NEW owners have taken over the derelict FormalChem plant in Berlin and are to remove hundreds of drums of hazardous urea formaldehyde, methanol and other toxic chemicals this week.
National Department of Environmental Affairs spokesman Albie Modise said at the weekend that specialists were busy establishing the extent of of pollution, “if any,” to recommend “remedial measures”.
Independent environmental scientist Claire Jarvis said she was doing work for the new owners and had been at the plant taking water and soil samples last week.
Neither Modise nor Jarvis were prepared to name the new owners or their proposed business, but the Daily Dispatch learned the clean-up could cost millions before the plant is ready to return to industrial chemical use.
Jarvis and Modise played down the threat of the toxic waste to Berlin and surrounding commonage and farmland, with Jarvis saying the chemicals which the Daily Dispatch photographed lying in rusting, leaking drums, or simply on the open ground were mostly “volatiles” and would evaporate.
She declined to name the grey-blue piles of crystallised powder seen on the floor of two sheds, in the yard and along a short dead-end dirt road inside the property.
She said a rehabilitation project would see the removal of the drums of chemicals to the Aloe hazardous waste plant near Uitenhage .
Jarvis said she took the samples after being contacted and requested to do so by the new owners last week.
She said the laboratory results would be ready in two weeks and she was also busy with an environmental impact study .
She said water would also be sampled within 2km of the plant and, if need be, those water resources would also be “rehabilitated”.
Although she said some of the tanks at the plant “have stuff in them, they are sealed and secure”.
Modise said: “Most of the product (formaldehyde and methanol) was removed from the large tanks.”
She said nothing had been done to remove, treat, or prevent the chemical stockpile from leaking for the past for five years.
Modise said the department instituted criminal action against FormalChem for failing to implement measures set out in an administrative enforcement process.
He said the liquidation of FormalChem had complicated the law enforcement action, because the action was based on the “polluter pays” principle.
While scientists were assessing the extent of pollution and rehabilitation measures, Modise said: “The department can assure the public officials are exploring every possible legal alternative to expedite the clean-up of this property.”
The department had given instructions for a specialist waste management company to remove the damaged drums and containers to an authorised landfill site which accepts urea formaldehyde and methanol. —
Clean-up at Berlin site
NEW owners have taken over the derelict FormalChem plant in Berlin and are to remove hundreds of drums of hazardous urea formaldehyde, methanol and other toxic chemicals this week.
National Department of Environmental Affairs spokesman Albie Modise said at the weekend that specialists were busy establishing the extent of of pollution, “if any,” to recommend “remedial measures”.
Independent environmental scientist Claire Jarvis said she was doing work for the new owners and had been at the plant taking water and soil samples last week.
Neither Modise nor Jarvis were prepared to name the new owners or their proposed business, but the Daily Dispatch learned the clean-up could cost millions before the plant is ready to return to industrial chemical use.
Jarvis and Modise played down the threat of the toxic waste to Berlin and surrounding commonage and farmland, with Jarvis saying the chemicals which the Daily Dispatch photographed lying in rusting, leaking drums, or simply on the open ground were mostly “volatiles” and would evaporate.
She declined to name the grey-blue piles of crystallised powder seen on the floor of two sheds, in the yard and along a short dead-end dirt road inside the property.
She said a rehabilitation project would see the removal of the drums of chemicals to the Aloe hazardous waste plant near Uitenhage .
Jarvis said she took the samples after being contacted and requested to do so by the new owners last week.
She said the laboratory results would be ready in two weeks and she was also busy with an environmental impact study .
She said water would also be sampled within 2km of the plant and, if need be, those water resources would also be “rehabilitated”.
Although she said some of the tanks at the plant “have stuff in them, they are sealed and secure”.
Modise said: “Most of the product (formaldehyde and methanol) was removed from the large tanks.”
She said nothing had been done to remove, treat, or prevent the chemical stockpile from leaking for the past for five years.
Modise said the department instituted criminal action against FormalChem for failing to implement measures set out in an administrative enforcement process.
He said the liquidation of FormalChem had complicated the law enforcement action, because the action was based on the “polluter pays” principle.
While scientists were assessing the extent of pollution and rehabilitation measures, Modise said: “The department can assure the public officials are exploring every possible legal alternative to expedite the clean-up of this property.”
The department had given instructions for a specialist waste management company to remove the damaged drums and containers to an authorised landfill site which accepts urea formaldehyde and methanol. —
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