Gendorf Chemical Park

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Gendorf Chemical Park ( spelling Chemical Park GENDORF ), formerly the industrial park Werk GENDORF , is located in Burgkirchen an der Alz in Upper Bavaria , in the middle of the Bavarian chemical triangle . It is the largest chemical park in Bavaria and the location for over 30 companies in the fields of basic and specialty chemicals , plastics , energy supply and services.

The 188 meter high factory chimney of the Gendorf Chemical Park, which also serves as the transmission tower for "Radio ISW"

The local manufacturing companies use the shared chemical park infrastructure and are closely networked with one another through a production and material network. Around 4,000 people are employed at the site; around 400 people are being trained on site.

The Gendorf Chemical Park is 197 hectares in size. An area of ​​50 hectares is available for settlement and expansion. The infrastructure specially tailored to chemical production is provided by the operating company InfraServ Gendorf .

history

Construction of the Gendorfer plant

The Wehrmacht needed a production facility for war-relevant products, which was built in Gendorf shortly before the start of World War II in 1939 . Gendorf was then out of the reach of French and British bombers. The so-called standby plant in Gendorf produced various basic materials relevant to the war, such as antifreeze , preliminary products for explosives , chlorine and caustic soda . The owner of the plant was Montan ; It was operated by Anorgana , a subsidiary of the chemical company IG Farben . The actually intended production of mustard gas initially did not exceed the test quantities due to technical problems. 2,000 tons are said to have been produced by the end of the war. During the Second World War, German industry used forced labor in many areas . Forced laborers also worked in Gendorf, including concentration camp inmates from the Dachau concentration camp . Shortly before the end of the war, IG Farben executives such as the chemist Otto Ambros , who was later convicted as a war criminal, tried to convert arms production to harmless products such as soap .

Bavaria was occupied by US troops in 1945 and became an American zone of occupation . The American military government OMGUS had operations in Gendorf shut down and large parts of the facilities and infrastructure dismantled. The Gendorf plant was then continued under Allied control as an "Independent Unit". In 1953, the Free State of Bavaria acquired the Gendorf plant, which employed around 2,500 people, making it an important employer in the region.

Takeover by Hoechst

In 1955, the Free State sold the plant to Hoechst AG . The production areas have been adapted to the needs of the Hoechst Group. Areas such as PVC production or film production were subsequently systematically expanded and new areas of work were added. The Gendorfer plant developed into a supplier plant for other plants of the group, especially for chlorine and later ethylene . A separate cracker with a capacity of 12,000 tons of ethylene per year was put into operation for ethylene production on June 17, 1958 after a construction period of a good two years - even before a comparable plant was run in Höchst . Among other things, this was used to manufacture the plastic polyethylene (PE), which Hoechst sold under the name Hostalen . Films and many other products were made from Gendorfer polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

Conversion into a chemical park

With the restructuring and subsequent liquidation of Hoechst AG, which began in 1993, the Gendorf plant was converted into an industrial and chemical park in 1998 , with the various operational business areas of Hoechst AG being transferred to independent companies. 2016 took place renaming of Industrial Park GENDORF in Chemical Park GENDORF .

In order to be able to secure the infrastructure and services at the site, InfraServ GmbH & Co Gendorf KG was founded as the operating company and still operates the Gendorf Chemical Park to this day.

Location company

The Gendorf Chemical Park is (as of 2017) the location for over 30 companies. The best-known manufacturing companies include:

Environmental pollution and environmental protection

The manufacture of many chemical precursors and intermediate products in Gendorf was associated with severe environmental pollution. In the years after the integration into the Hoechst group, as elsewhere, environmental protection was not an important issue and was perceived as a marginal, technical-administrative task. In general, environmental standards hardly played a role in the chemical industry at that time . The wastewater pollution of the Alz river and the groundwater have been a problem since the plant was founded that could not be ignored in the long run. The plant therefore founded the Untere Alz association with the affected communities in August 1955 . Four years later, a central water supply was put into operation.

In the decades that followed, changes in environmental awareness and the issue of environmental protection increasingly found their way into the plant's location policy. After two years of construction, the Gendorfer sewage treatment plant was put into operation in 1973 . In the 1990s the water quality class of the Alz improved , also as a result of in-house measures. In the years 1979 to 1988 various exhaust gas cleaning systems were put into operation; air emissions fell by 60 percent. In 1997 the Gendorf plant was granted the status of a registered EMAS location. Since then, various measures for environmental protection have been implemented and published in annual environmental statements.

