biological plant protection, etc. should be introduced. 7. Decentralized technologies instead of high-risk, large-scale industrial technology This applies both to the generation of energy and raw materials and to industrial production. 8. Freedom of information The right to information about the exploitation of natural resources is a fundamental right! This is the only way the public will be able to openly discuss chemicals policy and trends in economic development. 9. Critical production processes must not be transferred to the former GDR! Encouraged by high unemployment and the previously high pollution level in the states of the former GDR, many companies expect less resistance to critical production facilities there than in the former FRG (eg chlorine production, chlorine chemicals, waste disposal plants, combustion of computer scrap). 10. Establishment of funds for abandoned pollutant wastes Eastern and western Germany still have no solution to the problem of abandoned pollutant wastes. Here the industry must be forced to take action, for instance by establishing funds for abandoned pollutant wastes similar to those that have already existed for years in the USA. It is self-evident that government support of these measures in every way possible (eg by legislation, official procurements or financing of research) is extremely important. Experience has shown that only massive public pressure and a lively discussion about future chemicals and economical and environmental policies can set the things in motion that are needed to make the environment a better place to live in. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Selected references ARGE ELBE (1989): Water quality data of the Elbe from Schnackenburg to the sea - 1988 table; Study Group for Keeping the Elbe Clean (HG); Hamburg; (188 pp.)* ARGE ELBE (1984): Study of the water ecology of the Elbe from Schackenburg to the sea; Study Group for Keeping the Elbe Clean (HG); Hamburg; (97 pp.)* Hamburg Building Authority (HG) (1983): Technical Plan for the Water Supply; Hamburg;* Brgerschaft (City Parlament) of the Freie and Hansestadt Hamburg (HG) (1989): Circular 13/4690, Short Inquiry by the representative Krista Saga (Greens/GAL) concerning: Disposal of harbor mud by mud harrowing; Hamburg* Brgerschaft (City Parlament) of the Freie and Hansestadt Hamburg (HG) (1989): Circular 13/2539, Short Inquiry by the representative Thea Bock (Greens/GAL) concerning: Redevelopment of the Elbe / Hit List of direct dischargers; Hamburg* Chemistry in the GDR - Combines; in Chemische Industrie; 4/90; p. 11 ff* Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (HG) (1984): Nitrate/nitrite/nitrosamines in waters, Symposium at the closing of the key programm (Nitrate, Nitrite, Nitrosamines in Waters; Series: 3rd Communication of the Commission for Water Research in conjunction with the Commission for Testing Food Additives and Constituents; Weinheim; (240 pp.)* German Association of Gas- and Waterworks e.V. (HG) (1988): Data and Information on Water Constituents; in: Schriftenreihe Wasser, No. 48, Part 2; Eschborn; (272 pp.)* Ditfurth, J.; Glaser, R. (HG) (1987): The daily legal contamination of our rivers and what we can do to prevent it - a manual with campaign section; Hamburg; (475 pp.)* Flgge, G.; J„ppelt, W. (1987): Discharges into the North Sea from Rivers; in: Der Nieders„chsische Umweltminister (HG): Environmental Protection of the North Sea; Hannover; (376 pp.)* Sponsor Group "Save the Elbe" e.V. (1989): A plan for the Elbe; Hamburg* F”rstner, U.; Karbe, L. (1984): Environmental safety of iron silicate slag for use in water engineering; Amt fr Strom- und Hafenbau Hamburg (HG); Hamburg * Freie and Hansestadt Hamburg, Environment Authorities (HG) (1989): Long-range strategy for reducing Hamburg's discharges into the Elbe and North Sea; Hamburg; (34 pp.)* Freie and Hansestadt Hamburg, Environment Authorities (HG) (1988): Hamburg Environment Reports 21/88, Land Registry of Water Emissions, Direct Dischargers, Study Year: 1986; Hamburg; (27 pp.)* Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, Environmental Authorities - Office of Environmental Studies (HG) (1988): CHC - Report, Report on the pollution of waters and soil in Hamburg with chlorohydrocarbons (CHCs); Hamburg; (171 pp.)* Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, Environment Authorities (HG) (1988): Hamburg's air pollution with chlorohydrocarbons (CHCs) and selected hydrocarbons; Hamburg; (177 pp.)* Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, Environmental Authorities - Office for Environmental Studies (HG) (1988): Hamburg Environmental Reports 25/88, Report on the pollution of Hamburg's waters with chlorohydrocarbons (CHCs), Part 2: Study in the harbor basin. Polychlorinated dibenzodioxins (PCDD's) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PDCF's) in sediment and fishes; Hamburg; (55 pp.)* Manual of GDR Nature Reserves (1983); Urania - Verlag; Leipzig* Environment Institue, Berlin (1990): Environment report for the GDR - Information for analysis of the environmental conditions in the GDR and for further action; Berlin; (86 pp.)* Catalysis - Environment Group (1985) (HG): Umwelt - Lexikon; Cologne; (552 pp.)* Koch, R. (1989): Environmental chemicals - physical-chemical data, toxicity, maximum and target values, environmental behavior; Berlin; (423 pp.)* Lehmann, H. (1989): Impact of Hamburg's Sewage discharges on the oxygen content of the Elbe; in: Das Gas- und Wasserfach - Wasser, Abwasser, Zeitschrift des deutschen Vereins des Gas- und Wasserfaches e.V.; 130th Volume, 1989, No. 4; Munich* Lehmann, H.; Pressel, H.: The water quality of the Elbe until Schnackenburg; in: Institut fr Wasserwirtschaft, Hydrologie und landwirtschaftlichen Wasserbau der Universit„t Hannover (HG): Communications; No. 65, Hannover; (199 pp.)* Minister for the Preservation of Nature, Environmental Protection and Water Management (HG) (1990): Management of the part of the "ELBE" in the German Democratic Republic - Report on the ecological condition of the Elbe taking into consideration the pollution factors in the drainage area; Berlin;* North Sea Pollution - Technical Strategies for Improvement (1990); International conference Amsterdam, September 1990; Amsterdam RIWA (1988): Annual Report 1987/88 - Part A: The Rhine; Samenwerkende Rijn Maaswaterleidingbedrijven; Amsterdam; (163 pp.) Environmental Group Physics / Geosciences (1985): Doing a great business ; Hamburg; (218 pp.)* Wanner, J.; Kos, M. (1990): The introduction of nitrogen and phosphorus removal technologies for decreasing the Elbe river pollution in Czechoslovakia; in: North Sea Pollution (1990); p. 393 ff Winteler, S.; Ahrens, A. (1990): "No Future for Chlorine"; ™KOPOL - Institute for Ecology and Politics; No. 8 (82 pp.)