Make India Asbestos Free

Make India Asbestos Free
For Asbestos Free India

Ban-Asbestos-India

Journal of Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI). Asbestos Free India campaign of BANI is inspired by trade union movement and right to health campaign. BANI has been working since 2000. It works with peoples movements, doctors, researchers and activists besides trade unions, human rights, environmental, consumer and public health groups. BANI demands criminal liability for companies and medico-legal remedy for victims.

Monday, June 5, 2023

Yale University rescinded comedian Bill Cosby's honorary degree for sexual assault but not of Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny for asbestos related deaths: Dr. Barry Castleman

Dr. Barry Castleman, the renowned author of Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects has been interviewed in a recent issue of Corporate Crime Reporter about the criminal prosecution of the Eternit asbestos billionaire in the Italian courts in the backdrop of the upcoming verdict in Stephan Schmidheiny's murder trial of over 392 people who died from mesothelioma on June 7, 2023 in Novara, Italy.  In the interview, he has discussed the greenwashing of Schmidheiny's image by the 300 years old Yale University which awarded him an honorary degree in 1996. The University is putting its own integrity at stake although Schmidheiny never went to study in Yale University. The only time he showed up there was when he got the honorary degree.

Yale University refuses to even show the courtesy of a response to the request by the asbestos families and victims (AFeVA) in Casale Monferrato for Yale University to return of all gifts from Stephan Schmidheiny under Yale University's official policy on the acceptance and return of gifts.  

In the interview, he has revealed that in its 300 year old history, Yale University never cancelled an honorary degree after it has been awarded. But it reversed its policy after it rescinded its honorary degree given to comedian Bill Cosby who was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting a Temple University employee in his home. Consequently, “The Yale University board of trustees voted to rescind the honorary degree awarded to William H. Cosby Jr. in 2003,” the university said in a statement in May 2018. “The decision is based on a court record providing clear and convincing evidence  of conduct that violates fundamental standards of decency shared by all members of the Yale community, conduct that was unknown to the board at the time the degree was awarded. The board took this decision following Mr. Cosby’s criminal conviction after he was afforded due process.”

But when it comes to Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny, Yale University is yet to rescind an honorary degree given to Schmidheiny in 1996 despite the ten year old call by hundreds of asbestos victims from Italy to rescind it. In 2012, Schmidheiny was convicted in Italy of causing the deaths of 3,000 Italians in the area of the town of Casale Monferrato, a conviction that was later thrown out on appeal after the defense made the argument that the prosecution was barred by the statute of limitations.

So far Yale University has stood by the honorary degree given to Schmidheiny who is facing another criminal prosecution for the deaths of Italians. The verdict in the case is on t eh horizon. The victims of asbestos related diseases want Yale University to not only rescind the honorary degree, but to return money given to Yale University by Schmidheiny affiliated foundations. In an October 2022 letter to Yale, an association of victims from the Casale Monferrato region called on Yale to return the donations and revoke the honorary degree. The letter said, "“Our community, Casale Monferrato, in northern Italy, has been decimated by the pollution from a giant asbestos cement products manufacturing plant that operated almost 80 years and closed suddenly in 1986,” they wrote. “The Chief Executive Officer of the Eternit multinational enterprise starting in 1976 was young Stephan Schmidheiny, whose family partially owned Eternit.” It added, “In the 1980s, Italian prosecutors had charged Italian Eternit executives with creating an environmental disaster causing the deaths of thousands and thousands of residents and employees in the town and neighboring municipalities.”. The victims stated that “As it became clear that Schmidheiny himself could be charged, and countries started banning asbestos, the asbestos billionaire sold and closed asbestos plants and mines all over the world and since then skillfully and stubbornly desperately sought rebranding. He donated to conservation groups in Brazil.” It has been noted that his book Changing Course in 1992, as chairman of the newly announced Business Council for Sustainable Development was endorsed by James Gustave Speth, environmental law professor at Yale University.

