=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #8
—January 19, 1987—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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NEW JERSEY CHEMICAL FIRM SPILLS PESTICIDES INTO SWISS RHINE RIVER.
On Nov. 11, 1986 authorities from the Water Safety Administration in Basel, Switzerland, said a second
accidental leak of toxic chemicals had spilled into the Rhine River the day before the well-publicized Sandoz
accident. The authorities said Ciba-Geigy, which operates a large plant in Toms River, NJ, had sent 88
gallons of the weedkiller Atrazin into the Rhine river from a treatment plant on Oct. 31, a day before a fire at
the Sandoz plant leaked 30 tons of toxins. A spokesman for Ciba-Geigy said the leak happened when staff
accidently released chemicals into the river before they had been treated. According to the spokesman,
Atrazin is not a powerful poison and the concentration was low–one-fifth of the concentration at which fish
would have been killed.
Four countries took defensive action since in November, 1986, when a fire at a chemical company in Basel,
Switzerland, spilled a huge discharge of toxic chemicals, including 8 tons of mercury, into the Rhine River; a
government environmental agency at Basel said it was 10 to 30 tons of chemicals.
Spokesmen in France, West Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, through which the Rhine flows, shut
down all plants processing Rhine water for drinking, banned fishing in the river and closed sluices and locks
to stop polluted water from contaminating estuaries, streams and underground water courses.
According to the Basel environmental agency, water used to put out a fire at a riverside storage building at
the Sandoz chemical company carried 10 to 30 tons of toxic substances into the river. At least 34 different
chemicals were washed into the Rhine, some of which may have fused into new compounds as a result of
the high temperatures created by the fire. The chemicals include dyes, insecticides and mercury.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: water; water pollution; drinking water; fishing; water safety administration; switzerland;
chemicals; rhine; poison; leaks; sandoz; ciba-geigy; atrazine; pesticides; mercury; france; west germany;
netherlands; switzerland; spills;