* [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / A SHORT LEXICON OF POLLUTANTS Acenaphthene -> Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon Adsorbable organic halogens (AOX) The AOX is a collective parameter for all of the halogenated organic compounds that can be adsorbed on activated charcoal. These are primarily organochlorine compounds. According to this method only the halogen content is determined and not the individual compounds containing them. This means that without analysis of individual substances no statement can be made about the presence and amount of individual substances. However, this parameter can be used to decide whether it would be useful to carry out analysis of individual substances. It is only in rare cases that all the components of this "cocktail" of substances can be identified. Usually more the 80 % are never identified, making any statement on their toxicity impossible. However, a high AOX always gives reason for suspicion because halogenated organic compounds hardly occur in nature but are for the most part man-made. A large number of these substances are long-lived, toxic, detrimental to numerous organisms as well as carginogenic, mutagenic and teratogenic. (See also -> chlorobenzenes, chlorophenols, pesticides, volatile chlorinated hydrocarbons) Aldrin -> Pesticides Ammonium -> Nutrients Arsenic -> Heavy metals Benzo(a)anthracene -> Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Benzo(a)pyrene -> Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Benzene Benzene is isolated from crude oil or synthesized from acetylene. Worldwide production is about 15 million t/a. It is used as the organic base chemical for all kinds of syntheses as well as solvents and purifying agents. Emissions resulting from production and application alone equal approx. 100-200,000 t/a. Added to this are 400,000 t/a that enter the atmosphere by combustion. About 99% of the emissions enter the air, 0.6% the water and 0.1% the soil and sediments. Benzene is degraded fairly readily by microorganisms in the presence of oxygen. Because of its relatively good solubility in water impurities in the groundwater cannot be excluded. Benzene is accumulated in fatty tissue and the brain and causes damage to the blood-forming system in humans (leukemia). It also causes degeneration of the liver, kidneys and spleen and damages the reproductive system. It has been proved to have a carcinogenic effect; mutagenic and teratogenic effects are probable. The Drinking Water Regulations do not contain a limit for benzene. The World Health Organization recommends a maximum concentration of 0.01 mg/l. Benzo(b)fluoranthene -> Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Benzo(ghi)fluoranthene -> Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Benzo(k)fluoranthene -> Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Cadmium -> Heavy metals Carbazole -> Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Chemical oxygen demand (COD) The COD is a collective parameter for the water content of chemically oxidizable substances. These include substances that are degraded by biological processes with consumption of oxygen (BOD) as well as substances that can be degraded only by chemical processes with consumption of oxygen. In domestic sewage the COD is about twice as high as the BOD (in 5 days) of the same water sample tested. Higher COD values are an indication of hard to degrade organic substances in waste water. Although certain inorganic substances may contribute to the COD, the difference, COD - BOD, can be used as a measure of the pollution of waters with organic substances that are especially hard to degrade. These substances cannot be elminated by microorganisms in a sewage treatment plant but must be degraded in a separate chemical treatment stage. If the substances enter surface waters there is danger that they will accumulate in living organisms owing to their poor degradability. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Chlorobenzenes Little is known about the occurrence, transport, distribution and transformation of chlorobenzenes. The annual world production is approx. 900,000 t, and there are about 400,000 t of emissions released by production and application processes. The higher the degree of chlorination of the chlorobenzenes, ie the more chlorine atoms bound to the benzene ring, the greater the longevity and reactivity of these substances. Consequently, highly chlorinated chlorobenzenes show a high tendency to accumulate in living organisms. The acute toxicity is generally low. Chronic effects include damage to the liver, kidneys and central nervous system as well as changes in the blood count and permeability of cell membranes. In drinking water, chlorobenzenes can be formed by chlorination. In addition, it is impossible to rule out that at least in the case of mono-, di- and trichlorobenzenes, which are hardly retained by the soil, there is migration from polluted soils into the ground water. Monochlorobenzene has a relatively good solubility in water and is accordingly characterized by a low tendency to be adsorbed and a relatively high degradability. Nevertheless, in surface waters concentrations of up to 0.006 mg/l are measured. The worldwide emissions resulting from production and applications are approx. 300,000 t/a via waste water and waste gas. During combustion of monochlorobenzene hydrochloric acid (HCl) evolves. Acute poisoning causes damage to the lungs and kidneys as well as skin irritations. About 120,000 t/a of dichlorobenzenes (DCB's) are emitted worldwide. 1,2- and 1,3-Dichlorobenzene are liquid and 1,4-DCB is a solid. The DCB's accumulate in higher concentrations in organisms than monochlorobenzene. The bioconcentration factors are three to four thousand. While microbial degradation evidently takes place, up to now no evidence has been obtained for chemical degradation reactions. In drinking, surface and waste waters concentrations greater than 0.003 mg/l were measured. Trichlorobenzenes are more toxic than mono- and dichlorobenzenes. The solid 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene has an especially high toxicity. The bioconcentration factors of the different isomers range from 800 to 4,000. They, too, accumulate in the ground and in fatty tissues of living organisms. The tetrachlorobenzenes, of which 1,2,4,5-tetrachlorobenzene is the most hazardous, form deposits in soils and sediments owing to their increased tendency to be adsorbed. They are distinguished by a particularly pronounced toxicity to organisms living in water. In fishes they accumulated in the liver and fatty tissues. The bioconcentration factors range from 5,000 to 13,000. Hexachlorobenzene (HCB) is hardly ever produced intentionally but is an undesirable (and unavoidable!) by-product of numerous processes in organochlorine chemistry. It is carried over into the environment when products contaminated by HCB, such as solvents, are used. Some pesticides are contaminated with more than 10% HCB. Previously HCB was also used as a seed dressing, which today is prohibited in the FRG. It was also used as a flame retardant and plasticizer as well as an additive in wood preservatives. In 1976 2,600 t of HCB were produced in the FRG. Because of the use of pesticides containing or contaminated by HCB and the formation of HCB on combustion of chlorine-containing products (eg during refuse incineration) it currently occurs everywhere in the environment. Worldwide approximately 10,000 t are discharged into the environment annually. In the soil HCB is hardly degraded. For this reason, the run-off from surfaces used for agriculture is a major source of contamination of surface waters with HCB in addition to pollution from the air. It enters the ground water mainly with water seeping from landfills. In surface waters HCB is mainly adsorbed on suspended particles and is concentrated 40 times in the sediment. Up to now no degradation has been observed in waters. Instead HCB starts to accumulate in the food chain in plankton due to its fat solubility. In the fatty tissues of fishes concentrations up to 400,000 times those of the surroundings have been found. In humans HCB impairs metabolism and causes liver damage. Here, too, there is an accumulation in fatty tissues. The concentration in human milk is particularly high. The maximum allowed concentration in drinking water is 0.0001 mg/l according to the Drinking Water Regulations. