Regional court upholds clean-up order

P(ANSA) – Pescara, May 2 – A regional court in Abruzzo has upheld an environment ministry order that a chemical company clean up a massive toxic waste site near the Adriatic city of Pescara.BRIn a ruling released Friday, the Pescara regional court rejected an appeal of that order by the now-defunct company Montedison, which means it must clean up the waste that has accumulated for decades within 30 days.BRThe ruling follows a hearing last month where prosecutors said that managers at Montedison knew that acid in waste it had dumped near Pescara could melt the cement containers it was held in and contaminate water tables.BRItaly’s Higher Institute for Health (ISS) told the court last month that people living in and around Pescara have been eating mercury-contaminated vegetables since 1981.BRMercury was found in fish and in the hair of Pescara-area fishermen as far back as 1972, the ISS added in a report for the trial of some 20 managers and executives from Montedison, a large industrial chemicals producer active from the 1960s to the 1990s.BRThe managers were put on trial in November 2013 for illegally burying 250,000 tonnes of toxic waste near a river in the Pescara area, contaminating the water table and the public water supply with heavy metals.BRToxic spills reached as much as one tonne daily into the Tirino River, a prosecutor has said. Charges against the managers include willful water poisoning, malicious endangerment of public health, and illicit trade in hazardous materials.BRContaminated water has been distributed to roughly 700,000 people for years throughout a vast part of central Italy as a result, the ISS found in March.BR/P
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