Chemical plant Pieve Vergonte

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Chemical plant Pieve Vergonte

The Pieve Vergonte Chemical Plant , also known as the Rumianca Chemical Plant , is a chemical plant in the commune of Pieve Vergonte , in Piedmont , Italy . In the factory built in 1915, mainly chemical warfare agents were produced with interruptions until the end of the Second World War. After conversion to civilian products, the site hit the headlines in the 1990s due to significant environmental pollution, which led to a ban on catching fish contaminated with DDT in Lake Maggiore , which still exists for one fish species (as of January 2022).

position

The Pieve Vergonte chemical works are located in the Ossola Valley , in the Piedmontese municipality of the same name, in the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola . The Toce river runs past the factory premises and after almost 20 kilometers it flows into Lake Maggiore near Gravellona Toce . Between the factory and the Toce lies the Simplon state road SS 33 . In 1919, the Rio Marmazza , a tributary of the Toce, was diverted through the factory premises with an underground canal in order to drain the waste water produced during production. Since the 1920s, the plant has had its own railway siding on the Domodossola – Novara railway line .

story

company history

1915-1945

On November 15, 1915, Alfonso Vitale founded the company named after him, Società Anonima Ingegnere Alfonso Vitale . In August 1915 Vitale had already acquired an 80,000 m² piece of land for the construction of a chemical plant from the municipality of Rumianca, since 1928 a fraction of Pieve Vergonte, for 24,000 lire. Construction of the facility began in 1915.

At the beginning of the 1920s, the company expanded rapidly, which was also reflected in brisk construction activity. Rooms for offices, laboratories, apartments, a canteen, a gatehouse, warehouses and a railway connection were built. Later, a separate workers' settlement ( Villaggio Runianca ) was built and single-family houses were built for the factory management. Up until the 1940s, additional leisure facilities were created for the workforce, a company football team was set up and a company cinema was built. In the autumn of 1920, depending on the order situation, between 300 and 500 workers worked in the factory. In 1922 the works were sold to the Società Navigazione Italo Americana (SNIA). The main owner of the SNIA was the entrepreneur Riccardo Gualino . With the new owner, the works were renamed Società Anonima Stabilimenti di Rumianca , from 1936 Anonima Stabilimenti di Rumianca . Two years later, Rumianca went public as SpA .

The company , which continued to expand, became known under the abbreviated name Rumianca . Before the global economic crisis made itself felt, production was increased twelvefold between 1923 and 1927. The difficult economic phase continued with the policy of self -sufficiency pursued by the fascist regime , which was further intensified with the illegal attack on Abyssinia in 1935 and the associated isolation of Italy. The latter made itself felt in Rumianca through rising energy costs and declining sales markets. While the factory management maintained good relations with the fascist authorities and supported the regime's self-sufficient economic policies, the workers suffered under the economic restrictions. The latter manifested itself, among other things, in a decline in purchasing power and in food rationing. In 1936, the authorities became concerned about the increasing problem of alcoholism among the workforce.

With the Second World War , as in the First World War, production was taken over by the military. The site in Pieve Vergonte was part of the chemical weapons program promoted by Mussolini . As a result, sales increased, which was reflected in the number of employees. A peak was reached in 1942 with 1,000 employees, which then dropped to just over half by the early 1950s. The subsequent increase was associated with the reorientation of production towards agriculture. By 1959, the factory premises had been expanded to 456,000 m², in 1939 it had been 200,000 m².

From 1945

The factory premises seen from the Simplon state road

Worker strikes broke out in the late 1940s and early 1950s after management rejected the nationwide bonus scheme negotiated between unions and the employers' association. Wage demands by the workforce were later backed up by further work stoppages. As a result of the crisis in the chemical industry at the end of the 1960s, there were further industrial disputes. After the occupation of the factory in 1969, the workers were promised the establishment of a commission composed of the workforce, which would monitor the safety precautions and the state of health of the workers. The Commission was intended to compensate for the failings of the factory management, which had stopped investing in these areas in view of the crisis.

At that time, the Rumianca had been under the control of Angelo Rovelli 's new majority owner SIR ( Società Italiana Resine ) since 1967 . In 1981, Anic took over Spa. Azienda Nazionale Idrogenazione Combustibili the Romianca including the production plant in Pieve Vergonte. Two years later the work was transferred to the Enichimica Secondaria Spa. , a subsidiary of EniChem , which belonged to the Eni group. In the 1980s, the increasing automation of production processes began, which significantly reduced the risk of accidents for employees. With the takeover by Eni, according to the employees, the safety regulations were also taken seriously for the first time. Modern protective clothing, safety courses and regular health checks came with the change of ownership by the Enito subsidiary. Nevertheless, accidents and violations did occur under the new leadership. In 1997, for example, the plant manager was sentenced to imprisonment and a fine for the illegal storage of large quantities of harmful substances.

