Analysis of Seveso Incident - Term Paper Example

The Seveso Incident Contents Introduction 3 The incident 4 Division 8 Dioxin 10 The Seveso Directives II, III, and I 12 Conclusion14 Bibliography 15 Introduction The Seveso incident occurred on 10 July 1976. This was in Seveso, Italy. The explosion resulted in the contamination of populated areas.To some people, the mention of the name Seveso reminds them of a bad experience caused poor management of toxic chemical release in Italy. Others especially those in the health and safety profession associate the name withvarious public policies for managing industrial chemicalsdeveloped following an explosion by the same name. Following the two different interpretations of the terminology, it is easy to have explanations for the Seveso incident ambiguous on one hand, and paradoxical on the other. A close analysis of the Seveso incident demonstrates various kinds of uncertainties resulting in efforts from the industrial sector and new interpretative frameworks on managing industrial disasters. The Seveso accident in Europe represents one of the major incidents occurring in the chemical industries in the world. Its occurrence led to the introduction and legislations directed at controlling and preventing similar accidents in most countries in Europe. The resulting legislation referred to commonly as the Seveso directive is applicable in more than ten thousand chemical industries. These are industries engaged in the production and storage of large quantities of dangerous chemicals (Council Directive, 1987, Para 37). Those using such chemicals also fall in this category. Chemicals enlisted in the policy include petrochemicals, chemicals, metal refineries, and storage. The Seveso Directive directs signatory member countries to make sure that industries running in their area of jurisprudence to have clear policies aimed at preventing and controlling occurrences of major accidents. Manufacturing as well as other factories dealing in chemicals beyond specified thresholds ought to have elaborate emergency plans available to the public and health and safety officials. The emergency plans must meet international standards (Council Directive, 1990, p. 33). Furthermore, the factories must provide adequate semi-annual and annual safety reports to the safety management agencies in their respective countries. The incident Around lunch hour On July 10, 1976, a breakage in the valve at a chemical plant in Meda released cloud chemicals full of dioxin running more than fifty meters in the sky. The ensuing wind carried the chemicals southeast causing the toxic chemicals to cover almost the entire sky of Seveso town and the surrounding communities in the same area (Council Directive, 1990, p. 40). Most research reports concur that the explosion released an approximate three thousand kilograms of chemicals in the air.The chemical components included 2, 4, 5 trichlorophenol, an essential ingredient in the manufacture of herbicides containing a minimum of one hundred and grams and a maximum of twenty kilograms of dioxin (Council Directive, 1982, Para 5). The damage was immense because there was nobody at the ICMESA Company when the accident occurred. This meant that it was not easy to notice that a disaster was in the offing. The toxic release as well as its aftermath affected communities and the land between Milan and Lake Como. The area has almost eleven communities (Couch, 1991, p. 47). The highest hit areas were four and included Seveso, Meda, Cesano Mademo, and Desio. It affected seventeen people in Seveso, thirty-four thousand in Cesano Mademo, while Desio had thirty-three thousand casualties, and nineteen thousand in Meda. Barlassina and Bovisio Masciago municipalities suffered from post-accident effects with six thousand and eleven thousand casualties respectively. However, the government and other concerned agencies expanded their health safety programs to cover five other additional municipalities (Council Directive, 1989, Para 9). One of the richest and most industrialized districts in Italy called Lombardywas the most affected with Brianza being the highest hit area. First, the area started as an agricultural area but with time, small industries and workshops emerged (Drogaris, 1991, p. 44). The furniture manufacturing industries transformed the region into a prosperous and one of the most industrialized zones in Italy. (Drogaris, 1991, p. 14) Cloud (Council Directive, 1988, Para 27) Recognition of the disaster was gradual increasing the number of people affected. Rancorous conflicts divided the communities in the affected areas. Few hours after the accident, people began experiencing initial signs of a disaster from chemical inflammation where children had burn-like lesions on their skins (Bertazzi, 1993, p. 401). In September, the same year of the incident people suffered from chloracne. Professionals associate this serious skin disorder with dioxin especially among people close to the cloud. The death of animals among them rabbit en masse forced the government authorities to launch investigations five days after the accident. Following the same, a chemist deduced that it was dioxin. This was the first action by the government to evacuate the first bunch of seven hundred and thirty-six people living next to the company (Council Directive, 1990, p. 91). The total number of people exposed to the cloud released by government tallied thirty-seven thousand. Independent research by scholars and other institutions of higher learning corroborated the government report as well as the