Dr. Castleman states that “Along with Yale alumnus and environmental lawyer Frances Beinecke, whose family’s philanthropy is memorialized in Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Reilly and Speth prevailed in getting Yale to grant Schmidheiny an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 1996.”  It is ironical that “Yale honored Schmidheiny specifically for his ‘stewardship of the global environment’ as ‘one of the world’s most environmentally conscious business leaders.’ Schmidheiny’s Avina Foundation’s financial contributions to some Yale programs on sustainable development were acknowledged in press releases at the time.” 

He says, “When closing down his dangerous plants in the 1980s, multi-billionaire Schmidheiny faced a very serious, very obvious question: am I going to spend money on making these sites safer or am I just going to abandon them as they are, exposing the local populations to horrendous health risks?”  He observes, “At that time, and at every moment thereafter, he made a deliberate choice against doing the responsible thing, against cleaning up the mess from which his family had earned a vast fortune, and in favor of greenwashing, in favor of buying himself a reputation as an environmentalist.” 

He feels that “In this way, Yale’s deeply defective gift policy directly contributed to thousands of deaths Schmidheiny caused and which are still occurring around the world. Yale sold Schmidheiny a comfortable escape from his responsibility to the people of Casale Monferrato and the other devastated communities.” He points out that “These communities were sold out not merely by Stephan Schmidheiny, but also by Yale.” 

I a significant development, “Starting in 2013, the town of Casale was joined by Yale alumni in a campaign to get Yale to rescind its honorary degree to Stephan Schmidheiny." Their letter states, “We are writing to ask that Yale rescind the honorary degree awarded to Schmidheiny and return all of his gifts from the 1990s to the present having seen the new information available.” But Yale University is refusing to respond to the letter of the victims of asbestos related diseases. 

When asked by Corporate Crime Reporter whether Yale University would revoke the honorary degree to Schmidheiny and return the funds, Yale spokesperson Karen Peart wrote: “Yale awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree to Stephan Schmidheiny for his advocacy of sustainable economic growth and development. The decision to award this degree was made by a committee in 1996” but did not respond to the letter from the victims calling on Yale to revoke the degree and return the money.

Dr Castelam says, “This has been going on for ten years now. One of the things they told us initially is that they have never taken back an honorary degree and they have been giving honorary degrees since the 1700s. And then Bill Cosby got nailed for sexual assault and they took his honorary degree back in a heartbeat. At the time, we asked – why are you taking back Bill Cosby’s honorary degree but not a man whose business resulted in the deaths of people?”

There was a letter of support sent by nineteen Yale alumni led by a medical expert on asbestos in the United States in October 2022 but Yale has not responded as yet. 

 

 



Sunday, April 30, 2023

BANI endorses appeal of UN experts to support listing of hazardous chemicals like chrysotile asbestos

BANI endorses appeal of UN experts to Parties to Rotterdam Convention like India to support listing of hazardous chemicals like chrysotile asbestos

Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs urged to support listing of chrysotile asbestos in the UN list

Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) endorses the call of the UN experts to safeguard public health of the present and future generations from recognized hazardous chemicals like chrysotile asbestos. In a significant development UN experts have issued a statement in Geneva calling on all Parties including India to the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade to adopt an amendment that would list hazardous chemicals and strengthen the international treaty that is designed to facilitate informed decision-making by countries with regard to trade in dangerous chemicals. These experts are: Marcos Orellana, Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights; David R. Boyd,Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment and Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation. The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms. BANI has been working on the subject of legal remedy for preventable asbestos related diseases since 2002.

Ahead of the upcoming eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Rotterdam Convention (RC COP-11) to be held in Geneva from 1-12 May 2023, the UN experts issued the following statement:

“We urge Parties to the Rotterdam Convention to adopt the proposed addition of Annex VIII, due for consideration at the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties in May of 2023. The Rotterdam Convention is an important vehicle for international cooperation. It empowers importing countries to decide whether to accept chemical imports and under what conditions, and it also requires exporting countries to respect those decisions. However, the Conference of the Parties has repeatedly failed to add hazardous chemicals to Annex III despite the recommendations for listing by the scientific body of the Convention. Annex III is key to the Convention’s operation because it lists the hazardous chemicals that have been banned or severely restricted for health or environmental reasons and that are subject to the Convention’s Prior Informed Consent Procedure. These failures by the Conference of the Parties limit the ability of Parties to better control the imports of hazardous substances. The breakdown of the science-policy interface mechanism in the Rotterdam Convention undermines the realization of the human right to science and the effectiveness of the instrument. Governments have a duty to align their policies with the best available scientific evidence. The Rotterdam Convention is an important tool to advance the right to information and effectively prevent exposure of people, soil, and water resources to toxics. Despite the desire and efforts of the majority of the Parties to strengthen the Rotterdam Convention, a handful of countries have persistently blocked the listing of hazardous chemicals. This situation undermines the international cooperation needed for the realisation of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

The proposed addition of Annex VIII will unblock the paralysis of the Rotterdam Convention. Under the proposal, where consensus on adding a chemical to Annex III is not reached, States can list the chemical in Annex VIII via a three-fourths majority vote procedure. The addition of Annex VIII will only apply to the Parties that have ratified the amendments. The addition of Annex VIII will further enable the Prior Informed Consent Procedure, which is at the heart of the Rotterdam Convention, to realize its intended purpose. A greater number of States and people will benefit from the Prior Informed Consent Procedure and the consequent access to information. This is particularly important for upholding the human rights of people in vulnerable situations that are disproportionately harmed by exposure to hazardous chemicals. We call on Parties to adopt the amendment proposed by Switzerland, Mali and Australia, and co-sponsored by others. We need bold actions that will keep our institutions and instruments relevant and fit to address the serious risks and harms posed by chemicals to human rights, human health and environmental integrity.”

In a related development, a letter has been sent to India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs urging it to support listing of chrysotile asbestos in the UN list of hazardous chemicals under Rotterdam Convention. The letter argues that since India’s Occupational Safety Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 recognises hazardous nature of all kinds of asbestos including the chrysotile asbestos and the diseases caused by it, there is compelling logic for India to support listing of chrysotile asbestos in the PIC listIt points out that Indian minister of health and chemicals has informed the Parliament on April 5, 2022 that “Directorate General Factory Advice Service & Labour Institutes (DGFASLI) under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, carried out a ‘National Study on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Environment in Asbestos Cement Product Industries’ from November, 2018 to February, 2019 covering 50 functional asbestos cement product industries of the country. Out of 2603 workers, 10 cases were found to be suspected cases of asbestos related disorders.” This reply echoes the recommendations of the UN’s Chemical Review Committee of the Rotterdam Convention on chrysotile asbestos. The issue of chrysotile asbestos has been on the agenda since COP-3 of the Rotterdam Convention.

For Details: Noura Humoud AlZaid (noura.alzaid@un.org), Halida Nasic (halida.nasic@un.org), (hrc-sr-toxicshr@un.org), Maya Derouaz (maya.derouaz@un.org) or Dharisha Indraguptha (dharisha.indraguptha@un.org) Gopal Krishna, Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) (krishnagreen@gmail.com)

Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Why India must support inclusion of Chrysotile asbestos in the UN’s list of Rotterdam Convention


 

To

 

Hon’ble Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA)

Government of India

New Delhi

 

Date: 25/04/2023

 

Through Shri Rajiv Gauba, Cabinet Secretary, Government of India  

 

Subject: Why India must support inclusion of Chrysotile asbestos in the UN’s list of Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade 

 

Sir/Madam,

 

With reference to the upcoming eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure (PIC) for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (RC COP-11) to be held in Geneva from 1-12 May 2023, we submit that there is a logical compulsion for India to support listing of chrysotile asbestos in the PIC list (Annex III) of hazardous chemicals because our Occupational Safety Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 recognises hazardous nature of all kinds of asbestos including the chrysotile asbestos and the diseases caused by it. We ratified the Rotterdam Convention on May 24, 2005. 

