Poisoned Paradise

The other night, watching a program that usually deals with supernatural themes (I like a good ghost story), they brought up this story. I don't remember hearing about it when it happened, but it made me think about how singular Spain and Spanish industry are. Or were, if we're lucky. I have been to the Pyrenees and they have awed me. Every green corner and rolling stream look like man has never touched it. But down in their foothills, in the province of Huesca, near Jaca, the town of Sabiñánigo is invisibly ill. Man has imposed himself with his poisons on this land. This is where the chemical company, Inquinosa, spewed its poison for almost twenty years.

In 1975 the company set up a factory to make lindane. This is an organochlorine that was first synthesized in 1825 by Michael Faraday, pioneer in electrochemistry and electromagnetism. However, it wasn't until 1942 that it began to be used as a pesticide. It has been used to treat almost everything, from food crops, to livestock, to seeds, to pets. It has even been used as a treatment for lice and scabies. In the fifty years between 1950 and 2000, around 600,000 tons were produced all over the world. But in 2006 it had been banned in fifty-two countries. By 2009 all the countries who had signed the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP), 169 of them, banned lindane from use in agriculture. In treatments for lice and scabies, it became a second-line treatment, to be used only after the initial medication doesn't work. And even that use has disappeared in almost every country. Since being discovered as a "miracle" treatment for so many maladies of crops, animals, and people, time has shown it to be dangerous. It was listed as a Category I carcinogen last year, "known to cause cancer in humans." It alters the nervous system, causing headaches, dizzyness, and seizures and eventually death if exposed to enough of the product. Lindane accumulates in adipose tissue and is a hormonal disruptor. Fortunately, as the amount of lindane decreases in the environment, it also does so in people within that environment. Generally, it was used in small enough amounts that it never caused widespread problems. The problem in Sabiñánigo is that the amounts there aren't small.

The factory officially stopped manufacturing lindane in 1992. But from its beginning in 1975 it had done everything wrong. It was not supposed to have been situated less than two kilometers from a populated area. It was less than two hundred meters from Sabiñánigo. It was not supposed to have been less than a kilometer from running water nor less than five hundred meters from a well. It was right next to the Gállegos river. It had no plans for recollection of contaminants and no plans for dispersal of toxic waste. In fact, Inquinosa was given permission to bury its waste in the local landfill of Sardas, along with all the trash from the local households. When that was filled, they were given permission to bury it in another landfill. There are more than 160,000 tons of highly toxic residues buried there; more than double the residue of lindane in all of Europe. Skin exposure to 50 milligrams per cubic meter causes death. And it's not just lindane residue. It's also arsenic, mercury, benzine, chlorobenzine, and a host of other heavy metals and deadly chemicals. There is an excellent short documentary here, in Spanish with English subtitles.

In 2014 extreme rains leached some of those toxins into the river Gállegos, whose waters are pumped for domestic use. The total amount of lindane in its waters rose alarmingly, and residents were all forbidden from using tapwater for consumption. Tanks with fresh water were sent to the affected towns, and residents had to go with containers to take some home. Or buy bottled water. Filters of activated carbon were installed, but many consumers are still not convinced, and never use tap water for food, or even to brush their teeth or give to their livestock. One of the landfills, the one most affecting the river, was moved to a carefully constructed pit, to prevent leaching into the groundwater. But many, many tons remain. And no one knows just how to decontaminate the area. The scientists, and the local population, await the advance of technology.