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are carbon compounds that have been halogenated with fluorine and chlorine. They are used as propellants, refrigerants, foaming agents for plastics and as cleaning agents. CFCs are much less toxic than purely chlorinated or purely fluorinated hydrocarbons but have a considerably longer lifetime. They rise into the atmosphere and are decomposed there on exposure to sunlight. The chlorine atoms evolved cleave the ozone molecules, forming oxygen molecules, and thus destroy the ozone layer that protects all living beings on the earth from the dangerous ultraviolet rays of the sun. In addition, CFCs enhance the greenhouse effect, as they hinder heat dissipation from the earth. CFCs take one to two decades to reach the stratosphere where they cause the damages described. That means that even an immediate production stop would not prevent the damage from spreading. Even partially halogenated substitutes cause similar damage, if to a lesser degree. If the total consumption continues to rise as it has in the past ten years, then even use of these substitutes will not be able to lower the damage described in the long run. Chloroform (trichloromethane) -> volatile hydrocarbons [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Chlorophenols Chlorophenols are produced either by alkaline hydrolysis of the corresponding chlorobenzenes or by direct chlorination of phenol. More than 200,000 t/a of chlorophenols are produced worldwide, of which approx. 90,000 t are pentachlorophenol (PCP). They contain up to 100 mg/kg of impurities that include dioxin precursors, polychlorinated dioxins and dibenzofurans as well as diphenyl ether. They are used primarily as disinfectants, pesticides, intermediate products in the chemicals industry and as leather and wood preservatives. The emissions enter the environment primarily with waste gases or waste waters. The more highly chlorinated the phenols, the more they accumulate in soils and living organisms and the more toxic they are to aquatic organisms and mammals. By now the chlorophenols have spread throughout the environment. They show a moderate accumulation tendency, for although they are are degraded by metabolic and mineralization pathways, these proceed only slowly. Once produced, chlorophenols are very difficult to dispose of again in a manner that is ecologically safe. It is impossible to rule out that combustion of these compounds generates dibenzofurans and dibenzo-p-dioxins and that dumping leads to contamination of the ground water as they seep through the ground. 2-Chlorophenol and pentachlorophenol have been shown to damage embryos and fetuses. Pentachlorophenol is the chlorophenol most often produced and utilized. Even more serious than the production-induced emissions in wastes and waste gases is the entry of PCP into the environment through use of the substance, eg as a wood preservative. PCP is found everywhere in the environment because it is volatile, has good solubility in water and fats and is hardly biodegradable. PCP has an acute toxic effect on fishes. On chronic exposure it accumulates in their gallbladder. In mammals there is also an accumulation in the gallbladder and the liver. PCP may cause damage to the kidneys and liver, cirrhosis of the liver, myelophthisis, weight loss, psychovegetative disturbances and nervous lesions. Chrysene -> Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Copper -> Heavy metals DDT -> Pesticides Dieldrin -> Pesticides Dichlorobenzenes -> Chlorobenzenes [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Heavy metals Heavy metals are metals with a specific weight greater than 4.5 g/cm3. A distinction is made between essential heavy metals, such as iron, manganese and copper, which are required by the human organism in trace amounts, and non-essential heavy metals, such as cadmium, mercury and lead for which there is no known requirement. Heavy metals are natural components of the earth's crust so that there is always a background load in surface waters resulting from eluviation. However, this is small compared with the amounts emitted by mining and entering from waste waters. Added to these are new atmospheric loads from emissions from combustion processes. All heavy metals are concentrated in the food chain. With their increasing distribution in the environment it has become necessary to establish limits for their concentrations in foodstuffs. Cadmium (Cd) alone was emitted in an amount of approx. 6500 t in the EC in 1980. The major sources are mining, metallurgical plants, the dye and plastics (PVC) industry, electroplating plants and battery producers. The natural cadmium emissions are in contrast only 40 t/a worldwide. The existing cadmium soil concentrations are 0.06 - 1.0 mg/kg. If cadmium continues to be emitted at the same level in years to come, then these values will increase further because of the biological half-lives ranging from 13 to 47 years (depending on the initial concentration). Cadmium accumulates in sediments. These deposits can be remobilized if the external conditions are suitable. It accumulates in high concentrations in aquatic organisms. Bioconcentration factors of up to 2000 can be determined. The residence time of cadmium in surface waters is two years, in aquatic organisms 280 years. Cadmium is both an acute and chronic poison and a suspected carcinogen, whereas cadmium oxide is a known carginogen. It causes malformations. Because it is soluble in acids cadmium is readily adsorbed by the body and causes damage to the gastrointestinal tract, lungs and kidneys and accumulates in the liver and kidneys. In combination with lead, cadmium has a mutagenic effect. Cadmium oxide damages the kidneys, lungs and bone marrow. The maximum allowable concentration in drinking water according to the Drinking Water Regulations is 0.005 mg/l. Nickel is used in nickel/cadmium storage batteries, catalysts and alloys. Emissions emanate, however, primarily from combustion processes, eg heating oil. Nickel occurs in the environment mainly as compounds. Inorganic water-soluble materials, such as aerosols containing nickel salts, induce chronic colds and sinusitus when inhaled. After ingestion with foods, allergies occur. In animal experiments these compounds produced nanism, malformations and a high mortality. Water-soluble inorganic nickel compounds may cause lung cancer and cancer of the nose. This applies also to metallic nickel, which accumulates in the lungs. Of the organic fat-soluble compounds, tetracarbonylnickel has been demonstrated to be carcinogenic and damaging to embryos and fetuses. The drinking water limit for nickel is 0.05 mg/l. Zinc, which is produced worldwide in the amount of about 6 million tons annually, is used in electroplating plants and as a growth promoting agent in pig and poultry breeding. Inhalation of zinc compounds is hazardous, and especially zinc oxide vapors produce fever and joint and muscle aches. Zinc chromate is carcinogenic. The Drinking Water Regulations do not contain a limit for zinc; the EC guidelines for the water quality suitable for human use allows a maximum of 0.1 mg/l. Arsenic does not belong to the group of heavy metals but will nevertheless be discussed with them, as it has similar release mechanisms and toxic properties. Arsenic and arsenic compounds are produced worldwide in an amount of about 60,000 t annually. The average arsenic concentration in industrial waste waters is 6 mg/l, with the leather industry and metallurgical plants reaching substantially higher values. Pure arsenic is not toxic, but if taken orally or absorbed through the skin, arsenic oxide can cause acute liver, heart and circulatory insufficiency. Chronic exposure can lead to blood and liver damage. In general, arsenic is rapidly eliminated from the human organism. However the intake or formation of arsenates can have a cocarcinogenic effect. Teratogenic effects cannot be totally ruled out. The drinking water limit is 0.04 mg/l. Chromium is used industrially for alloys, catalysts, impregnations, pigments and in electoplating companies and tanneries. Emissions into the atmosphere from natural sources are approx. 