Until 1997, the Pieve Vergonte chemical plant was subordinate to various subsidiaries of the Eni Group, most recently Syndial Spa. In 1997 Pieve Vergonte was sold to the Belgian multinational Tessenderlo Group . In 2013, Hydrochem Italia srl. the chemical works Pieve Vergonte. With the takeover of Hydrochem, the plant has belonged to the Italian Esseco Group since 2019 .

production history

1915 to 1945

During the First World War , chlorine and chlorine compounds were produced in Rumianca for the production of chemical warfare agents for the Italian army . The plant was one of the most modern production sites for chlorine gas in Italy, which was produced using chlor-alkali electrolysis using the Castner-Kellner process . By the end of the war, production had matured under the leadership of the military. In 1916, the production of phosgene was also started. Rumianca was thus the second production facility in Italy in which phosgene was produced as a chemical warfare agent. Up to 6 tons of phosgene could be produced daily. Towards the end of the war, the production of mustard gas was put into operation on an experimental basis. Caustic soda , carbon disulfide , carbon tetrachloride and calcium chloride were also produced. Until 1919, production in Rumianca was mainly geared towards war purposes. In addition to the warfare agents mentioned above, fillers for fog and smoke grenades and rubber for gas masks were also produced.

In 1919, the chemist Luigi Casale set up his first experimental plant in the Rumianca plant for the production of synthetic ammonia , which was named after him, using the Casale process . With the test facility, up to 100 kg of synthetic ammonia could be produced daily. Since the factory management was not willing to invest in the expansion of the plant, Casale ended his cooperation in the same year. After the war, a general reorientation of the sales markets was initiated. Substances were now produced for the textile, pharmaceutical, dye and paper industries as well as for agriculture. The annual production of caustic soda was 4000 t, and 1800 t of calcium chloride were produced per year. After the sale to the textile entrepreneur Riccardo Gualino in 1922, production in Rumianca was concentrated in particular on the manufacture of fabrics for viscose fibres .

With the increasing political isolation of fascist Italy in the 1930s, production was changed again. The changes were also driven by the merger of the operating company with two other companies, including the mining companies from the neighboring valleys of Antrona , Anzasca and Toppa. From 1937 , arsenic was extracted from by-products of the gold mines in Rumianca. A plant for the production of copper sulphate had already been put into operation a year earlier. In the mid-1930s, the factory again attracted the attention of the military. As part of the C-weapons program promoted by the fascist government, a department of the Italian C-troops ( Italian Servizio chimico militare ) was deployed in Rumianca . Chlorine and arsenic compounds were produced for the army and air force , as well as carbon tetrachloride for the production of smoke and fog gases. In order to be able to meet the demands of the military, a more powerful plant for electrolysis was built. In addition, a plant for the production of the chlorine-arsenic warfare agent CLARK 1 and the cyanide -arsenic warfare agent CLARK 2 was put into operation.

Factory sign from 2007, which indicates the environmental clean-up of the factory premises. Stated total costs: 53.7 billion euros

After Italy entered the Second World War on June 10, 1940, the production of arsenic compounds in Pieve Vergonte increased even more. The increased demand for energy was taken into account in 1941 by the construction of an in-house hydroelectric power station a few kilometers down the valley near Megolo. Part of the military production was exported during the war. In August 1943, 500 tons of chemicals intended for fogging left the factory. The Italian smoke troops assigned to smoke the Peenemünde Army Research Center also received their supplies from the Rumianca plant. The production of chemical warfare agents was not stopped after the Italian armistice with the Allies on September 8, 1943 and the German occupation , but continued under the supervision of the Wehrmacht .

From 1945

After the war, production switched to chemicals for agricultural use and basic chemicals . For this purpose, a modern in-house laboratory was built for study and research purposes. As early as 1946, fungicides and herbicides based on hexachlorocyclohexane compounds were being produced. In addition, work was being done on complex fertilizers . In 1948 production of the insecticide DDT was started. Due to the increasing demand for ammonia and sulfuric acid , a cracking plant was put into operation. In 1951 the production of various fertilizer granules, which included both NPK and NP fertilizers , started . After modernizing the production facilities between 1953 and 1954, production increased by 10% and sales by 54%. In order to cover the increasing agricultural demand, the production capacities were increased again. In 1959 the annual production of artificial fertilizer was 175,000 tons.

