Environment a Proud River Runs Red

By Jennifer B. Hull

Throughout history, the Rhine has been Western Europe's most vital river, serving as both a source of inspiration and a critical strategic and commercial byway. German Composer Richard Wagner used the river as the backdrop for his monumental operatic cycle, The Ring. Otto von Bismarck boasted that the stirring song Die Wacht am Rhein was worth three divisions to the German side in the Franco-Prussian War. Flowing 820 miles from the Swiss Alps to the North Sea, the river cuts a particularly handsome course through Germany, winding past vine-covered hills dotted with castles and plunging through a craggy gorge at St. Goarshausen. Legend claims that it is here the mythic nymph Lorelei lives, combing her golden hair and luring boatmen to their deaths with her siren song.

Last week the proud waters of Western Europe's great natural thoroughfare were contaminated, its legendary banks littered with thousands of dead fish, eels and waterfowl. The pollution was the result of a fire at Schweizerhalle, Switzerland, near Basel, in a warehouse that stored some 1,200 tons of deadly agricultural chemicals. Firemen attempting to put out the blaze accidentally washed some of the chemicals into the river, where they soon formed a 35-mile- long trail that moved downstream at 2 m.p.h. Before long, all four countries that share the river -- Switzerland, France, West Germany and the Netherlands -- were affected by the spreading scourge. By week's end it was clear that Western Europe was undergoing its worst ecological accident ever.

The disaster affected thousands of Europeans. Up and down the river, villagers who depend on the Rhine for drinking water were forced to get their supplies from fire trucks. In Germany, farmers from Karlsruhe to Dusseldorf scrambled to remove livestock from grazing pastures near the river. In Strasbourg, France, sheep that drank from the Rhine died. Police in Basel and other cities banned all fishing in the river and its tributaries until further notice.

Anger grew quickly as government officials and citizens criticized Swiss accident-prevention policies and Sandoz, the company that runs the plant where the accident occurred. In West Germany ex-Chancellor Willy Brandt recalled the deadly 1984 accident at a Union Carbide plant in India and extravagantly labeled the catastrophe "Sandoz-Bhopal."

The cause of the fire that precipitated the spill remains a mystery. While Sandoz hints at arson and others speculate that it might have been the work of terrorists, authorities are still searching for clues. The deadly effects of the Nov. 1 blaze, however, are frighteningly clear. Scientists estimate that up to 30 tons of chemicals went into the Rhine, including herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers as well as some 4,000 lbs. of toxic mercury.

For the residents of Basel the accident was a nighttime terror. It was just after 3 a.m. when civil-defense sirens sounded and police cars with loudspeakers began driving down streets, warning people to keep their windows shut. The admonitions, however, were only in German, the city's main language. "The Italians and Turks were all opening their windows to see what was going on," recalled Claudia Wittstich, a Basel art professor. When dawn broke, the city was cloaked in a cloud of sulfurous fumes. Chemical dyes swept into the river during the fire turned the Rhine red.

Concern over the accident mounted as the poisonous slick moved downstream. When the extent of the devastation became clear, European officials fired a barrage of criticism at Swiss authorities, complaining that they had failed to supply news about the accident for 24 hours and then had not properly warned neighboring countries about the extent of the damage. "The Swiss have treated us in a beastly manner," complained Neelie Smit-Kroes, the Dutch Minister for Transport and Public Works. The Swiss assuaged tempers somewhat by accepting responsibility for the accident and stating that they would consider paying compensation. The delay in getting out information about the accident, said Swiss officials, was due to a "misunderstanding."

Environmentalists were also critical of Sandoz, Switzerland's second largest chemical company. At a meeting called in Basel to discuss the incident, protesters pelted company officials with dead eels. The firm finally admitted that it had underestimated the risk of such an accident and confirmed that Sandoz officials had decided not to act on some recommendations, made five years earlier by an insurance company, to improve warehouse safety. Company spokesmen insisted, however, that Sandoz had broken no laws in storing the chemicals.

Anger among European officials was fanned further at midweek when Ciba- Geigy, Switzerland's largest chemical company, admitted spilling about 105 gal. of the herbicide Atrazine into the Rhine the night before the Sandoz fire. The discharge of the chemicals, which is forbidden by law, was discovered only after officials tested the river for pollution from the Sandoz accident. While a Swiss water official asserted that the Ciba-Geigy accident did not kill the fish, the disclosure increased demands for stricter laws regulating chemical storage.

For the Rhine, however, those measures may be too late. Scientists say the accident has biologically devastated the river along a 180-mile stretch north of Basel. Perhaps the most damage was done by several hundred pounds of the mercury-based fungicide Tillex, which settled into the riverbed just downstream from the Sandoz warehouse. It will have to be dredged up as soon as possible, Swiss authorities said, or the current may wash it farther downstream. "The Rhine will be dead for years to come," said Professor Ragnar Kinzelbach of the Technical University in Darmstadt, West Germany. Although locks and floodgates were closed to protect many of the river's tributaries from the poisonous flow, other waterways appear threatened. Dutch officials say the Ijssel River, which branches off the Rhine in southeastern Holland, is now carrying part of the slick. They also expect the contaminated Rhine water to enter the shallow sea north of the Friesland and Groningen provinces. That could pose new dangers for birds, fish and seals.

Ecologists have been working for years to improve the quality of the Rhine's water, but that project has now been set back at least a decade. Indeed, as the bad news mounted, even the river's legend seemed in peril. In a front-page cartoon, the German weekly Die Zeit showed the mythic Lorelei looking lost and forlorn. The reason: chemicals were making the maiden's hair fall out.

With reporting by Don Kirk/Bonn and Ellen Wallace/Basel