58,000 t/a. Emissions from human sources total about 100,000 t/a into the atmosphere and another 55,000 t/a into waters. Several 100,000 t of chromium are discharged into the seas every year. Chromium occurs as chromium(III) and chromium(VI) compounds. The chromium (VI) compounds are less stable and up to 1000 times more toxic than the chromium (III) compounds. They are also probably carcinogenic and a risk to embryos and fetuses. Chromates in particular contain chromium (VI). Sodium dichromate causes gastro-intestinal ulcers, is mutagenic and accumulates in the liver, kidneys, the thyroid gland and bone marrow. The drinking water limit is 0.05 mg/l. Copper is used in the electrical industry and for the manufacture of roof coverings and alloys. Its production from ores releases large amounts of hazardous substances. In acidic media copper evolves traces of salts that are highly toxic to lower forms of plant life. In humans inhalation of copper fumes or dust may cause metal-fume fever. Mercury is discharged naturally into waters in an amount of approx. 3,800 t/a by run-off. Emissions produced by humans consist of mercury vapors, mercury chlorides and organic mercury compounds. Mercury is used in thermometers and manometers, in electric switches, catalysts, in electrolysis and as amalgam for tooth fillings. Amalgams are toxic in low concentrations and accumulate especially in the liver and brain as well as in the heart, hair and muscles. In addition, they alter the nervous system and are mutagenic. Intake of mercury and its compounds is primarily with food, as mercury is highly concentrated in the food chain. Particularly in the zoo- and phytoplankton it is accumulated in high concentrations. Pure mercury is incorporated not only with food but also through the skin and by inhalation. In water mercury is rapidly adsorbed on suspended particles and sediments. Methylmercury is particularly dangerous and is likewise concentrated in the food chain. In fishes, for example, bioconcentration factors between 1,000 and 2,500 are determined. If incorporated in higher doses in the human organism damage to the nervous system results that can even be fatal. It is transformed to mercury in mammals. The maximum allowable mercury concentration in drinking water according to the Drinking Water Regulations is 0.001 mg/l. Lead emissions from human activities originate mainly from combustion processes in the industrial and municipal sectors, as both coal and oil contain large amounts of lead. In these processes lead aerosols, in particular tetraethyl lead, are emitted. About 80% of the lead present in the atmosphere occurs as this type of compound. Tetraethyl lead and tetramethyl lead are also the most important lead compounds used commercially. Tetraethyl lead, which is used mainly as a dye additive and as an antiknock compound in fuels, accumulates in the human organism in the liver, kidneys and bone tissues. Chronic exposure leads to impaired brain function and blockage of cell respiration and also damages embryos and fetuses. Tetramethyl lead is also used as an antiknock compound in fuels. This compound also accumulates in bone tissue, where it can damage the blood-forming system. If it remains in the bloodstream it can inhibit the formation of enzymes. Lead sulfate dissolves in water. It deposits in the sediment of surface waters by adsorption on iron hydroxide. In soils very stable organic compounds are formed. This decreases the mobility. Lead acetate is used for cotton dying, metal coating, printing and production of varnishes. It accumulates in high concentrations in soils and living organisms. The toxic effect decreases with increasing water hardness. In humans lead acetate causes gastro-intestinal colics, damage to the central nervous system and the kidneys, circulatory disorders and anemia. It also damages embryos and fetuses. In 1980 220,000 t of dissolved and 450,000 t of adsorbed lead compounds were emitted into waters. The drinking water limit for lead is 0.04 mg/l. Hexachlorobenzene -> Chlorobenzene Indeno(1,2,3cd)pyrene -> Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Lead -> Heavy metals Lindan -> Pesticides Melipax (Toxaphene) -> Pesticides Mercury -> Heavy metals Monochlorobenzene -> Chlorobenzene Nickel -> Heavy metals Nitrate -> Nutrients Nitrite -> Nutrients [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Nutrients Nitrogen (in the form of nitrite, nitrate and ammonium) and phosphorus (as phosphate) belong to the group of nutrients. These substances are not actually toxic to waters but a high supply of nutrients does lead to explosive growth of algae. After a period of explosive growth, which can last several days or weeks, the algae die, and a large part of the oxygen dissolved in the water is consumed by microorganisms that decompose the dead algae. Places of oxygen deficiency arise with resulting fish kills and still worse a shift in the species composition takes place. Ammonium is a nitrogen compound formed in sewage treatment plants by the biological degradation of organic nitrogen compounds (eg proteins). When ammonium enters waters it is converted to nitrate by microorganisms by addition of oxygen. Nitrate is one of the major nutrients in the soil and is therefore used in agriculture as a fertilizer. When there is overfertilization nitrates can be extracted and then enter the ground water or surface waters. Since nitrate can scarcely be removed by the common methods of drinking water treatment, a raw water with a high nitrogen content is not suitable for the drinking water supply. A high nitrate content in drinking water is especially hazardous to babies, as part of the nitrate taken up with the water is transformed to nitrite in the body. Nitrite inhibits oxygen transport in the blood, which can cause cyanosis (poor brain circulation) and eventually death. Furthermore, nitrites can combine with food proteins in the human body to form nitrosamines, which are extremely carcinogenic. The nitrate limit valid in Germany of 50 mg/l is considered by many to be too high. The EC council recommends 25 mg/l as the target value when establishing national standards. The limit of the Drinking Water Regulations for nitrite is 0.1 mg/l. Phosphates are also important nutrients for humans, who again discharge these compounds into the environment with their excrements. Phosphates are used as fertilizers as well as in detergents and cleansers. PCP (Pentachlorophenol) -> Chlorophenols Per (Perchloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene) -> Volatile hydrocarbons [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Pesticides Pesticides are substances that are supposed to prevent cultivated plants from being attacked by diseases or pests. Various groups of substances are used to produce them: chlorinated hydrocarbons, organic phosphorus compounds and natural products obtained from plants or animals. Only