 

We submit that our minister of health and chemicals has informed the Parliament on April 5, 2022 that “Directorate General Factory Advice Service & Labour Institutes (DGFASLI) under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, carried out a ‘National Study on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Environment in Asbestos Cement Product Industries’ from November, 2018 to February, 2019 covering 50 functional asbestos cement product industries of the country. Out of 2603 workers, 10 cases were found to be suspected cases of asbestos related disorders.”  This reply echoes the recommendations of the UN’s  Chemical Review Committee of the Rotterdam Convention on chrysotile asbestos.

 

We submit that the Chemical Review Committee of the Rotterdam Convention decided to recommend to the COP-7 in 2015 that it consider the listing of hazardous chrysotile asbestos in Annex III to the Convention. The discussion on it was deferred from the previous meeting of the Conference of the Parties. The issue of chrysotile asbestos has been on the agenda since COP-3 of the Rotterdam Convention.

 

We submit that the inclusion of chrysotile asbestos under the Rotterdam Convention does not lead to its ban.  However, importing countries need to follow the PIC procedure. The listing of hazardous chemicals does not lead to any increase in the trade cost or delay the import/export process. The PIC procedure is the mechanism for formally obtaining and disseminating the decisions of importing Parties, as to whether they wish to receive future shipments of those chemicals listed in Annex III of the Convention and for ensuring compliance with these decisions by exporting Parties.

 

We submit that our minister of health and chemicals has inadvertently been put in a conflict-of-interest ridden situation because of his dual role as a head of a ministry that promotes hazardous substance like chrysotile asbestos and head of a ministry that has to regulate the adverse health impact of toxic chrysotile asbestos fibers.

 

In view of the above and in order to safeguard our country’s stature, CCEA ought to remedy this ugly situation before the commencement of the COP-11 in Geneva and direct the Indian delegation to support inclusion of chrysotile asbestos in the UN’s PIC list in supreme national interest.

 

Thanking you in anticipation

 

Yours faithfully

Gopal Krishna, LL.M., Ph.D

Editor, ToxicsWatch

  Web: www.toxicswatch.org   

 

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Asbestos kills: Trial of Stephan Schmidheiny, the billionaire who is accused of murder of 392 people

Eternit trial 

December the 12th, 2022 Hearing

By Silvana Mossano 

The release of asbestos fibres from the extensive area of 'eternit' roofs and the so-called improper uses of the material (attics, courtyard squares and playgrounds lined with compacted dust) in Casale exceeded those produced by the Eternit plant and the former Piemontese area where the open-air crushing of waste took place using a caterpillar. This is what the defence experts claimed at the trial taking place in Novara in the Court of Assize, where the defendant Stephan Schmidheiny is accused of the murder (with possible wilfulness) of 392 people from the Casale area, all mesothelioma victims. Claims were based on the scientific models and mathematical formulae, illustrated in past hearings.

Are the defence experts right?

Prosecutors Dr Gianfranco Colace and Mariagiovanna Compare asked the Court of Assizes to hear other consultants, in particular technical experts from the regional Arpa (The Environmental Agency) to assess the method and application of the models. Chief Justice, Dr Gianfranco Pezone, who considered these in-depth studies useful, granted the request, of a confrontation between opposing parties and theses.

As a result, at the hearing on Monday, December the 12th, 2022, engineer Enrico Brizio, current Director of Arpa for the southwest of the Region Piedmont, and an expert in modelling air flows and the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere, was heard; together with colleagues Luca Mingozzi and Angelo Salerno (Arpa technicians and already heard as prosecution expert witnesses), he analysed the work of the defence expert Andrea D'Anna, an engineer and full professor of Chemical Plants at the University of Naples. The professor's study was subjected to technical-scientific evaluations, on methods and ways that led the Neapolitan professor to the conclusions he had already set out and then reiterated in cross at the September the 21st hearing. Prof D’Anna had said: 'The pollution close to the Eternit factory comes from the plant, but in the city centre it is caused by misuse of the material'. The Prosecutor asked: 'In your opinion, does the crushing at the former Piemontese pollute as much as, or even less than, the dust fibres coming out of the cracks between the tiles of a roof?’ The professor had nodded yes.

Challenged the method

However, engineer Brizio found it inappropriate that the defence expert witness had used different parameters when considering the sources of asbestos fibres referred to improper uses (attics, courtyards, roofs...) and the sources from “proper uses” specifically the Eternit plant and the Ex Piemontese crushing area.