approximate figures.The authorities killed more than eighty thousand animals in the surrounding firms in addition to the more than four percent of the same animals that died to prevent the increase of the number of casualties (De Marchi, 1991 a, p. 240). This was to stop contamination of food both for the animals and for human beings. Affected land Division The government and other health officials divided and subdivided the affected areas according to the degree of contamination of the soil. They dubbed the most contaminated area Zone A. This completely evacuated area was one hundred and ten hectares (Drogaris, 1993, p. 22). The heritage department turned the area into the park referred to today as the Seveso Oak Forest. The same authorities prohibited farming strictly in zones R and B found to be the next most contaminated. The government banned consumption of food from this area. The effects of the explosion on people became obscure while the entire rout to recovery remained unusual (Council Directive, 1988, Para 17). The most contaminated area turned into a park, both the government and the manufacturing plant compensated the victims, workers moved to different other workstations, and the government put in place elaborate health and safety monitoring programs to avoid the occurrences of a similar disaster. The initial slow pace of carrying out necessary actions made the Seveso incident paradoxical (De Marchi, 1991 b, p. 211). In many ways, the occurrence of the Seveso explosion tempered with the high speed that technology was moving within the society. Responsible agencies took recovery measures to help address traumatic incidences among the victims in addition to normal patterns of life in the economic, social, as well as organizational situations. The causes of trauma included among others evacuation, chloracne, animal deaths, and fears from genetic impairments (Edelstein, 1988, p. 41). Factors important to the process of recovery for any community across the globe include reasonable effective, prompt, and generous response by both the private and public sectors. The community handled the disaster by exporting part of the problem. Other researchers posit that part of the severely contaminated materials went abroad amid confusion and scandals that remained unresolved. However, it is important to appreciate that this is part of the complexity of technology (De Marchi, 1993, p. 17). Externalizing attendant social issues as well as environmental expenses constitute processes of satisfying customers. Technology transfers its problems from immediate consumers and producers to the rest of the world for universal sharing. In this case, developing countries become dumpsites for such commodities. The park Side View Dioxin Dread is an experience is an emotional influence resulting from interaction with a chemical called dioxin. This is what people handling recovery during the Seveso explosion dealt with in the entire incident. Chemist first came to understand dioxin fully during the Vietnam War. During the war, it was a constituent component of the defoliant Agent Orange. However, before the war, agriculturalists put up a spirited campaign to have authorities ban TCP because of the dangerous toxics to human beings. On the contrary, scientist disapproved their claims making it difficult for the activists to succeed in their course. Other incidents with TCP before the official research on Seveso incident included BASF in Germany, 1953, Monsanto in the United States, 1949, Coalite Chemical Productions in the United Kingdom, 1968, Philips Duphar in Netherlands, 1963, as well as Dow Chemical in the United States of America in 1960. The image designed by agriculturalists opposing the use of TCP (De Marchi, 1993, p. 77) Although to a small extent, the incidents caused serious health problems to people following prolonged exposure to the toxic substances. This was an additional problem to the health experts handling chronic diseases and terminal conditions (Council Directive, 1989, Para 31).Germany authorities stooped the production TCP in the affected manufacturing company following the occurrence of the BASF accident. The government of Netherlands followed suit during the Philips Duphar disaster but further dismantled the plant. Measures by the government included swathing and dumping the debris in the Atlantic Ocean. Authorities in the United Kingdom adopted similar actions when the accident occurred at the Coalite Chemical Productions near the Bolsover. Administration in the United States developed a new company at the Dow Chemical after the demolishing the original plant following the accident in nineteen sixty(Council Directive, 1989, Para 52). In the new plant, civil engineers, architects, and health and safety experts worked together to have the reactor plant surrounded by additional safety vessel to gather then cool any leaks deemed toxic both to man and to the environment following possible raptures of valves. The same technology applies to nuclear reactor plants across the globe with advanced in-house water coolers. If this technology was applicable, at Seveso, the disaster would never have happened but this explains its reference as paradoxical. While there was debate on abolishment of TCP, there were no doubts that dioxin was a dangerous substance. Prior tests in the laboratory showed the toxic substance killed animals in the laboratory (Conti, 1977, p. 81).Dioxin shred many features with radioactive rays. Its poisoning levels occurred at microscopic levels, it was invisible, and applied by warring parties in the