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U.N. Urges Cleanup of 'Hot Spots' Left by Kosovo War
Pollution: Study cites four areas in Yugoslavia where it says immediate action is needed
to counter effects of NATO bombing.
By DAVID HOLLEY, Times Staff Writer
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia--Urgent steps are needed to clean up
"hot spots" of pollution created by NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the
spring, but the conflict did not cause as much environmental damage as some observers
feared, a United Nations team reported Tuesday.
The Balkans Task Force study of major bombing targets
identifies four pollution sites where it urges "immediate action from a humanitarian
point of view."
Most of the pollution at bombing sites, however, was caused
by chronic sources rather than NATO bombing, Pasi Rinne, a task force official, said at a
news conference here.
"Perhaps 70% of the pollution had existed there
before," he said.
The study, sponsored by the U.N. Environment Program and the
U.N. Center for Human Settlements, found no evidence that the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization's 78-day bombing campaign released enough pollutants to increase the risk of
birth defects among the fetuses of pregnant women, said Otto Simonett, another team
member.
There were widespread fears of this during and after the
airstrikes, with much talk that pregnant women living near hard-hit industrial sites
should consider having abortions.
Examination of the Danube River showed that it suffers more
severe chronic pollution than most experts had believed, with much of that toxicity coming
from upstream sources, Rinne said. The Danube flows through or borders Germany, Austria,
Slovakia and Hungary before entering Yugoslavia.
Water and sediment samples upstream from Novi Sad, an
industrial city in northern Yugoslavia hit hard during the NATO air campaign, "were
more polluted with mercury than downstream," Rinne said.
Rinne added that Yugoslavia as a whole is "suffering
from the fact that technology used in factories is outdated. They have not followed the
technological advances developed during the past 10 or 15 years, nor have they followed
the environmental management developments.
"For both of these reasons," he said, "the
chronic pollution from their factories is relatively high."
Rinne stressed that the hot spots identified in the study
"should be handled as places where humanitarian assistance is needed," despite
international economic sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia.
The sites of urgent concern identified in the 104-page study
are in four cities:
* Pancevo. NATO bombed a major industrial complex that
included a petrochemical plant, a fertilizer plant and an oil refinery. This caused
"serious leakages of 1,2-dichloroethane (EDC) and mercury; burning of vinyl chloride
monomer to form dioxins; burning of 80,000 tons of oil and oil products releasing sulfur
dioxide and other noxious gases; high concentrations of EDC found in water of [a] canal
running into the Danube; high concentrations of mercury and petroleum products in the
canal sediments."
* Kragujevac. Heavy damage was inflicted on the Zastava car
factory complex, including a power station, assembly line, paint shop, computer center and
truck plant, releasing high levels of potentially harmful dioxins and polychlorinated
biphenyls, or PCBs.
* Novi Sad. This city's oil refinery was a principal target
of NATO bombing. Concerns now center on "the risk that ground water polluted with
petrochemicals from oil refinery could enter drinking water wells."
* Bor. Airstrikes targeted a copper mine and smelting plant
and a nearby oil depot. Disruption of the copper mine operations has led to the chronic
release of large quantities of sulfur dioxide gas. Damage to electric facilities caused
localized PCB contamination.
"It is important to ensure the safety of the
environment and the cleanup of these areas immediately, in order to avoid risks to human
health and long-term ecological damage," the report says.
The study found no significant war-related pollution in
Kosovo, which is under U.N. administration but technically remains a province of Serbia,
the dominant republic in Yugoslavia. It also found no evidence in Yugoslavia of
radioactivity caused by NATO use of ammunition tipped with depleted uranium. It stresses,
however, that "it is necessary to obtain information from NATO confirming if, when
and where depleted uranium was used during the Kosovo conflict."
Depleted uranium, a waste product of the process that
enriches uranium for use in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons, is a high-density metal
that is about one-third as radioactive as natural uranium. It is used in bullets designed
to pierce armor plating and in the nose cones of some cruise missiles.
A U.S. Defense Department news briefing on May 3
"appeared to confirm that depleted uranium weapons had been used by U.S. forces in
the Balkans," the study says.
The task force was unable, however, to get confirmation of
depleted uranium use or maps of possibly contaminated areas from NATO, its member states
or the Yugoslav government, the study adds.
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