The regional Arpa manager believes that, considering the range of improper uses the professor has maximised the parameters, while choosing minimum values when it referred to the plant. Prof D’Anna’s results are thus 'immeasurable dimensions’. If he had chosen intermediate parameters for both cases, it would be another matter, the fibre release referred to the improper uses would have been far lower, in the order of hundreds and thousands of times, than those of the proper uses. 'Arpa carried out specific monitoring on the improper uses, but found contamination values that are not comparable with Professor D'Anna's results!' According to Arpa's staff, 'using the emission factors in a more realistic and plausible way, one would see a reversal of the results' indicated by the defence consultant. 

Attics.

According to engineer Brizio, Schmidheiny's expert used a mathematical model that is specific for roofs (more exposed to winds and other atmospheric agents), but unsuitable for attics, where dispersion conditions are different.

And speaking about roofs

Public Prosecutor Gianfranco Colace recalled one of the arguments that the defence consultant had insisted on (the dispersion of fibres from the roofs of the five barracks, in two of which there was even some dust) and evoked a chilling statement (not by Prof D'Anna, but by another expert witness for the defence) that all 'asbestos roofs degraded a few months after installation'. The PP therefore asked Prof Brizio: 'Did these asbestos roofs exist only in Casale? "No, they existed everywhere, and still do”. And yet, so many victims like this are in Casale and not elsewhere. Why?

Appropriate uses

According to the Arpa’s assessment, in Professor D'Anna's work some of the sources of appropriate and expected uses such as the places where Eternit manufacturing took place, had not been considered or were underestimated. He examined the production plant, which was in the Ronzone district, and the crushing site, but ignored the warehouses in Piazza d'Armi, the dump along the river and the 'little beach' on the Po.

The Eternit warehouses

Why did Professor D'Anna not consider them as a significant source of the spread of asbestos fibres? The consultant, who was present at the trial on Monday, 12 December, after Arpa's objections, provided a justification: he had thought that the warehouses, mentioned in studies and surveys dating back to the late 1980s, were all inside the production plant at Ronzone and therefore assessed this are as one, without imagining that there were warehouses even kilometres away. Those in Piazza d'Armi, as a case in point.

On Monday, after having had a good look, he found them, but nevertheless rejected the Arpa’s objections: according to the Piedmontese environmental protection agency, 'the Eternit warehouses had not yet been cleaned up in 1990 and were a significant source of asbestos fibres into the town air, contributing to the rise in the background value'. The professor insisted: 'Finished materials were allocated in those warehouses and no processing was carried out. That is to say: the roofs and attics of houses are a source of heavy asbestos release, while the piles of tonnes of unsealed manufactured goods in a facility with extensive 'eternit' coverage, would be so insignificant as not to be considered?

The timing of remediation

Had the warehouses in the Piazza d'Armi already been reclaimed in the '89/'90s? 'No, they had not yet been decontaminated,' said Brizio. The clean-up began in 1995. At the time Luisa Minazzi, a true Casalese, was the Councillor in charge of Environmental Affairs but she died in 2010 at the age of 58, killed by an asbestos related disease so could not be called. In 1994, the municipality had purchased the warehouses and had immediately arranged for the reclamation work to be carried out, creating a multipurpose area for exhibitions, a cinema and commercial activities [nicknamed Casale’s 'Lingottino' with reference to the conversion of Turin’s Fiat plant].

In 1994, Casale took part in a European Union Urban Project, and was awarded a project which made it possible to find funding for remediation, including that of the manufacturing plant at Ronzone, the most demanding and complex intervention, completed in 2006.