A difficult phase for the factory began with the fall in prices for artificial fertilizers at the end of the 1960s. Between 1973 and 1974 the facilities for the production of artificial fertilizer were dismantled. Pesticides were still being produced . At the end of the 1970s, the production facilities for DDT were modernized, set up for continuous operation and adapted to environmental regulations. Between 1982 and 1985 further production lines fell victim to rationalization. During this time, the cracking plant was dismantled, as was the oil -fired power station built in 1954 . On the other hand, the production of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons , which was expanded further until the mid-1990s, was newly included. After Enimont stopped exporting DDT for use as an insecticide in 1989, the Pieve Vergonte plant was the only remaining DDT production site in Italy. The DDT produced here was used to manufacture the acaricide Dicofol . After the discovery of DDT pollution in Lake Maggiore in 1996, the production of DDT was discontinued. The production lines for chloral and chlorosulfonic acid were also stopped . At the turn of the millennium, the production of dichlorobenzene and chlorotoluene was started and in 2002 a plant for photochlorination was put into operation. In 2005 the production of sulfuric acid and in 2010 that of dichlorobenzene was stopped.

environmental pollution

With its high level of environmental pollution, Pieve Vergonte is one of the areas in Italy whose environmental cleanup is of national interest (it. Siti di interest nazionale (SIN)). The basis for the SIN classification is Law No. 426 of December 9, 1998, passed by the Italian Ministry of the Environment in 1998 under Minister Edoardo Ronchi . Pieve Vergonte is already included among the 14 areas listed in Article 4.

The area was recorded on the basis of several investigations carried out from 1995 onwards. On the basis of water and soil samples, various types of environmental pollution could be determined on the soil surface down to the deeper soil layers and in the groundwater . Contamination with arsenic and mercury as well as with the metals lead , copper , zinc , vanadium , selenium , nickel , antimony and cadmium were detected . Furthermore, the samples were contaminated with DDT and derivatives such as hexachlorobenzene , hexachlorocyclohexane , various hydrocarbon compounds such as chlorinated hydrocarbons and benzene , polychlorinated biphenyls , polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and dibenzofurans (generally referred to simply as dioxins) and furan .

In 1996, the news that fish from Lake Maggiore were contaminated with DDT in excess of the permissible limit values ​​made headlines. The Swiss authorities had been conducting investigations in this direction since 1993. After the Italian authorities had reached an agreement, the investigations were extended to the river Toce from Pieve Vergonte downstream and DDT pollution was also found in this area. As a result, the Italian Ministry of the Environment issued a fishing ban for Lake Maggiore. The catch ban for the Agone from the Alosa genus still exists today (as of January 2022). The fish of the Agone species removed to clear the stock must still be treated and disposed of as hazardous waste .

The DDT had reached the Toce from the Pieve Vergonte chemical plant via the Rio Marmazza, which was diverted through the plant premises in 1919, and then Lake Maggiore. As early as 1970, authorities had pointed out contaminated sewage that had entered the Toce via the Rio Marmazza. After the Lake Maggiore fishermen's association reported mercury and pesticide pollution in Lake Maggiore, the Rumianca was briefly prohibited from discharging sewage into the Toce river at the beginning of 1976 by the then responsible province of Novara . In the same year, the President of the Institute of Hydrobiology warned the Piedmont Region to stop the discharge of DDT-contaminated effluent from the Pieve Vergonte plant into the Toce. The following year, the factory management was acquitted of the allegations against them. At the same time, the plant management stated that the wastewater disposal had been improved for the DDT production line, among other things. However, due to incomplete documents, the company was warned by the municipal administration to continue the sewage disposal from the municipal area.

In 1998, following the cessation of DDT production ordered by the Ministry of the Environment, 13 Enichem executives were accused of repeated environmental offenses and DDT pollution of the waters of the Rio Marmazza, Toce, Lago di Mergozzo and Lago Maggiore. The criminal proceedings ended in a settlement in spring 1999. In the subsequent civil lawsuit sought by the joint plaintiffs, 12 defendants were sentenced to light suspended sentences and Enichem to pay damages of 11.6 billion lire. In 2008, the court in Turin ordered Syndial, as Enichem's legal successor, to pay the Italian Ministry of the Environment 1.9 billion euros. The judgment was confirmed in the last instance by the Court of Cassation in Rome in July 2021, after the Court of Appeal in Turin had already ruled in the same way.

damage to health

Epidemiological studies carried out on the territory of the communes of Pieve Vergonte and the two neighboring communes of Piedimulera and Vogogna , following the classification of the Site of National Importance , point to anomalies in terms of mortality among the affected populations , linked to the plant can become. An above-average number of deaths among both sexes are recorded in the area, which can be traced back to tumors in the colon and rectum in women and in the stomach in both sexes or to respiratory or circulatory diseases.

