Argentine Environment Authority Cracks Down on Corporate Contamination with Massive Police Force

Buenos Aires – September 10, 2008 The Argentine National Environmental Authority (SAYDS), with over 40 inspection teams in 50 vehicles, accompanied by 100 national guardsman, and bus load of federal and city police, carried out a surprise-raid on 34 contaminating industries, in the Matanza-Riachuelo river basin, to verify industrial compliance with environmental laws and norms.

The crackdown on industries which included leather tanneries, food packing plants, vehicle junk-yards, and chemical producers, was accompanied by a court order from Federal Circuit Judge Luis Armella, and follows a recent verdict by the Supreme Court in which the River Basin Authority, a multi-jurisdictional body headed by the SAYDS and tasked with the river clean-up program, must inspect the totality of companies contaminating the basin.

Of the 34 inspections, two companies, a meat packing facility and a leather tannery, were immediately ordered shut due to findings of infraganti violations of the environmental code, including direct toxic spillages into water ways, and improper citing of facilities in floodlands, placing the lives and health of workers and the community in danger.

Judge Armella extended the court order to the Environment Secretary, Romina Picolotti, to intercede in 6 municipalities of the basin, following her request to intervene a list of renegade companies that refused to allow SAYDS inspectors on their premises. The SAYDS recently informed the court that they had identified at least 4,103 companies that released toxins into the river system with absolutely no treatment. Judge Armella accompanied the task force in the raid.

A recent Supreme Court ruling established that Picolotti would have to respond to non-compliance of any of the parts of the 15-year clean-up plan under the responsibility of the multi-jurisdictional basin authority, with her personal patrimony. In the sentence, the Court set stringent deadlines for the River Basin Authority, to put its clean-up plan in motion.

Picolotti had requested a clarification of verdict to the Supreme Court, as it ordered materially impossible deadlines and actions, including the full inspection of the totality of industries in the Basin, which range somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000, in merely 30 days.

The Supreme Court rejected the clarification request, but Picolotti and the other Basin Authority members have since met several times with the Federal Circuit judge to discuss the feasibility of the verdict, and precisely just how it will be interpreted. The Federal Circuit Judge is open to negotiate the interpretation of the sentence, and as such, the clean -up plan, and crackdown, as was clear yesterday, is moving forward.

The firm Court position for many is a guarantee that the Executive river clean-up plan designed by the SAYDS will have institutional checks in place and constant pressure from the Judiciary, over its 15-year lifespan, lending credence to the 7 million+ residents that they can expect real results. Last week, Judge Armella rejected two appeals by Tagsa and Orvol, two multinational companies, who have resisted an order by the SAYDS to relocate away from the basin.

The 34 industries inspected, save for the two that were ordered immediately closed, have until January 2, 2009 to introduce necessary reforms to permanent y cease contamination.

More Information

Jorge Daniel Taillant
jdtaillant@cedha.org.ar
Tel. +54 9 11 6729 5466