8th Chemical Spill in Month Hits Rhine
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WALDSHUT, West Germany — About 2.7 tons of a chemical leaked from a factory into the Rhine River on Tuesday in the eighth industrial accident along the river in a month, officials said.
The leak of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a substance used in food wrappers, came from the Lonza chemical factory in Waldshut, authorities said.
The spill was discovered when a local resident noticed the Rhine turning shades of green and white downstream from the plant, Waldshut police said. Environmental authorities in Baden-Wuerttemberg state alerted neighboring Switzerland and France.
Company spokesman Friedrich Schildknecht said the chemical poured into the Rhine with waste water after an employee mistakenly left a valve open. The substance will break down quickly in water, he said.
Lorenz Fischer, spokesman for the Baden-Wuerttemberg Environment Ministry in Stuttgart, said about 15 pounds of the leaked substance were in concentrated form and “relatively poisonous.”
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