Arsenic scandal
The arsenic scandal was an environmental scandal in east Hamburg in February 1985 .
history
The North German Affinerie was long considered a Hamburg company with the highest heavy metal emissions in the city. With the main wind direction, the dusts in the exhaust air were mainly deposited in the east of Hamburg. There, in the Vier- und Marschlanden , there are many vegetable-growing businesses. As early as the late 1970s, the environmental protection group for physics and geosciences had detected heavy metals, mainly cadmium , arsenic and lead , in the air in the eastern parts of Hamburg. In 1980 and 1981, large concentrations of heavy metals were also measured in the wastewater discharges from Norddeutsche Affinerie AG.
In 1981, the Hamburg environmental authority commissioned the professorship for soil science at the University of Hamburg to conduct a study on heavy metal deposits in the eastern parts of the city. The results were shockingly high. The environmental authority then decided not to publish the results for the time being.
It was not until February 1985 that internal minutes of the meeting reached the Hamburg editorial office of the daily newspaper (taz) . The cover-up of the measurements expanded into an arsenic scandal .
literature
- Der Spiegel 7/1985, Tarnen und Täuschen, p. 100
- Environmental Protection Group Physics-Geosciences , Shiny Shops, Chapter: Never treat a soil like dirt, p. 94, Hamburg 1985