war. Its use in the war resonated with a plague. People could contaminate food and other things and in the process interfere with the economic, social, and personal status. (Conti, 1977, p. 112) The Seveso Directives II, III, and I The Seveso disaster resulted in the formulation and creation of the Seveso Directive by the European Community. This constituted the new system of regulating the industrial sector in the present day European Union. However, other nations and world nations such as the United Nations adopted some of the policies formulated by the European Community. Discussions following the disaster in the European Community developed regulatory structure replacing individual safety management rules for each country applicable before the disaster (Barton, 1969, p. 97). The explosion in Nypro Limited led to the standard application of safety installation measures to curb occurrence of similar incidences in the European Community. The chemical component in question at Nypro Limited in the United Kingdom in nineteen seventy-four was the cyclohexane. (Barton, 1969, p. 101) Seveso 1 ratified on August 5, 1982. Two amendments followed adoption taking place in nineteen eighty-seven and nineteen eighty-eight. The aim was to make the scope of the directive broad. To cover among others companies and plants involved in the storage of poisonous and lethal substances. The directive covered major hazardous accidents of particular chemical industries across Europe. Fatal accidents at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India accelerated the need for further amendments in the first Seveso Directive (Douglas, 1982, p. 63).During this accident, more than two thousand five hundred people died following the leakage of methyl isocyanate. The European Community adopted the Seveso II Directive to replace the first Seveso Directive on December 9, 1996 (Baram, 1991, Para 7). This concerned the control of serious hazardous accidents. The new directive revised and expanded the scope as well as the mandate of authorities created. This is when the European Community introduced fresh requirements relating to emergency plans, safety, and health management systems. Seveso III. On July 4, 2012, the European Community, then The European Union adopted and published additional provisions on hazardous incidences. Member countries have up to June 1, 2015 to implement the entire requirements in the directive. Conclusion Critical to the world was that during the Seveso accident, the ICMESA manufacturing company was responsible for the leakage and the subsequent disaster. The local and international agencies were not privy to the productions and processes taking place at the plant. This complicated both recovery and rescue measures. Despite the existence of the plant for more than thirty years, the local community only complained of occasional production of unpleasant smells. Following on the same, the management undertook appropriate measures to curb the situation. However, the disaster served as wake up call for the rest of the world to undertake safety measures for controlling and preventing the occurrences of similar tragedies. Bibliography Baram, M. (1991).Rights and duties concerning the availability of environmental risk information to the public. In: R.E.Kasperson and P.J.M. Stallen, eds. Communicating Risks to the Public. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Barton, A.H. (1969). Communities in Disaster: A Sociological Analysis of Collective Stress Situations. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. Bertazzi, P.A. (1993). "Cancer incidence in a population accidentally exposed to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-paradioxin." Epidemiology 4(5): 398-406. Conti, L. (1977). Visto da Seveso. Milan: Feltrinelli. Couch S.R. (1991). Communities at Risk. New York: Peter Lang. Council Directive of 24 June 1982 on the major accident hazards of certain industrial activities (82/501/EEC). Official Journal of the European Communities L 230, 5 August 1982. Council Directive of 19 March 1987 amending Directive 82/501/EEC on the major accident hazards of certain industrial activities (87/216/EEC). Official Journal of the European Communities L 85, 28 March 1987. Council Directive of 24 November 1988 amending Directive 82/501/EEC on the major accident hazards of certain industrial activities (88/610/EEC). Official Journal of the European Communities L 336, 7 December 1988. Council Directive of 12 June 1989 concerning the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work (89/391/ EEC).Official Journal of the European Communities L 183, 29 June 1989. Council Directive of 27 November 1989 on information to the public concerning health protection measures and the behaviour to adopt in the event of a radioactive emergency (89/618/Euratom). Official Journal of the European Communities L 357, 7 December 1989. Council Directive on the minimum safety and health requirements for the workplace (89/654/EEC). Official Journal of the European Communities L 393, 30 December 1989. Council Directive of 23 April 1990 on the contained use of genetically modified microorganisms (90/219/EEC). Official Journal of the European Communities L 117, 8 May 1990. Council Directive of 7 June 1990 on the freedom of access to information of the environment (90/313/EEC). Official Journal of the European Communities L 158, 23 June 1990. 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(1988). Contaminated Communities: The Social and Psychological Impacts of Residential Toxic Exposure. Boulder: West view. Read More