Pollution prosecution

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33520, 29 April 1974, Page 13

Pollution prosecution

I (N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright) LIVORNO. April 28. The chairman of Italy’s ; giant Montedison chemical combine has received a suspended sentence of three months and 20 days for polluting the Ligurian Sea with industrial waste. The managing-director and three other senior officials of the company were given; a similar suspended sentence, and were ordered to ; share the Court costs. Two other officials, and the captains of two ships'! which dumped titanium oxide residue, dubbed “red mud.” from Montedison's IScarlino works, were I acquitted. i During the trial, a fishermen’s representative i alleged that catches off Inorthern Corsica fell by 47.

,tons in 1972-73 because of [the pollution. The prosecution maintainled that 2400 tons of titanium oxide waste was dumped into the sea every day until the two waste-dis-posal ships were seized last September, pending investigations into the pollution allegations. • The dumping provoked [violent demonstrations from [fishermen in Corsica, who said that it killed ail marine I life. One of the two dumping ships was damaged in a (bomb attack at Scarlino. Last November, the ships (were allowed to resume dumping after Montedison had began to treat the residue in a new way. Montedison has now been ordered to stop all dumping in the sea by the end of 1975. -