Fewer Fibres

"Monitoring carried out by Arpa in 2007," stressed engineer Brizio, "showed a reduction of fibres in the air in the city of Casale, even below one fibre per litre. This means that after the reclamation of the plant area, the air improved, while roofs, dust and courtyards were mostly still there. That notwithstanding, Prof D'Anna persisted in his conviction, believing that the improvement in the air was also attributable to the elimination of improperly used asbestos. How? 'People,' he speculated, 'in private spaces had certainly already started to remove roofs, perhaps without waiting for the Town, and in any case, they had learnt to be more careful, all the more so after Mayor Riccardo Coppo's 1987 ordinance [banning the use of asbestos in Casale, pointing out its danger to health]. Thus, in the professor's opinion, greater caution on the part of community would have limited the spread of asbestos fibres resulting from that mass of improper use which, in his opinion, was the main cause of mesotheliomas.

Those who were there know that this was not the case. The ordinance signed by Mayor Coppo was a much pondered and suffered act, drafted with scrupulous care with the technical support of frontline doctors such as Angelo Mancini and Giampiero Bertolone, also considering the impact that the ban would have. The ordinance banned the use of materials containing asbestos, even residues from processing, for the first time in Italy, but unfortunately was not enough to convince most of the residents that the danger concerned everyone, because people were persuaded that it was only Eternit workers who developed the disease, that the 'puvri', the 'malapolvere [the bad dust] did not affect the community. 

The awareness of the community and the subsequent reclamation was the result of a steady stream of deaths and tenacious work to increase awareness the institutions, which Afeva (Associazione famigliari e vittime amianto - Association of Asbestos Victims and Families), the trade unions, and schools carried out. Private reclamation arrived well after 1987, so it is realistic that the 1987 Arpa survey, which attested to a clear improvement in the air, was positively affected by the plant's closure.

Spiaggetta or paludetta (Beach or swamp)?

The 'spiaggetta' or little beach on the banks of the River Po was sixty-seventy metres long, and was reclaimed between 2000 and 2001, recalled engineer Brizio. Not even this had been considered by the defence consultant as a source of asbestos fibres, and he explained why: it was a wet area close to the Po and it is known that humidity greatly reduces dust.

Prosecutor Colace tried to find a suitable definition: 'Was it a small beach or a swamp?' Professor D'Anna, keeping the point on the humidity thesis, replied: 'Even at the sea there are beaches lapped by water...'. In this case by the river. D'Anna added that the beach 'was also sometimes flooded...'. But then the sun comes out, it dries and the surface releases dust as it cracks in the sun: that's what we had heard from eyewitnesses, those who evoked the happy summer Sundays spent on the local 'riviera'.

Was there dust at the former Piedmontese Area?

Are witnesses to be believed? Are they to be believed when they recall clouds of dust rising from the crushing area at the former Piemontese? 

The former (Ex) Piemontese was an area thus named because a previous industrial plant, a few tens of metres away from Eternit, which had acquired it and used it, precisely, to crush raw waste.

The defence lawyer questioned the dustiness of that area: it seems that the visual perception of dust can be an optical effect, he believes, linked to a material's light absorption properties.

Prof. D'Anna also raised doubts that there had been all the activity described by the prosecution. However, Prosecutor Dr Colace insisted: 'The bulldozer was on the move 24 hours a day, crushing scrap'. The consultant was puzzled: 'Is it possible that the Casalese plant was producing so much waste to justify that activity day and night?

He is absolutely right: there is a physiological percentage of waste in every production process, but so much waste... In fact, the Casale plant did not produce that much waste at all; but Professor D'Anna had probably not been informed, that the total amount of debris was brought together from various Eternit plants in Italy, concentrating all the crushing activity in Casale, in that area, for the subsequent reintroduction of the shredded material into the production cycle, through the Hazemag mill.

The skips (or dumpsters) dumped in the ditches

Speaking of witnesses, should one also question that of Rosalino Secreto, called to give evidence on Monday December the 12th? 

"I worked for Enrico Bagna's company between 1978 and 1984/85," he began.

Bagna's company, which dealt in general with scrapping activities, had a contract with the Eternit company to dispose of the factory's waste. The owner had confirmed this in the first Turin trial. 

