The killer fertilser factory, Fábrica Adubos de Portugal, fired up again last week after a month long stoppage due to the legionella outbreak traced to its plant.
The factory owners received a notification on 26th December from the General Inspectorate of the ministry of Agriculture that it could resume full prodcution.
This was the same Inspectorate that had shut down the factory as one of its cooling towers had proved to have been the source of the legionella bacteria.
The towers now have been cleaned out, re-inspected and given a clean bill of health.
In the December 15th final report on the legionella outbreak, the worst in Portugal’s history, the factory in Vila Franca de Xira was blamed for 12 deaths and the ilness of 375 individuals.
A few days after the outbreak, the Minister of the Environment, Jorge Moreira da Silva, authorised an emergency inspection of the fertiliser plant with a view to prosecution of the factory’s owners should there have been any environmental crime committed.
On November 12th the fertilizer company said that it knew the law and had rigorously followed inspection procedures.
On November 21st, at the end of the final meeting of the working group set up by the Ministry of Health to monitor the outbreak, the Director General of Health revealed that bacteria found in those patients suffering from legionnaires’disease were a match with the legionella bacteria detected in the cooling towers.
The inspectorate needs now to decide whether there is a criminal case to answer. If this matter is dropped by the government, private prosecutions inevitably will follow.
Comments
So ... whilst this uncertainty about legality remains this is your chance to get even with your 'vizinhos'. Or your local municipal ....
For example - having made sure the wind is going away from you (which Adubos de Portugal didn't) - just mix your swim pool chlorinator with the appropriate amount of hydrochloric acid. http://science.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-chlorinegas-with-pool-chlorine-and-hydrochloric-acid-407425/
Next week we discuss the mythical CIA assassination handbook and ask - "How can this help my (Portuguese) planning application?
This is yet another classic example of the difference in attitude to wrongdoing between north and south Europe.
In the north there would be a variety of 'crimes' or reasons for disciplining. Apparently there is no specific law for clean air yet in Portugal to cover airborne pollution. Obviously Brussels has sent one south but it has not yet been implemented.
The delay presumably because of the chain of polluters located along Portugal's coasts - specifically so as to allow them to vent 'out to sea' when an offshore breeze. Once a clean air act is implemented - would these leave ?
So no outside body had inspected the towers. Internal checks were just paper exercises. How often have we gone into Portuguese motorway toilets and seen the cleaning schedules 'forward signed off' for the rest of the day ? No one bothered.
So everyone will be cleared of 'wrongdoing' but a small fine levied. Private prosecutors will be treated like the Meco beach parents. Discouraged from taking matters further ... as being "un-Portuguese" !