environmental remediation

In 1999, Enichem presented the first environmental clean-up project for the factory premises. The project envisaged the construction of a watertight 500,000 m³ hazardous waste landfill . The Piedmont region rejected the project because of its proximity to the Toce River. A year later, the Italian Ministry of the Environment specified the area to be rehabilitated. Because there was no precise information about the degree of environmental pollution, the area to be remediated was defined far beyond the Pieve Vergonte chemical plant. In addition to the municipality of Pieve Vergonte, it also includes the two neighboring municipalities of Piedimulera and Vogogna, the diverted Rio Marmazza, the river Toce up to its confluence with Lake Maggiore, Lake Maggiore between Ghiffa in the north and Ispra in the south, and Lake Mergozzo. According to the Italian Ministry of the Environment, the total area to be rehabilitated is 15,150 hectares.

In 2001, environmental remediation of the factory premises began. The primary goal was to prevent further contamination of the groundwater. For this purpose, an area of ​​80,000 m² was sealed and several wells were dug to pump out the already contaminated groundwater and purify it in a specially built sewage treatment plant. In 2003, the project presented by Syndial to rehabilitate the Rio Marmazza, which runs beneath the factory premises and is used as a sewer, was rejected by the Pieve Vergonte municipal administration. Instead, the Ministry of the Environment took up the municipality's suggestion to restore the original course of the stream. A project presented in 2004, which envisaged the thermal treatment of the contaminated soil before it was stored in a local hazardous waste dump, was also rejected. The following year, the company agreed with the three affected municipal administrations to have the most contaminated material disposed of at special waste disposal sites in Germany and to restore the original course of the Rio Marmazza.

Legal disputes meant that the renovation work was only carried out hesitantly. It was not until 2016 that the restructuring plan, which had been amended several times, was tackled. In January 2021, work began to restore the original course of the Rio Marmazza. In 2019, the Piedmont region named 2028 as the expected end of the environmental cleanup, 113 years after the Pieve Vergonte chemical plant started operations.

literature

  • ARPA Piemonte (ed.): Valutazione dell'apporto di DDT dal Fiume Toce al Lago Maggiore: Relazione Finale – April 2010. o.O. 2010, ( digital copy )
  • Commissione Internazionale per la protection delle acque italo-svizzere (ed.): Ricerche sulla distribuzione e gli effetti del DDT nell'ecosistema Lago Maggiore: Rapporto finale sui risultati dell'indagine. Pallanza 1999. ( digital copy )
  • Gianluca Di Feo: Veleni di stato. BUR Rizzoli, Milan 2009, ISBN 978-88-17-03715-0 .
  • Legambiente (ed.): La chimera delle bonifiche. L'urgenza del risanamento ambientale in Italia, i ritardi del Programma nazionale e le proposte di Legambiente. Legambiente, Rome 2015 ( digitized )
  • Samanta Grassi: La condizione dei lavoratori dello stabilimento chimico di Pieve Vergonte nella storia (1915-2012). Tesi di laurea, Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Anno accademico 2010-2011. ( digitized )
  • Samanta Grassi: La Rumianca di Pieve Vergonte. In: Pier Paolo Poggio, Marino Ruzzenenti (eds.): Il caso italiano: industria, chimica e ambiente. Fondazione Luigi Micheletti – Jaca Book, Milan 2012, ISBN 978-88-16-41173-9 , pp. 173-202.
  • Regione Piemonte, Politecnico di Torino, Agency regional per la protection dell'ambiente (ed.): Analisi dell'apporto di DDT dal fiume Toce al Lago Maggiore. Turin 2010. ( digital copy )

