SEVESO - MILAN - ITALY

SEVESO IN LOMBARDY
Seveso Municipality is far from Milan about 22
km, it is in the district of Monza and Brianza. Its
territory is 7,34 square kilometres and it’s flat. The
river Seveso runs through the city. Its population is
about 20.000 inhabitants and it is placed in
Lombardy Region, an area with about 4,5 million of
inhabitants. The territory of Lombardy Region is
23.861 square kilometres (8% of the total Italian
territory) with a population of 9.545.411 inhabitants
(16% of the total Italian population). The per capita
income is 31.618 euro (the Italian average is
25.862 euro), the gross domestic product is
305.550 euro.
 THE EVENT
On Saturday July 10th 1976
at 12.37 p.m., an
uncontrolled increase of the
temperature inside reactor
A-101 of ICMESA facory of
Meda caused pressure to
build up. The cloud was
composed of ethylene
glycol, soda and 2, 3, 7, 8-
tetrachloro-dibenzo-
paradioxin (TCDD).
 WHAT HAPPENED?
ICMESA (Chemical Industries Meda and Seveso), in fee of a Swiss
multinational company named Hoffman La Roche, was placed in
Meda territory. The factory produced intermediate compounds for
pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies, including e-phenylacetic
acid and 2, 4, 5 –trichlorophenol (TCP), a toxic and not inflammable
compound, used as herbicide and as bactericide. To produce TCP,
in a reactor was hydrolyzed 1, 2, 4, 5-trichlorophenol (TCB) with
caustic soda (NaOH) in the presence of ethylene glycol, xylol and
water at a temperature of 150-160 degrees centigrade.
The overheating extended to high temperature can trigger different
chemical reactions included the production of the intermediate
2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin (TCDD). 10th of July 1976,
for an uncontrolled exothermic reaction the safety valves broke
down and caused the emission of TCDD, ethylene glycol and soda
in the atmosphere.
 SEVESO DATES
™10 July 1976: accident;
™15 July 1976: first measures by the
Mayor of Seveso and Meda
™23 July: the managers of Hoffman La
Roche admitted the presence of dioxin in
the cloud
™24 July: order of evacuation
™25 July-first half of August: 736 people
left their homes
 WHAT’S TO BE DONE?
The Mayors of the two towns had to:

• bound the zone with posts with the

inscription:“Seveso and Meda
Municipalities. Attention. Zone infested by
toxic substances. It’s forbidden eat fruit
and vegetable products and touch the
vegetation, the ground and the grass”.

• inform with posters the population to

don’t touch vegetables, ground, grass and
animals form the delimited zone and to
keep themselves clean with normal
water.
 SHORT KNOWLEDGE,
EVACUATION
The short knowledge of the
chemical products of ICMESA were
at the origin of the doubts and of the
big confusion of Regione Lombardia
Health Department. The first steps
were the evacuation of the
population and the isolation of the
evacuated zone. But in some others
zone (Desio and Cesano Maderno)
the toxic cloud deposited on the
ground, covering an estimated area
of 1,810 hectares.
Was a big state of emergency.
 ENVIRONMENTAL
DISASTER
In 1976 Italy was the scene of the
biggest environmental disaster of his
history: from a reactor of the chemical
factory ICMESA was given off a big toxic
cloud of dioxin, a poison that could
generate catastrophic effects, not only
destroying human lifes but also rendering
uninhabitable the surrounding territory.
 UNCERTAINTY
The knowledge about metabolism of
this substance and its works were very
short: the only certitude was its
extraordinary toxicity, 500 times more
than strychnine and 1000 times more
than cyanide. It was the first time,
except for what happened in Vietnam,
when the American Army used the
agent orange, a powerful herbicide
and defoliant, that dioxin
contaminated a population with
women and children too; all the
previous accidents damaged only the
workers of some industries
 MAJOR RISK HAZARD
To face up to the heavy event a Technical-
scientific governative Committee was instituted
(with an ordinance of the President of the
Council of Ministers – 4 August 1976) in the
Ministry of Health. This Ministry was in charge
of the studies for the decontamination of the
polluted area. Regione Lombardia after the
accident designated four commissions
(Analytical, Medical-epidemiological,
Decontamination and Veterinarian) and started
four operating programmes.
SPECIAL OFFICE FOR SEVESO
With the Regional Law, on 17th
June 1977, a Special Office for
Seveso was instituted. It was a
structure with executive tasks to
coordinate and to realise the
operative programmes created
by Regione Lombardia.
In the Special Office scientific
and administrative documents
about all the interventions in the
polluted area were picked up.
 DECONTAMINATION
The approximation and the slowness of the interventions
caused irritation in the evacuated population that tried to
come back in their homes. Some discussions about the
decontamination began. The community didn’t want an
incinerator but it decided to put the waste material in large
caissons in the ground. In June 1977 the Regional Council
finally approved the operative programmes for the
decontamination of the
Territory. These programmes were committed to a Special
Office for Seveso.
In October 1977 the first families evacuated could return in
their homes. Other houses were destroyed. The
decontamination continued until the end of the Eighties.
 RISK CONSCIOUSNESS
Seveso experience has improved risk
consciuosness, taking account of technical
factors and social conditions at the same
time. There are still some open judicial
proceedings between some citizens and
Givaudan (Hoffman La Roche) to claim the
right of a compensation.
Other disasters followed Seveso: Bhopal
(1984), Chernobyl’ (1986), Tolosa (2001).
They made European Union modify Seveso
Directives.
HOW ACT IN THIS SITUATION