the chlorinated hydrocarbons will be discussed here. The most common organochlorine pesticides, DDT, Lindan, Aldrin, Dieldrin and Toxaphene, will be taken as examples to demonstrate the environmental behavior of this group of substances. All organochlorine pesticides are acutely toxic and very long- lived. They accumulate in soils and living organisms, with the result that even low concentrations in water can be sufficient to make fishes living there inedible. Some of their degradation products are even more toxic than the original products. Sources of emission are primarily the chemicals industry and agriculture. The drinking water limit for the sum of all pesticides is 0.0005 mg/l. DDT is a contact and food poison pesticide with a wide range of action. Because of its longevity and worldwide usage of several million tons, it is found everywhere. Despite its low water solubility it enters surface waters through run-offs from fields and precipitation. There it is adsorbed on suspended particles and taken up by microorganisms, but these depositions can be remobilized. DDT is concentrated in the food chain. In aquatic organisms the bioconcentration factors are 60,000 to 100,000. The half-life can be up to 7 years or more. In the human organism DDT damages liver tissues, the kidneys and the spleen, the immune system and the activities of microsomal enzymes. It is a suspected carginogen. The drinking water limit for DDT alone is 0.0001 mg/l. Lindan is the gamma isomer of hexachlorohexane (therefore also called gamma-HCH). It is produced by chlorination of benzene. This isomer in particular has both an acute and chronic toxicity; it also causes cancer and is mutagenic. It is soluble in water, volatile and relatively resistant to chemical and biological degradation. Lindan has a high tendency to be adsorbed on suspended particles and sediments and is highly concentrated in phyto- and zooplankton. In humans Lindan accumulates in fatty tissues. Because of its water solubility Lindan readily enters the ground water; consequently, its use is prohibited in the Water Protection Zones I and II. The drinking water limit for Lindan as an individual substance is likewise 0.0001 mg/l. Aldrin is a soil insecticide. It is produced by reaction of bicycloheptadiene, which is formed from cyclopentadiene and acetylene, with hexachlorocyclopentadiene. It is highly toxic to aquatic organisms. When degraded in the presence of oxygen, eg in warm-blooded animals, dieldrin is formed, which is even more toxic than aldrin. The bioconcentration factor in fishes ranges from 3140 to 10,800. In humans aldrin causes damage to the central nervous system and the liver. Its use is prohibited in the Federal Republic of Germany. The drinking water limit for the individual substance is also 0.0001 mg/l. Dieldrin is, as already mentioned above, the oxidation product of aldrin. It is used as a contact and food poison insecticide. Dieldrin is very long-lived and accumulates in high concentrations in soils and living organisms as aldrin. The bioconcentration factors are between 4,000 and 6,500. The symptoms of acute poisoning are muscle tremor, cramps and cardiac and respiratory disturbances; chronic exposure results in damage to the central nervous system, the blood vessels and organs. The use of dieldrin is also prohibited in the GDR. Toxaphene (melipax) is a polychlorinated camphene containing 67-69% chlorine. It dissolves readily in water; after 103 days 95% of the initial amount is still found in water. The bioconcentration factor in aquatic plants is 220. Its toxicity to bees is a matter of controversy. Toxaphene is readily adsorbed by the human organism through the skin and not only damages the liver but also causes cancer. Phenanthrene -> Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons Phosphate -> Nutrients [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are compounds that have a base structure consisting of at least three condensed benzene rings and containing only carbon and hydrogen atoms. In nature they are formed by some plants and bacteria. Otherwise they are always formed when organic compounds are heated to temperatures above 700 C or they are subjected to pyrolysis or incomplete combustion. This occurs primarily when organic propellants are burned. Due to this formation pathway they can be found everywhere in the environment. The total worldwide emissions into the atmosphere are over 4,000,000 tons annually. PAHs are virtually insoluble in water; the maximum allowable concentration in drinking water is 0.0002 mg/l according to the Drinking Water Regulations. Only a few PAHs are produced as pure substances. They then serve as base materials for the manufacture of dyes, herbicides and pharmaceutical products. A large number of PAHs are regarded as carcinogenic and mutagenic. In order to demonstrate the hazards to the environment emanating from them the official indicator substances, fluoranthene, benzo(a)pyrene, benzo(b)fluoranthene, benzo(k)fluoranthene and indeno(1,2,3cd)pyrene as well as acenaphthene, benzo(a)anthracene, benzo(ghi)fluoranthene, carbazole, phenanthrene and chrysene will be discussed. Acenaphthene is used as a fungicide and as the intermediate product for the manufacture of paints and plastics. It is characterized by high volatility and good water solubility, so that it is hardly concentrated in soils and living organisms. The bioconcentration factor is 1585 and the half-life in soils about four months. Acenaphthene is a suspected carginogen. Benzo(a)anthracene is not commercially available and consequently can only enter the environment via combustion processes. Because of its low volatility and water solubility it is highly concentrated in soils and living organisms. The half-life in soils is between 402 and 6250 months; the bioconcentration factor is 1.26 million. Benzo(a)pyrene is also not commercially available. In the atmosphere it is mostly adsorbed on suspended particles. In aquatic systems it has a high tendency to be adsorbed on sediments. Therefore, soils and sediments form a large remobilization reservoir. However, microbiological transformation of the substance also takes place here as well. Since benzo(a)pyrene is readily soluble in fats, it is highly concentrated in living organisms. The bioaccumulation factor is 5 million. If benzo(a)pyrene is present during drinking water chlorination, chlorinated derivatives are formed that likewise accumulate in high concentrations in living organisms. In surface waters and sediments benzo(a)pyrene is usually found in concentrations of 0.00013-0.0005 mg/l and 0.001-17 mg/kg respectively. The substance is cancer-causing, mutagenic, teratogenic and inhibits the growth of microorganisms. Benzo(b)fluoranthene has been shown to be synthesized biologically. Otherwise it emanates from emissions of oil-burning installations. It accumulates in high concentrations in living organisms and soils owing to its fat solubility and tendency to adsorbed on sediments. The bioaccumulation factor is 9 million. Benzo(b)fluoranthene is probably mutagenic. Benzo(ghi)fluoranthene is not used commercially. Nevertheless, sediments contain up to 0.34 mg/l and surface waters up to 0.0000112 mg/l. The substances accumulate in high concentrations in living organisms and soils. The bioaccumulation factor is 18 million. Benzo(ghi)fluroanthene is probably mutagenic and carcinogenic. Benzo(k)fluoranthene, for which there is also no known commercial use, is sparingly soluble in water and hardly volatile and therefore has a very high tendency to accumulate. In algae