web links

Commons : Chemical plant Pieve Vergonte  - Collection of images

itemizations

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Samantha Grassi: Rumianca – Pieve Vergonte (VB). In: industriaeambiente.it. Retrieved December 20, 2021 (Italian).
  2. ↑ Samanta Grassi: La condizione dei lavoratori dello stabilimento chimico di Pieve Vergonte nella storia (1915-2012). p. 7
  3. ↑ Samanta Grassi: La condizione dei lavoratori dello stabilimento chimico di Pieve Vergonte nella storia (1915-2012). p. 26.
  4. ↑ Samanta Grassi: La condizione dei lavoratori dello stabilimento chimico di Pieve Vergonte nella storia (1915-2012). pp. 7-10.
  5. ↑ Francesco Chiapparino:  Gualino, Riccardo. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 60:  Grosso-Guglielmo da Forlì. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2003.
  6. ↑ Stabilimenti di Rumianca SA In: scripomuseum.com. Retrieved December 20, 2021 (Italian).
  7. ↑ Samanta Grassi: La condizione dei lavoratori dello stabilimento chimico di Pieve Vergonte nella storia (1915-2012). p. 18
  8. ^ a b Samanta Grassi: La condizione dei lavoratori dello stabilimento chimico di Pieve Vergonte nella storia (1915–2012). p. 28.
  9. ↑ Samanta Grassi: La condizione dei lavoratori dello stabilimento chimico di Pieve Vergonte nella storia (1915-2012). p. 24.
  10. ↑ Chi siamo. In: hydrochemitalia.it. Retrieved December 20, 2021 (Italian).
  11. ↑ Giuliano dall'Olio: I gas di guerra nel primo conflitto mondiale. In: La chimica e l'industria. Anno XCVII N. 6 November/December 2015, p. 11. ( digitized )
  12. ↑ Samanta Grassi: La condizione dei lavoratori dello stabilimento chimico di Pieve Vergonte nella storia (1915-2012). p. 8
  13. ↑ Gianni Bovini: Terni tra siderurgia e chimica. In: Arpa Umbria (ed.): L'industria chimica italiana a cinquant'anni dal Nobel di Giulio Natta: Atti del convegno. Arpa Umbria, Perugia 2014, p. 30. ( PDF )
  14. ↑ Samanta Grassi: La condizione dei lavoratori dello stabilimento chimico di Pieve Vergonte nella storia (1915-2012). pp. 9-10.
  15. ↑ Gianluca Di Feo: Veleni di stato. pp. 52-53.
  16. ↑ Samanta Grassi: La condizione dei lavoratori dello stabilimento chimico di Pieve Vergonte nella storia (1915-2012). p. 19
  17. ↑ I reparti nebbiogeni della RSI sul mar Baltico. In: italianiinguerra.wordpress.com. 27 June 2018, retrieved 21 December 2021 (Italian).
  18. ↑ Gianluca Di Feo: Veleni di stato. p. 213.
  19. ↑ a b Siti contaminati. In: relazione.ambiente.piemonte.it. Retrieved December 23, 2021 (Italian).
  20. ↑ Siti di interest nazionale (SIN). In: isprambiente.gov.it. Retrieved December 23, 2021 (Italian).
  21. ↑ Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana Anno 139 Numero 291, 14 December 1998. P. 35. ( PDF )
  22. ^ Commissione Internazionale per la protection delle acque italo-svizzere (ed.): Ricerche sulla distribuzione e gli effetti del DDT nell'ecosistema Lago Maggiore: Rapporto finale sui risultati dell'indagine. p. 1
  23. ↑ Legambiente (ed.): La chimera delle bonifiche. L'urgenza del risanamento ambientale in Italia, i ritardi del Programma nazionale e le proposte di Legambiente. p. 14
  24. ↑ Regolamento di pesca del bacino No. 5: Verbano - Lario - Ceresio. Edizione 2021, p. 19. ( digitized )
  25. ↑ Pescate di sfoltimento di Agone nelle acque del Lago Maggiore – Ordinanza n. 01/20. (PDF; 192 kB) Commissariato italiano per la Convenzione italo-svizzera sulla pesca, June 12, 2020, accessed January 26, 2022 (Italian).
  26. ↑ Regione Piemonte, Politecnico di Torino, Agency regional per la protection dell'ambiente (ed.): Analisi dell'apporto di DDT dal fiume Toce al Lago Maggiore. p. 1
  27. ↑ a b Pieve Vergonte. In: bonifichesiticontaminati.mite.gov.it. Retrieved December 23, 2021 (Italian).
  28. ↑ SENTIERI - Studio epidemiologico nazionale dei territori e degli insediamenti esposti a rischio da inquinamento: Risultati - SENTIERI Project - Mortality study of residents in Italian polluted sites: Results. In: E&P: Epidemiologia & Prevention. Rivista dell'Associazione italiana di epidemiologia. Anno 35 (5–6) September–Dicembre 2011 Supplemento 4, pp. 118–120. ( digitized )
  29. ↑ Maria Grazia Varano: Bonifica di Pieve Vergonte: nel 2021 iniziano i lavori per spostare il torrente Marmazza. In: lastampa.it. January 29, 2021, retrieved December 23, 2021 (Italian).
  30. ↑ Site of national interest Ex Enichem di Pieve Vergonte. (PDF) In: regione.piemonte.it. February 2019, retrieved December 23, 2021 (Italian).

Coordinates: 46° 0′ 23″  N , 8° 16′ 37.2″  E