Dutch attempt to divert Rhine pollution disaster

Press, 10 November 1986, Page 8

Dutch attempt to divert Rhine pollution disaster

By

DOMINIQUE JACKSON

of NZPA-Reuter Amsterdam Dutch engineers were trying to divert a wave of chemical pollution in the River Rhine along the swiftest route to the North Sea and out of the Netherlands. Officials of the State water authority said that about 30 tonnes of toxic waste which flooded into the Rhine after a fire in a Swiss chemical factory last week would hit the Netherlands yesterday morning. The authority set up a crisis centre in the eastern town of Arnhem near the West German border to monitor the progress of the 100 km band of contaminated water.

In the Swiss city of Basle yesterday, about 5000 demonstrators marched in protest about the accident, which occurred at a plant owned by the chemical company, Sandoz. The waste from the

leak, mainly mercury and dyes, is being diluted as it moves downstream. But there would still be a risk of contamination if it reached reservoirs and canals along the Dutch inland waterway system, experts said. Hydraulic engineers have closed sluices and locks to stop the toxic flood seeping into the River Ijssel and the artificial Ijsselmeer, formerly the Zuider Sea — a freshwater lake from which much of the Netherlands’ drinking water is drawn. Arnold Braun, chief, water engineer in the Dutch province of Gelderland on the West German border, said the pollution would take four or five days to reach the sea, even by the fastest route. He said that Government analysts were standing by to monitor the contaminated water as soon as it reached the border at Lobith.

No further supplies of drinking water will be drawn from the river or

its direct tributaries. Authorities said the precautions would be in force for at least a week. To supply Amsterdam and the inhabitants of other cities such as The Hague and Leiden, water will be taken from reservoirs along the dune coast of Nord-Holland province. A spokesman for the Dutch Environment Ministry said that until the water was tested it would not be clear how much ecological damage the waste would wreak on the lower reaches of the Rhine.

Extensive stretches of the Rhine north of the Swiss border are now thought to be biologically dead and Dutch farmers have been advised to keep livestock away from the river’s banks, Dutch inland fishermen have also temporarily halted fishing from the Rhine. The Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry has cautioned against the consumption of river fish next week.