Water heavily polluted with PFAS in 15 km radius around Dordrecht chemical plant
nltimes.nl
nltimes.nl
If we would take PFAS samples across the country I bet that Dordrecht would not be an exception.
> On 8 June 2006, the REACH proposal was criticized by non-EU countries, including the United States, India and Brazil, which stated that the bill would hamper global trade.[18]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration,_Evaluation,_Auth...
how depressing...
You're quoting criticism from outside the EU for an EU regulation. I don't see what's at all unreasonable about that criticism.
The regulation would cause major supply disruptions for the US, India and Brazil, and would not substantially help the water supply, health or safety of the US, India and Brazil either.
In cases like these we need international treaties that create alignment and mutual interest before we can expect an EU regulation like this one to succeed
> A number of countries outside of the European Union have started to implement REACH regulations or are in the process of adopting such a regulatory framework to approach a more globalized system of chemicals registration under the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS).[16] Balkan countries such as Croatia and Serbia are in the process of adopting the EU REACH system under the auspices of the EU IPA programme. Switzerland has moved towards implementation of REACH through partial revision of the Swiss Chemical Ordinance on February 1, 2009. The new Chemicals Management Regulation in Turkey is paving the way for the planned adoption of REACH in 2013. China has moved towards a more efficient and coherent system for the control of chemicals in compliance with GHS. In the UK, the government announced a "UK REACH" that the UK's Chemical Industry Association described as a "hugely expensive duplication" of the EU's safety data.[17] The new regulations were to be enforced from October 2021 but deferred to October 2023, and then to October 2025. Following industry representations, the responsible Minister announced "that officials would now explore 'a new model' for UK REACH registrations that would look to 'reduce the need for replicating EU Reach data packages'".[17] In March 2021, a group of more than 20 leading UK organisations, including the CHEM Trust and Breast Cancer UK, "rejected industry proposals to streamline UK Reach as a 'major weakening' of the envisaged post-Brexit regime".[17]
There must be severe penalties for intentional serious crimes such as these for the company, if not for the natural persons in the management who intentionally violated applicable laws.
Anyone who knowingly endangers the health of the general public, in any context, must be prosecuted. It does not matter whether he acted within the framework of a company or as a private individual. A way out, such as bankruptcy proceedings, must be excluded, as this undermines the rule of law and lowers the inhibition threshold to break the law.
Surely the limit wasn't 13000x as high previously?
They not only dumped tons of that chemical in a landfill, they also tried their best to cover it up and delay discovery when they were caught. During the entire time they were fully cognisant of the fact that the chemical is carcinogenic and fatal for livestock and humans.
The fact that these corporations are still solvent and allowed to operate near human settlements or wildlife is a failure of regulatory authorities.
In fact, it was in The Netherlands that I first saw the award-winning report in their decades-long chemical war on the community surrounding one of their plants in the US. It’s what made me stop buying Gore-Tex.
Shame it’s always the same people, never held accountable. Shame.
Even if they don’t release any more PFAS than acceptable under the new standards that won’t clear up the earlier pollution.
And I sorta agree that making people attentive to the fact their water is now at dangerous levels due to a fuckup by whoever set the 2020 levels is not the factories’ responsibility.
It’s up to Chemours whether to hold themselves responsible for not meeting their internal guidelines (from what I read here they did/do). Of course it’s less than ideal they keep everything silent but their incentives probably point them that way.
If the government also knew, and chose not to do anything (and indeed, apparently wrote that it’s not financially feasible), then that’s a fault of government. The company won’t close itself if what they’re doing is morally dubious but legally perfectly fine (especially the people working at that location have a great incentive to not make waves, even if they’re the ones drinking the water).
> The company won’t close itself if what they’re doing is morally dubious but legally perfectly fine
It always surprises me that society has been programmed to accept morally-dubious practices that are legal as something inevitable, that a company can use that as a cop out. Perhaps amoral capitalism isn't a great system for society, and needs some reform to stop fucking people's lives for economical/financial gains...
I think I stopped believing that there was any changing this around age 30 or so. You can only see so much of it before it just becomes the default assumption.
Then there’s these times in your life when you do the right thing and are consistently punished for it… I can see why people would stop caring.
https://majorityreportradio.com/2023/06/23/6-23-casual-frida...
If it costs 100 billions then so be it.
You're right of course, but i think hell will freeze over way way earlier.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221042242...
The 70s were really a very different time. From a predominantly socialist country to one of the most neoliberal ones in Europe (after the UK).
Of course it's been half a century since the 70s, too.
That is well within 15km of Dordrecht.
The purple/blue areas are drinking water (ground water) protection areas, the grey areas are protected wetlands.
One of those drinking water areas is less than 1,500 meters away from the plant.
PFAS looks to be removable with activated carbon or reverse osmosis filters.
EDIT: I think you're right that it's possible. idk if municipalities usually use these filters
Edit: Well, that was a depressingly long search only to find that the most recently available data is from 2021… but you can ask for current data it seems [1] scroll down to ‘Gegevens openbaar’.
Edit2: evides.nl has monthly PFAS values for a few locations in the netherlands [2]. I kinda expect every different purification plant will have these, but apparently they’re hidden.
[1]: https://www.agv.nl/onze-taken/schoon-water/waterkwaliteit-me...
[2]: https://www.evides.nl/uw-drinkwater/mijn-waterkwaliteit/pfas...
Seems easier to convince your huisarts to perform a blood test if you are in an affected region.