YRE Article 15–18 years old: 3rd Place
THE POLLUTING OF THE RIVER ELBE BY CHEMICAL PLANT DRASLOVKA KOLÍN (Czech Republic)
Draslovka Holding is a private Dutch company, which produces wide range of industrial chemicals based on hydrogen cyanide. Originally the company was built on a greenfield site near the industrial town of Kolín situated 75 km to the Northeast from Prague. However, Kolín had gradually spread and the factory became an inseparable part of the town.
It is well-known that hydrogen cyanide is extremely toxic and might represent a great danger to all neighboring areas. At the beginning of the year 2006 an accident occurred in the factory and a considerable amount of hydrogen cyanide leaked into the river of Elbe. The uncontrolled leak lasted for several days and the contaminated water freely flew through the sewerage into the river.
Hydrogen cyanide plagued the river within the length of 83 km with the result of more than ten thousand of kilograms of fish dying. Dauntingly, the company´s management only claimed to be responsible for the incident several days after the leak had occurred. The reason for claiming the responsibility was the fact that ČIŽP (The Czech Environmental Inspectorate) started investigating the case.
The chemical plant was accused of leaking dangerous chemicals illegally and was fined 1,9 million Czech crowns. They were also accused of not letting the authorities known about the leak in time and charged another sum of 100 thousand Czech crowns. The Inspectorate mentioned above and the chemical plant agreed on the remedy consisting of the company´s obliging to five requirements. The total investment into the new technologies cost the chemical plant 30 million Czech crowns. The steps that followed the incident included among others disconnecting the rainwater sinkhole from the sewage disposal plant, doubling the system signaling possible accidents and enhancing the frequency of regular visual check to the draing water. Currently, the company is planning to introduce a new biological-chemical sewage disposal plant.
Our team were interested in the actions taken by the company Draslovka to protect the environment and prevent possible pollution thirteen years after the toxic chemicals leak, which could as well be called an ecological disaster. We sent a few questions to the management of Draslovka to answer. We contacted Martina Bartošíková, the company management´s specialist, who claimed that the remedy that was introduced is sufficient enough and another ecological disaster will not happen again.
However, what do the inhabitants of Kolín think about this matter? We asked several different people in the street whether they are worried about another ecological disaster that might occur in Draslovka. The younger generation do not think about such a problem, the middle-aged and older generation are not worried either and believe, that steps that were taken to ensure further safety are sufficient.
One of the answers that we obtained is as follows: ´I think that the securing of the chemical plant is sufficient and thus I am not worried. However, technical problems do happen. Still, I do not feel afraid, we would have to get mad. My father, who was a technical engineer used to say that safety in such factories is always seriously observed. But people make mistakes. I think people should be worried about possible terrorist attacks, but hopefully not here in Central Europe.´
To conclude, let us hope that the situation from the year 2006 is never to occur again and let us hope, that current management of the Draslovka Holding Company consider the safety in the chemical plant first and foremost.
You will find the whole interview with Mgr. M. Bartošíková here:
1. How does Draslovka Kolín take care of the environment?
Draslovka follows the rules emerging from legislation in the area of technical protection of the environment of the Czech Republic and implementation and maintaining the Systems of quality control (ISO 9001), Environmental management (ISO 14001) and Occupational Health and Safety Management system (OHSAS 18001).
In the area of the CZR legislation the most important laws and regulations for us are the ones concerning waste management, wrappings, water and air protection, chemicals and prevention of serious accidents. Our independent Department of Systems management deals with these topics and it is directly subordinated to the general manager. Information about the environmental conditions is handed in to the whole management of the company.
2. How do you specifically protect the Elbe?
In Draslovka we put an emphasis on quality of wastewaters. Nowadays we have 4 technologies of water cleaning; biological, chemical-biological, chemical and de-toxicity cleaning plants of wastewater.
A document dealing with accidents and emergencies (Emergency plan) has been worked out and approved, it is revised regularly and it contains an emergency method fully described. As a part of this EP we have an emergency cap, which checks pH and is controlled by a camcorder system.
In an emergency the emergency cap is closed by the company fire brigade within just a few seconds, thus unwanted leakage to the Elbe is prevented. These actions are in concordance with Global water management plan. We regularly do emergency simulations.
3. Is protection of environment checked regularly in Draslovka?
Our company is certified with ISO 14001/2015 Environmental management systems, according which we have to prove our positive environmental profile; we control impacts of our activities, products and services to the environment in concordance with our environmental politics and targets. Supervised audit ISO 14001/ 2015 is performed once a year and the following certification is performed three times a year.
All the wastewater is checked in our laboratories, minimum checking frequency is once in two hours.
Also quality of air and wastewater is checked once in a month by external laboratory. Quality of wastewater is also controlled by the company ecologist and by an independent water technologist.
Waste quality is checked minimum once a year. Also checks of all integrated permissions once a year is performed by The Czech Environmental Inspectorate. Random checking also takes place.
