While production is partly suspended, the results of an initial partial biomonitoring confirm the presence of Pfas in the residents’ blood. Almost everyone is considered at risk. After the last foams in the Bormida river in mid-May, the province of Alessandria sent two warnings to ex Solvay by Spinetta Marengo, today Syensqo.
Now the chemical center has 30 days to determine and make known why values are too high C6O4its latest generation Pfas, were measured in the Bormida foam, in the waste pit and inside the site.
ARPA communicated the resultsyou on June 5thtwo days later the Province warned the Belgian company which immediately suspended production while defining the measure as “unexpected and disproportionate” and “reserving the right to contest its contents in the appropriate forums”.
Meanwhile, last Friday, the Piemonte region published the results of its first biomonitoring carried out in January on 29 people from a previous sample, the only ones who accepted. Result: 22 have values between 2 and 20 micrograms per liter, considered of possible risk, and 6 have values higher than 20 which imply an increase in risk.
«The latter were given information to present to the family doctor for the activation of the health surveillance», specifies the Region, announcing a second phase which should broaden the audience. Eight Pfas were examined in the tests: the new generation ones were also added to the historical ones Adv, GenX and C6O4. They don’t exist in nature, they are considered “eternal pollutants” and are now found everywhere in materials, come on waterproof fabrics for non-stick pans.
“Anyone with Pfas values above 2 in their blood should be considered at risk,” he points out Giuseppe Unghereseresponsible for the pollution campaign of Greenpeace Italywhich is following Spinetta’s case and welcomed the suspension of production.
«It is the first time we have seen a serious measure to protect health and the environment – comments the Greenpeace expert –, but now we need to see how the matter will evolve: will Solvay be able to fall within the parameters? Is he capable of not causing damage to his health? Sooner or later public bodies will have to give answers.”
The 130 hectare mega factory is located in Spinetta Marengo, a suburb of Alessandria. Today it is one of the most important of the international chemical group Syensqo (spin-off of Solvay), the only one in the world where C6O4 is produced, as well as 35 product families and 1,500 formulations of special polymers. But coexistence with the city dates back to the beginning of the last century, first with the local chemical company, which later became Montedison and finally Solvay. Already in the 80s and 90s there were the first reports of possible contamination, but it was in 2008 that the case of hexavalent chromium exploded.
The first trial that followed was concluded in 2019 with a conviction for negligent environmental disaster: the aquifer had been contaminated and therefore the surrounding land. According to the epidemiological investigationresidents of the area were getting sick and dying more than normal: cancer and more.
Now there is a second trial underway, this time on Pfas, as in Veneto with the Miteni case. The new poisons. «When the WWF complaint came out and the data on the last 20 years came out, we citizens decided to form ourselves in various committees: we understood that nothing has ever changed since that chemical center existed», explains Viola Cereda of the committee «Stop Solvay». The C6O4 moleculepatented and produced only here, has also been found in well water and in the air.
According to the Greenpeace report, it is also present in Turin, albeit below the legal limits. The suspicion is that the site has never stopped polluting. «In addition to monitoring the entire population – adds Cereda -, we have gone so far as to ask for the closure of the plant: in our opinion safe production is not possible, the plant is too obsolete».