Despite these measures, massive fish deaths occurred in the Alz in March 2012 when contaminated extinguishing and cooling water got into the river after a fire in a production facility. In the following years extensive renaturation measures were carried out. This included, among other things, the conversion of an old transverse structure into a bed slide .

For the production of fluoropolymers , Hoechst initially produced perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) between 1968 and 2003, and then from 1996 Dyneon in Gendorf , which according to studies can have serious health-damaging properties. Dyneon developed a substitute; PFOA has not been used in Gendorf since 2008. The soil and groundwater in the vicinity of the chemical park contain PFOA from the production at the time. Special filters have been designed to prevent PFOA from getting into drinking water since 2009. The State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) and the Altötting Health Office examined the possible exposure of the population and the internal exposure of the population (human biomonitoring ) to perfluorinated substances and published a final report.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In profile. Internet presence of the Gendorf Chemical Park, Auf Gendorf.de, accessed on January 9, 2019.
  2. ↑ Michael Kamp and Florian Neumann: RESPONSIBILITY living - From the Gendorfer factory to the industrial park . August Dreesbach Verlag Munich 2014, p. 9 ff.
  3. ↑ Ibid. , P. 12 ff.
  4. ↑ Ibid., P. 28 f.
  5. ↑ Ibid., P. 35 f.
  6. ↑ Ibid., P. 37.
  7. ↑ Press release from June 9, 2016: From the industrial park Werk GENDORF to the chemical park GENDORF  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.gendorf.de  
  8. ↑ Internet presence of the Gendorf Chemical Park, location company (accessed on May 14, 2017).
  9. ↑ [1]
  10. ↑ Michael Kamp and Florian Neumann: RESPONSIBILITY living - From the Gendorfer factory to the industrial park . August Dreesbach Verlag Munich 2014, p. 42.
  11. ↑ altoetting.bund-naturschutz.de: Alzkatastrophe , October 31, 2012.
  12. ↑ Michael Kamp and Florian Neumann: RESPONSIBILITY living - From the Gendorfer factory to the industrial park . August Dreesbach Verlag Munich 2014, p. 44.
  13. ↑ Ibid., P. 45.
  14. ↑ Press release of September 29, 2017: Environmental management: GENDORF Chemical Park has been EMAS certified for 20 years
  15. ↑ [2]
  16. ↑ Michael Kamp and Florian Neumann: RESPONSIBILITY living - From the Gendorfer factory to the industrial park . August Dreesbach Verlag Munich 2014, p. 76.
  17. ↑ pnp.de April 6, 2016: Alz renaturation: Association gives 100,000 euros
  18. ↑ Alz renaturation: The chemical accident becomes a marginal aspect, from March 20, 2018, online at heimatzeitung.de
  19. ^ Bavarian State Office for the Environment : Promotion secured. Conversion of a transverse structure into a bed slide. (PDF; 0.4 MB) Practical example of the Bavarian Environment Pact (as of September 2016).
  20. ↑ BfR: According to the current state of scientific knowledge, health risks from PFOS and PFOA in food are unlikely. (PDF; 0.4 MB) BfR opinion 004/2009 of September 11, 2008.
  21. ^ LfU Bayern: PFOA problem in the Gendorf area
  22. ↑ LfU Bayern soil pollution in the Gendorf area
  23. ↑ LGL: Human biomonitoring of perfluorinated substances in parts of the Altötting district. Final report. (PDF; 1.3 MB) HBM study Altötting July 2018.
  24. ↑ see also stern.de June 22, 2019 / Nicole Simon: The dangerous legacy of a chemical factory in Upper Bavaria

literature

  • Dietmar Grypa : Studies at the end of the war and a new beginning in the Altötting district. Burghausen 1991 (= Burghauser Geschichtsblätter, 46th episode).
  • Michael Kamp and Florian Neumann: Living RESPONSIBILITY - From the Gendorfer factory to the industrial park . August Dreesbach Verlag Munich 2014.
  • Wolfgang Metternich: idea factory. From the inking plants to the Höchst industrial park . Waldemar Kramer Verlag Frankfurt am Main 2007.
  • Edith Raim: Gendorf [aka Emmerting] , in: Geoffrey P. Megargee (ed.): The Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945. Vol. 1: Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and sub camps under the SS Business Administration Main Office (WVHA), Part A . Indiana 2009, pp. 476-478.

Web links

Coordinates: 48 ° 10 ′ 47 "  N , 12 ° 43 ′ 46"  E