Marcianise. An investigation is underway into the fire that broke out last Friday in the company that deals with the storage and recovery of waste. Several tons of waste stored in an area of 3000 square meters went up in smoke, especially plastic and wood residues. The data on the pollution caused by the cloud of smoke that was released after the fire that broke out around 5,20:24 on Friday morning is not yet known. "Arpac - says Mayor Antonello Velardi - will provide the data no earlier than a few days. Therefore I have not been able to take any measures for either the schools or the hospital, but I have only been able to give common sense advice to my fellow citizens". It was the mayor himself who said bluntly that the fire was certainly intentional. The account of a witness, whose statements were also collected by the finance police of Captain Gennaro Colarusso, would confirm the intentional nature of the fire. “Before the fire broke out, at least three bangs were heard. Presumably they were Molotov cocktails with a trigger. They passed from behind because there is security in front to guard the entrance”. In fact, at the entrance, the car was parked with a security guard inside (since the day of the seizure, surveillance has been carried out only outside XNUMX hours a day) and the entrance was still sealed when the firefighters arrived. There is a surveillance system with video cameras inside the company. The material was immediately seized by the financial police to view any intrusions. If no one tampered with the footage, the images should contain what happened in the Lea from the day of the fire up to a month ago.
And in the meantime, controversy erupts between the Municipality of Marcianise and the Campania Region. “After having closed the illegal plant with an ordinance last summer,” explains Mayor Velardi, “we were worried about what could happen (and then it actually happened). In the ordinance, we had given these scoundrels adequate time to remove the waste. The ordinance called for the blocking of the activity and the removal of all waste, with clear requirements. The company subsequently wrote stating that it could not dispose of the waste within the imposed time frame. When we said no, the company insisted. At that point, we asked the Region to cash in the surety that the Lea company had presented when requesting the authorization as a guarantee for any damage caused to the environment. The Region never paid us a single swipe. That waste could have been removed, in which case the fire would not have occurred.”
Dioxin levels over 24 times higher than the reference value established by the German guidelines (LAI-Laenderausschuss fuer Immissiosschutz – Committee of States for Environmental Protection). These are some of the results from the Arpac data on the surveys carried out in Marcianise after the Lea fire on Friday.
The sampling for dioxins was carried out on 26 October at a neighbouring company, approximately 10m from the Lea fire site, on a volume of sampled air equal to approximately 24m14 between 16pm and 24,06pm. The test report highlights, for the dioxin parameter PCDD+PCDF (expressed in ITEQ pg/Nmc), a concentration value equal to 0,15 ITEQ pg/Nmc, higher than the reference value of 06 XNUMX ITEQ pg/Nmc.
The technicians then proceeded to carry out sampling of the ambient air at the entrance of the Lea plant to search for SOV and aldehydes. The report shows a significant concentration of benzene equal to 1,42 mg/m1420 (or 5 micrograms/m155), higher than the average annual concentration limit of benzene equal to 10 micrograms/m57 according to Legislative Decree 22/06, the only regulated parameter among those determined. With regard to aldehydes, in the absence of regulatory limits, in the Circular of the Ministry of Health n°1983 of 0,124/XNUMX/XNUMX a maximum exposure limit of XNUMX mg/mXNUMX for formaldehyde in living and living environments is reported, but the value detected at the entrance of the Lea is lower than this limit value.
A situation that however concerns exclusively the site involved in the fire. The technical management of Arpac on the same 26th October in fact took steps to install near the town hall of Marcianise the mobile laboratory for monitoring the quality of the ambient air. The data shows that no exceedances of the concentration limit values foreseen by Legislative Decree 155/10 for the monitored parameters were detected.
Gustavo Gentile
Article published on 30 October 2018 - 12:18