"I was a mechanic,' Secreto told the Assize Court on Monday, 'I was mainly involved in vehicle maintenance but also in the processing of scrap iron. But there was a colleague, yes, that 'boy' there... Bartolo Occhipinti was his name, who must have died 15 years ago..., well, he used to go to Eternit and load the powder and scrap into a sort of skip or dumpster. And then he would dump them near the Po: there was a ditch, from which the gravel had been extracted, they said it was thirty metres deep, and he would throw everything in there. A lot of people went to dump them there, eh... even the building materials from the construction sites, everything'.

He explained how the operations took place: 'The skip was brought to the plant, filled, hooked to the truck and Occhipinti, who was in charge of those operations, would go and dump it in the ditch. Not just the powder, but also the mud from the tanks: they would let it dry, then hook it up with the 'spider' and take it away'. And how were the skips or dumpsters carried? 'Usually but not always covered, it depended on how full they were'.

Was the material thrown into the pit near Po treated? Treated, no; every now and then a bulldozer would come and level it. It would level everything’.

This dumpster business went on 'until around 83/84, a little before the factory was closed'. The factory was closed in 1986, when they filed for bankruptcy in June.

Since then, where did the waste, previously dumped in the ditch, end up? 'Well,' replied the former worker, 'there were rumours that they took them to Switzerland, France or Germany. There were rumours that they used them to make 'prismates' or large prism shaped artificial barrages with which to strengthen riverbanks'.

Undeterred, Professor D’Anna, tenaciously defended his work and responded to the remarks made by the Arpa technicians and experts by insisting on the data, citing numbers and his own conclusions: namely that the sources from which the largest quantity of fibres was released in Casale were roofs and improper uses.

What about the winds?

How did winds and air currents affect the scattering and dispersion of fibres? 

The Court raised the question: 'what can you tell us about the wind as a variable,' Judge Pezone asked, 'is it the same thing to have an area without obstacles compared to a more urbanised area, with buildings?'

The defence expert witness replied: 'The city centre of Casale has not very high buildings nor very narrow streets. He admitted that he had never been there, but had taken 'virtual walks using Google maps, such as Street View'. And he has seen 'buildings with a maximum of two storeys... and farmsteads with rural housing and large courtyards, but not big buildings that channel winds’. So, he insisted, he considered buildings to be insignificant... 'I imagined that there were not many tall buildings in Casale between 1970 and the 80s that would have forced the fibres to linger.' the expert witness insisted and stood firm: roofs and misuse were the main culprits, and the urban area as he described it confirmed it.

What does the city really look like?

Well, 'Street View' is undoubtedly an interesting, a useful and convenient tool, but trusting it blindly is a bit unwise. His eyes could have better guided him in the centre of Casale, in the maze of streets where local authorities have had to make streets one-way precisely because of their limited width: too narrow for two cars and sometimes dangerous. Walking along those streets, he would have been able to admire noble palaces of three, four, five storeys next to streets such as - to cite just a few examples – via Roma, Mameli, Benvenuto Sangiorgio, Saffi, Liutprando, Lanza, Garibaldi, Paleologi, Canina, Corso Trento or Indipendenza or Giovane Italia or Valentino where only the names have changed over time, because the urban layout has been the same for centuries. In the outskirts, then, the streets are a little wider but the buildings have six, seven, or even eight storeys.

A real visit to Casale is well worth it, to realise, without a virtual lens, that it is a beautiful city, with tall, ancient palazzos clustered on charming, narrow, and sometimes winding streets. This is the layout. A beautiful city, yes, and more hapless than others where, even there, asbestos roofs were and still are, but mesothelioma is not at all so frequent, indeed it is even an unknown word.

There, in those picturesque streets, among those buildings and under the porticoes, the professor could meet some polite people who, with dignity and tenacity, and without anger, invoke only a cure and the recognition of a wrong suffered. For truth, without hiding it and without revenge.

NEXT HEARINGS

The last confrontation between PP and defence expert witnesses will take place at the hearing on January the 16th 2023.

Then, Chief Justice  Pezone will declare the trial phase closed and open the closing speeches. On  January the 30th , Prosecutors Colace and Mariagiovanna Compare are expected to begin.

https://www.silmos.it/amianto-nellaria-larpa-le-deduzioni-della-difesa-sono-basate-su-modelli-sbagliati/


Blog Archive