up to 0.0013 mg/kg dry substance were found. The bioaccumulation factor is 2 million. Benzo(k)fluroanthene damages the genes and causes cancer. Fluoranthene, which can form chlorination products during drinking water chlorination, has been found in surface waters in concentrations of 4.7 - 6.5 ng/l and in sediments in concentrations of 13 - 5870 æg/kg. The substance has a bioconcentration factor of 630,000 and is regarded as mutagenic and cocarcinogenic1. The 2,3-dihydrodiol formed on degradation of fluoranthene in mammals is carginogenic. Indeno(1,2,3cd)pyrene is sparingly soluble in water and hardly volatile. Consequently, it has a very high bioconcentration factor of 32 million. The substance damages and genes and causes cancer. Phenanthrene dissolves fairly readily in water. A comercial use is unknown. It is likewise mutagenic and carcinogenic. Its degradation products accumulate to a much higher degree in living organisms than the original substance itself. Chrysene occurs in crude oil and coal tar. It is hardly degradable by biological processes and accumulates in living organisms. Chrysene is mutagenic and carcinogenic. Carbazole is used as the intermediate product for manufacturing dyes and is also generated by combustion of organic materials. It is also difficult to degrade by biological processes. The half- life in soils is 3-105 months depending on the load. Carbazole is a suspected carginogen. Tetrachlorobenzenes -> Chlorobenzenes Tetrachloroethylene -> Volatile chlorohydrocarbons [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Toluene Toluene is obtained by fractional distillation of coaltar and various crude oils. It is used primarily as a solvent for fats, rubber, paints, lacquers and polishes as well as the starting material for the synthesis of higher hydrocarbons. The annual world production is approx. 5 million t. Emissions resulting from production and use are 1-1.5 million t/a. An additional 5-6 million t are emitted into the atmosphere annually by burning of fossile energy carriers and fuels. Toluene is degraded by microbiological processes. Because of the large amounts discharged into the environment and the good water solubility a contamination of the ground water cannot be excluded. The bioconcentration factor is low due to its good degradability; the degradation products are benzoic acid and benzaldehyde. In humans acute poisonings occur after the intake of small amounts. These are manifested by disorders of the central nervous system. Chronic exposure leads to accumulation of toluene in fatty tissues, the adrenal glands, brain, liver and bone bone marrow. When it is inhaled or absorbed through the skin it causes damage to the blood-forming system. Toluene is a suspected carcinogen. Toxaphene -> Pesticides Trichlorobenzenes -> Chlorobenzenes 1,1,1-Trichloroethanes -> Volatile chlorohydrocarbons Trichloroethylene -> Volatile chlorohydrocarbons [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Volatile chlorohydrocarbons The major volatile chlorohydrocarbons (CHCs) are 1,1,1- trichloroethane, trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene (per) and tetrachloromethane (carbon tetrachloride). They are all products specific to chlorine chemistry production processes, where they are sometimes the final product and sometimes also formed as undesirable by-products during processing. Often these production processes are accompanied by the formation of highly toxic residues containing HCB and dioxins. Volatile chlorohydrocarbons are used mainly in the industry (chemical and pharmaceutical companies, paper and pulp mills, coatings and paints production, polymer industry, dry cleaners, degreasing of metals, refineries,...) as solvents and cleaning agents but also in private households (eg as brush cleaners, adhesives, paint remover). Because of the high volatility of the substances, a total of 50 - 90 % escape into the environment during production and use. Of the 1 million tons of tetrachloroethylene produced worldwide annually, 500 - 900,000 t enter the environment. One third of the emissions are distributed in waste gases, one third in solid wastes and approx. 1 - 3 % in waste waters. Highly volatile chlorohydrocarbons have limited solubility in water and can therefore be found also in the ground water and thus in many instances also in drinking water. The concentration of 1,1,1-trichloroethane, trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene and dichloromethane in drinking water may not exceed a total of 0.025 mg/l according to the Drinking Water Regulation. For carbon tetrachloride the maximum allowable concentration in accordance with the Drinking Water Regulations is 0.003 mg/l. 1,1,1-Trichloroethane is used mainly as a solvent. When used in open systems, 50-70% of the input amount is released into the environment. 1,1,1-Trichloroethane can enter the human organism with food, through respiration and through the skin. After intake it is distributed throughout the body and deposits particularly in the brain and the liver. However, it does not accumulate, as 1,1,1- trichloroethane is metabolized in the body and the degradation products are eliminated with the urine. Acute poisoning with 1,1,1-trichloroethane first damages the central nervous system and the liver; on chronic exposure changes in the activity of the microsomal enzymes arise. Animal experiments have shown that 1,1,1-trichloroethane is mutagenic and presumably carcinogenic. Trichloroethane is already highly toxic to aquatic microoorganisms in low concentrations. The half-life is about 25 weeks in waters. Accumulation in animals and plants is negligible. Tetrachloroethylene (perchloroethylene, Per) can be produced by several processes. One of these is chlorolysis. In two of these, unusable special wastes from different chlorine chemistry process are treated with more chlorine in order to obtain a marketable product. Tetrachloroethylene does not tend to accumulate in living beings. In water it is converted to trichloroacetic acid and hydrochloric acid. It is probably also degraded by aquatic microorganisms. The half-life in waters is 3-4 hours. If tetrachloroethylene is inhaled in high doses, it can produce unconsciousness. Contact with the skin or mucous membranes causes irritations. The intake of small amounts over an extended time period causes liver and kidney damage as well as nervous disorders. Tetrachloroethylene is mutagenic and is a suspected carcinogen. Trichloroethylene (trichloroethylene, TRI) already has a bacteriostatic effect in low concentrations of 10 micrograms per liter in waters and sewage treatment plants. Trichloroethylene hardly accumulates in living organisms. It is hardly degraded in the soil and can thus be detected in drinking water obtained from the offshore filtrate. Acute poisoning in humans results in paralysis of the respiratory center, brain damage and impairment of vision. Chronic exposure causes liver and kidney damage; trichloroethylene also probably causes cancer. Tetrachloromethane (carbon tetrachloride) is formed by reaction of carbon disulfide, methane or propylene with chlorine. It is used for the production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Worldwide about 50,000 t are emitted yearly by production processes or usage. Tetrachloromethane is a very stable substance that has a good solubility in water; the half-life in surface waters is 1000 weeks. Approx. 99% of the amount occurring in the environment is found in the atmosphere and approx. 