In 2017, the cabinet of the then Minister of the Environment Joke Schauvliege (CD&V) had a proposal from the waste company OVAM to communicate about the PFOS pollution in Zwijndrecht. It remains a mystery why that press release was not issued.
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Why were the residents of Zwijndrecht never informed about the health risks of the PFOS pollution at the 3M site, which once produced that harmful substance? It’s a question that sticks after a saga that has been going on for weeks. However, there had been signals for years that PFOS was also present in the soil and groundwater of residential areas.
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At the political level, people were indeed asked to inform the residents, but this did not result in concrete communication. For example, the political steering committee of the Oosterweel Works decided on 18 September 2017 to inform the residents of Zwijndrecht about the PFOS pollution, according to mail traffic that De Tijd was able to view. In that committee were the relevant ministers of the Flemish government, such as Prime Minister Geert Bourgeois (N-VA), Minister of Mobility Ben Weyts (N-VA) and Minister of the Environment Joke Schauvliege (CD&V), in addition to the mayor of Antwerp Bart De Weaver (N-VA).
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The essence
- In 2017, the Schauvliege cabinet and the waste management company OVAM prepared a communication about the PFOS pollution in Zwijndrecht.
- It was ultimately not sent and it is conjecture why it did not.
- However, both Oosterweelbouwheer Lantis and the political steering committee, which included Bart De Wever, Geert Bourgeois and Joke Schauvliege, had opted for this.
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The steering committee was alerted that day about the contamination by David Van Herreweghe, the chairman of Lantis, the builder of Oosterweel. He expressed concern about the pollution on the Oosterweelwerf and feared that it would also spread over residential areas.
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In an email later that day, about which De Tijd reported on Thursday, writes Van Herreweghe that the steering committee ‘decided to deal with the 3M file urgently and to prepare a communication’. That steering committee was committed to pro-active communication. De Wever, among others, was an advocate for this.
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proactive
But not everyone was convinced that communication should be proactive. This threatened to cause concern among the population, while no measurements had yet been carried out to substantiate the danger. Moreover, at that time the pollution did not even exceed the pollution standards at the Oosterweelwerf.
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Not everyone was convinced that communication should be proactive. This threatened to cause concern among the population, even though there were no measurements yet to substantiate the danger.
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Determining who would be responsible for the communication was not easy either. Van Herreweghe passed on the request to inform the residents of Zwijndrecht to OVAM top woman Henny De Baets, with whom he consulted a few days later. But it was not clear whether it was up to OVAM to do that. In recent days, De Baets has been saying in government circles that, in her opinion, this was the role of the Flemish Environment Agency (VMM).
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Ultimately, the Schauvliege cabinet decided on 3 October that OVAM, like the VMM, one of its agencies, should draw up a message for the residents of Zwijndrecht about the dangers of PFOS, according to a leaked email. “We would like a positive draft of a press release by tomorrow about the problem of PFOS in the context of Oosterweel and how to tackle it,” a cabinet employee wrote to the spokesperson for OVAM.
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Press release ready
A day later, the same spokesperson sent a proposal for communication to the Schauvliege cabinet by return email. But that document was ultimately not published and died a quiet death. It is unclear why it was decided not to send that press release. OVAM is in any case authorized to send out communication itself, unless the minister explicitly forbids this, the government will be informed today.
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An information evening promised by OVAM for the residents of Zwijndrecht ultimately did not take place.
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Moreover, in the preliminary design of the communication little mention is made of the possible pollution in Zwijndrecht. That only means that ‘the local residents get the greatest possible interpretation’. For the rest, nothing is said about Zwijndrecht and the potential health risks for residents. The press release proposal also does not mention the information evening that OVAM would organize two weeks later for the residents of Zwijndrecht. However, according to Van Herreweghe, OVAM had previously promised to communicate about this. In the end, the information session did not go through.
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