Haifa mayor Yona Yahav urged Environment Minister Gideon Ezra to offer no compromise to offending factories.
By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)haifa bay 88 224(photo credit: Courtesy)
The Ministry for Environmental Protection has found frightening quantities of carcinogenic chemicals in the air above the Haifa Bay, reports the Hebrew weekly Yediot Haifa. In two surveys of air quality carried out last year, the ministry found large quantities of known carcinogens such as benzene and formaldehydes, as well as of suspected carcinogens such as chloroform and other chlorides.
According to the report, the air quality tests were carried out in June and in September, 2007, at 20 different locations in the Haifa Bay. The results were analyzed at specialized laboratories in the US and in Europe, and turned up amounts of carcinogens and suspected carcinogens that clearly exceeded the legal limits.
Haifa mayor Yona Yahav urged Environment Minister Gideon Ezra to offer no compromise to offending factories and to force them to comply with laws on carcinogenic emissions.
The head of the ministry's district office, Robert Reuven, said the ministry had collated a list of factories in the area that used or stored the carcinogenic chemicals, and had sent each one a letter demanding that it reduce its emissions of the substances immediately. Further tests are to be carried out this winter and again in spring to ensure that the levels have fallen.
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