One of the most important

problems after Seveso accident
was the involvement not only of
the population but also of its
offspring. Another problem is
about the right behaviour in case
of accident: what action we have
to do in case of emergency. Of
course we need a common action
to find a good solution and to
realise a determining plan.
 DAMAGE EVALUATION
The damage evaluation is another problem
with the contraposition between science and
politics. After Seveso accident the uncertainty
of environmental risks was very clear. In those
years the dioxin was almost unknown and
only in 1997 the Agency for the cancer
researches marked it as cancerogenic agent
for human health.
In the population there were different points of
view: from industrial damage to cultural
conflict.
FROM A DAMAGE TO AN OPPORTUNITY
At the first time you could assist to a juridical-economic
compensation for the environmental damage and later a
political compensation too, thanks to the activities of the
Seveso community. In 1996 the Oak Forest officially opened
to the public. The Oak Forest is an environmental
compensation for the damage. Eleven panels in Italian and in
English descirbe all the histopry of the accident.
In 1986 Lombardy Foundation for the Environment (FLA)
was born. In 1993 it began to develop research projects and
environmental education and training. The project “The way of
Memory” (2001-2004), realised with the environmental
association Legambiente, with Seveso Municipality and FLA is
composed by some products about Seveso history: the
archives, the documents, the press review, the photo
collection, audio and video material and oral testimonies.
 OAK FOREST
The first interventions of
decontamination were in the zone of Oak
Forest (the dioxin penetrated 25-30cm in
the ground). Remediation threshold value
was 5 μg/square metres. First layer with
pollution higher than 200 μg/square
metres: 3 intervention with depth of about
30/90 cm. Second layer with pollution
included to 50 and 200 μg/square metres:
two removals. Third layer with pollution
inferior to 50 mg/square metres: one
removal. Total decontaminated area: 43
hectares, depth 46 cm, volume of removed
ground 200.000 m3. The factory ICMESA
was demolished between 1983 and 1984.
 OAK FOREST
There was realised a system composed
by hydraulical and chemical control.
Two basins were built: one in Meda with
80.000 m3 capacity and one in Seveso
with 200.000 m3 capacity. In the basin
there were all the removed contaminated
materials, road, civil and ICMESA
buildings waste, animals and plants.
All the area on the two basins was
transformed in a park, where the first soil
layer was brought from another part of
the region. 21.753 trees and 23.898
shrubs were planted.
 THANKS FOR THE ATTENTION!

Marzio Marzorati
Simona Colombo
Samanta Serrago

Carovana d’Europa
Seveso (Milano) - Italia
www.caravan-of-europe.net
carovana.europa@fastwebnet.it
Tel./fax: +39 0362 1791601

Bourgas, June 2008