0.5% each in waters and soils or sediments. Tetrachloromethane has a weaker narcotic effect than chloroform but is more damaging to the liver and kidneys. Acute poisoning leads to irritation of the mucous membranes, intoxication, respiratory paralysis and cardiovascular failure. In addition, it has a highly toxic effect on cells and nerves. Chronic exposure causes cancer. The highest concentrations are found in fat- containing tissues, the brain, the liver and the kidneys. Trichloromethane (chloroform) is used for the production of CFCs and as the intermediate product in the production of dyes, pharmceuticals and pesticides. Trichloromethane of natural origin occurs only in minute amounts in seawater. It has a toxic effect on aquatic organisms when its concentraion exceeds 1.2 mg/l. In the western industrial nations between 70,000 and 100,000 t/a are produced of which approx. 10% enters the environment as production and use-induced emissions. Since trichloromethane is also formed by drinking water chlorination an additional water load of 10,000 t/a must be expected. In addition, it is formed in large amounts during chlorine bleaching of cellulose. Trichloromethane is found everywhere mainly due to its volatility. In some cases drinking water pollution has already been determined. In the air it reacts with oxygen (O2) in the presence of light to form phosgene (COCl2) and hydrogen chloride (HCl). In the soil biological degradation takes two years. In waters degradation is likewise only very slow. Trichloromethane enters the atmosphere from the water surface as a gas. Despite its good fat solubility only a low tendency to accumulate has been determined. Humans breathe out most of the chloroform that they take in. Chronic exposure, however, causes damage to the central nervous system, liver, heart and kidneys as well as the immune system. There is a well-founded suspicion that trichloromethane is carcinogenic. [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / Xylenes Xylenes occur naturally in small amounts in coal and oil. They are formed by catalytic and thermal processes in coking plants and refineries and are processed industrially to phthalic acids and its derivatives. They enter the atmosphere primarily with car exhausts and waste gases from oil and coal power plants. About 70,000 t enter the atmosphere every year by this route alone. Added to this are emissions resulting from industrial production and their use as solvents, for instance, for synthetic resins, greases, waxes, asphalt, paints and adhesives. Xylenes enter surface waters not only via air emissions but also via accidents and handling malpractices. Contaminations of ground water cannot be ruled out. In water microbial degradation can take place. Xylenes are readily soluble in fats. They are incorporated by the human body via the lungs and the skin and accumulate in the adrenal glands and bone marrow. They cause damage similar to that produced by toluene. There is no limit prescribed for drinking water. Zinc -> Heavy metals [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ] [] TL: GREENPEACE STUDY : THE ELBE Results of the Measuring and Campaign Trip of the Beluga in the Spring of 1990 SO: Greenpeace Germany - Scientific revising and editing: ™KOPOL - Institute of Ecology and Politics GmbH, Hamburg DT: 1990 Keywords: toxics rivers germany contaminated reports greenpeace ships scientific investigations europe / The ship's laboratory --------------------- Analytical potential in the ship's laboratory --------------------------------------------- A small laboratory is set up in the bow of the Beluga. In an area of just a few square meters it is possible to analyze individual samples as well as to carry out continuous measurements of chosen examples indicative of environmental problems. Physico-chemical parameters --------------------------- Through an inlet in the bow of the Beluga located about 1 m below the surface of the water, water can be pumped continuously into a measuring cell in which the physico-chemical parameters, temperature, oxygen content, pH and conductivity, can be determined by means of electrodes. The values obtained in this manner can be stored fully automatically at intervals of not less than 15 sec together with the time and date. By entering, for example, at the terminal in the wheelhouse additional data such as the river mileage or other remarks, it is possible to later assign the data to known events, such as the confluence of a tributary or unusual events. Actual values exceeding the limits and other unusual events are naturally reported immediately by optical and acustical means both in the laboratory and on the bridge. With the aid of other manual equipment the same set of parameters can be recorded for individual samples taken at specific locations, for example in the rubber dinghy. In addition, data such as flow rate, weather conditions and time of day, etc. are documented as needed. Photometric methods ------------------- With the photometer in the BELUGA laboratory the nutrient load of the water can be quantified as nitrite N, nitrate N, ammonium N and ortho-phosphate P. Special reagents are used to form colored complexes of the ions to be tested, which color the test solution more or less intensely. The intensity of the respective color is a measure of the concentration of the ion in the sample. Other parameters that can be measured photometrically include other cations and anions as well as the COD and phenol index. The chemical oxygen demand is a collective parameter for the organic load of a water. Analysis of individual organic compounds ---------------------------------------- As part of the preliminary study and the ELBE trip different waste water, river and drinking water samples were analyzed for their volatile organic components by coupled gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC/MS). This instrument is the heart of the Beluga laboratory and will therefore be treated in detail below. To reveal the whole spectrum of hazardous substances samples were randomly taken not only from waterworks and municipal dischargers, such as sewage treatment plants, but also from various neighboring industries. These were taken at sites where increased pollutant loads were to be expected. There was no intention of tracing the concentrations of individual compounds of substance classes along the course of the Elbe from the Czechoslovakian border to its mouth at Cuxhaven. Furthermore, the choice of the method and the laboratory capacity on board the "BELUGA" together with the time available ruled out this type of procedure. Complete coverage of the actual condition of the river should and must be left up to other (government) authorities. Materials and methods --------------------- Mass spectroscopy is primarily a method for identification of organic substances. These substances must first be extracted from water, ie an inorganic matrix. This is done by adding for instance 50 ml of hexane to 1 l of waste water and extracting. After repeated extractions most of the solvent is removed from the combined organic phase on a rotary evaporator. The solution obtained in this manner of several 10 æl usually contains a complex mixture of organic chemicals that must first be separated by chromatographic methods before they can be identified. This takes place in the BELUGA laboratory using an "HP-GC-5890" gas chromatography whose outlet is directly coupled to the "HP- MSD-5970" mass spectrometer. Both the extraction procedure (headspace, solid sample, pH, etc.) and the chromatographic conditions (stationary phase, temperature program) can and even must be adapted to the separation problem. This enables analysis of almost any organic substance that can be evaporated in the injection block without decomposing. The samples mentioned in this report were seaparted on a 30 m long quartz capillary, 0.25 mm i.d. with DB 5.625 as the stationary phase using a temperature program of 60 C to 280 C at a heating rate of 3 /min and helium as the carrier gas. After the problems of separation and identification have been solved, conclusions can be drawn about the amounts of components in the samples to be tested by comparison with solutions of authentic samples of known concentration. This method, however, is very time-consuming and was therefore not used on this trip. An unknown substance is normally only considered to be unequivocally identified when at least two of its physical parameters agree with those of a reference compound. In the case of GC/MS analysis these parameters would be for example the retention time and the mass spectrum. While the mass spectra of about 40,000 compounds are catalogued and available in several computer libraries on the BELUGA, it is impossible to have the number of compounds actually on board that are needed for determination of retention times. Since the mass spectra of similar substances often are very similar or even identical, there can be no unequivocable identification without the authentic sample. In such cases only substance classes can be stated or the occurrence of individual compounds made probable. This is one of the reasons why it is important to Greenpeace not only to prepare for campaigns by intensive research and preliminary samples but also to verify findings by commissioning independent institutes with analyses. It must also be mentioned that considerably more than 40,000 organic compounds currently exist and that numerous new chemical products are put on the market daily (and thus into the environment in the widest sense). Currently there are three to four times as many substances known in the Rhine alone. The compounds listed in the preceeding chapters in the respective tables of analytical data are thus well-founded proposals. It is to our advantage, if as often happens, for example Water Conservation Authorities or chemicals industries can or are forced to confirm our results. In the case of the pesticide producer "FAHLBERG-LIST" near Magdeburg it was even possible using the components identified in the waste water to draw conlusions about its product range and the production methods. The list naturally does not claim to be complete and contains only those substances that could be identified with a degree of certainty in a short time some from a large number of components . It is better to have a few right instead of many wrong!! Many of the samples tested contained different quantities and qualities of phthalates. This substance class was and is used on a large scale as a plasticizer for polymers. Up to now these compounds that have spread everywhere have been generally classified as nontoxic. That they will soon be placed on the list of chemicals to be included in environmental analyses in Denmark shows that at least one big problem that is still being treated "underhandedly" is starting to be recognized. The aliphatic hydrocarbons that, like the phthalates, often belong to the "background" of a gas chromatogram have, unlike the phthalates, not been included in the substance lists. The staff --------- The following persons were involved in selection of sampling sites, (preliminary) sample taking and finally analyses and interpretation of the results: Dr. Ulrike Seip, chemist Dr. Michael Hoffmann, limnologist Dr. Jochen Andreas Borchert, chemist 1 At Schmilka a sample was taken from the Elbe from the right and left sides of the stream and tested. The higher load is given in the table regardless of where the sample was taken. 2 The geographical terms "Eastern Germany" and "Central Germany" have not been defined following unification of the FRG and GDR. In this text the term "Central Germany" will be used for the region of the former GDR west of the Mulde and Elbe. The term "Eastern Germany" will be used to designate the southeastern region of the former GDR, ie east of the Mulde and south of Berlin. 1 According to the Halle Water Conservation Authority the major organic compounds and chlorinated organic compounds in the Buna waste water are: acetylene, vinyl chloride, acetyldehyde, ethylene, chloromethane, butadiene, ethylene oxide, dichloroethylene, propylene oxide, acetone, vinyl acetate, dichloroethane, ethyl acetate, butyraldehyde, acrylonitrile, tetrachloromethane, benzene, chloroform, methyl acrylate, trichloroethylene, dichloroethane, dichloropropane, crotonaldehyde, 1,4-dioxane, toluene, tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene, n-butanol, butyl acetate, ethylbenzene and styrene. For many of these and a number of other pollutants suspected in the Buna waste water, the existing analytical detection possibilities are hardly adequate to obtain an accurate picture of the Buna emissions. 2The Buna AG alone will shrink to 11,000 workers by 1995. 3 Waste water streams: 1. old plant, 370,000 m3 per day, 2. old plant and cooling water, 170,000 m3 per day, 3. landfill (Groákaynz) and dump above track level, 108,000 m3 per day, 4. petrochemicals via waste water treatment plant, 156,000 m3 per day). 1 Thus the substances, bis(2-chloroisopropyl) ether, nitrobenzene, a barbiturate derivative, 4-butylpyridine-N-oxide and toluenesulfonyl fluoride were also identified in the plant's waste water. 1 In a combined sample hexachlorobenzene, volatile chlorinated hydrocarbons and organopesticides were also found, although they cannot be unequivocally attributed to the gasworks. This pollutant profile probably indicates an impact from the pesticide plant in Fahlberg-List. 2 The TLC (Threshold Limit Value) is the upper limit defining the hazardous substance concentrations to which workers may be exposed at their workplace. Higher values are allowed for short- term peak loads than for the permanent load over the entire workday. It should be noted that the TLV for carbon monoxide in the FRG is 33 mg/m3 (short-term 66 mg/m3). 1 It is called the sulfate process because the sodium sulfide lost is replaced by sodium sulfate. 2 Minutes of a meeting of wood pulp producers from the GDR and FRG as well as representatives of other companies and various government agencies. 3 In the early 80's the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied approval of an 'alkali-anthraquinone process' that proceeded without sulfur because anthraquinone was partly adsorbed on the fibers and thus carried over into the products. 1 Recently, however, it has received some competition in the form of the MDI production under construction at DOW Stade and the Synthesewerk Schwarzheide, where BASF is now also engaged. 2 Annual loads at Glckstadt: 180,000 tons of nitrogen (1986), 200 kilograms of nickel (1986), 250 kilograms of copper (1986), and 2,100 tons of AOX (1988). (The Elbe loads for nitrogen and metals were calculated according to Flgge & J„ppelt 1987, the AOX load according to the ARGE-Elbe 1989.) 1 Only 2,4,6-trichlorophenol *In German *In German *In German 1 This means it is not of itself cancer-causing but enhances the carcinogenic effect of other cancer-causing substances. The difference between carcinogenic (cancer-causing) and cocarcinogenic is irrelevant in the long run, as we are constantly exposed to substances whose carcinogenic effect is enhanced by a cocarginogenic substance. =end= [Greenbase Inventory June 30, 1991 ]