Sep 22, 2023 at 2:02 PM Update: an hour ago
Residents of Wijk aan Zee live on average 2.5 months shorter due to the current emissions from Tata Steel, new research showed on Friday. In it, the RIVM makes a direct link between emissions from the steel factory in IJmuiden and the health of local residents.
In the North Holland village of Wijk aan Zee, residents are most often inconvenienced by Tata Steel. Eight in ten residents say they are bothered by dust, odor or noise from the factory. This often results in a lack of sleep and anxiety, which, according to the RIVM, have direct consequences for health.
Measurements show that Wijk aan Zee residents also inhale a lot of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide that comes from the Tata Steel site. As a result, their life expectancy is 2.5 months shorter than if the steel factory had not been there. In other villages around Tata Steel, people live 0.5 to 1.5 months shorter due to the factory’s emissions.
That’s an average. The impact of emissions can differ greatly for individual residents, says researcher Leendert Gooijer of the RIVM. “The emissions can cause someone to get lung cancer and die prematurely, while someone else may not get sick at all.”
Tata Steel causes additional cases of lung cancer, among other things, reports the RIVM. The institute estimates that with current emissions, the factory is responsible for 4 percent of new lung cancer cases. This also applies to 2 to 3 percent of children who develop asthma.
The long-awaited research is the first to establish such a direct link between Tata Steel’s emissions and the health of local residents.
Emissions used to be much higher
Previous research showed that the number of lung cancer cases in the Tata Steel area is tens of percent higher than the national average. This may have to do with things such as smoking behavior, but it may also be that Tata Steel’s higher emissions in the past contributed to those figures.
In the new report, RIVM calculates current emissions. But in previous decades, many more metals, particulate matter and paks (carcinogenic substances) were released into the air around the factory. Anyone who has lived in the IJmond region for a long time may have suffered more health damage than this report shows.
“If emissions were higher in the past and you were to calculate this in the same way, the lifespan reduction would be more than 2.5 months,” says Gooijer. The RIVM has not carried out these calculations with previous emissions.
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‘It is possible to achieve health benefits’
In any case, the steel company is a major factor in local air pollution. It accounts for tens of percent of all particulate matter in the environment and up to 50 percent of the lead. More than half of the paks also come from the factory’s chimneys.
Air measurements show that the amount of harmful substances around Tata Steel does not exceed legal standards. However, the levels are higher than the World Health Organization WHO recommends. The RIVM does not say whether the legal standards should be lowered. “There are health benefits to be achieved,” says Gooijer.
The report, which contains more than three hundred pages, contains new conclusions, but also many uncertainties. For example, the RIVM only looked at the risks of individual substances, but not at the health effects that arise when you inhale a ‘cocktail’ of such substances.
Residents living near Tata Steel also complain a lot about ‘peaks’ in emissions, for example when a cloud of dust escapes due to an incident. According to the RIVM, these peaks are difficult to measure. Little is also known about the health consequences of short but intense exposure to harmful substances.
Tata promises improvement
“The RIVM findings affect us,” says Ruth van de Moesdijk, director of health, safety and environment at Tata Steel. “The legal and social standards for companies like Tata Steel have changed over the years and will continue to change. That is why our company changes with it.”
Tata Steel is working on various measures to further reduce emissions of harmful substances. But when asked, Van de Moesdijk did not want to discuss possible compensation for health damage in the area.
More than fourteen hundred local residents recently started a mass claim to demand such compensation. There is also a criminal investigation into the steel manufacturer by the Public Prosecution Service. That investigation came after local residents filed a massive complaint against the company’s management.
‘Bizarre and unacceptable’
The health damage that is “100 percent demonstrably” caused by Tata is “bizarre and unacceptable,” says Sanne Walvisch of local residents’ group Frisse Wind. “We think the most shocking thing about this report is that the RIVM determines that nowhere in the Netherlands does a single industrial estate cause such a large accumulation of risks. This really concerns a very wide range of different health problems.”
Outgoing State Secretary Vivianne Heijnen (Infrastructure and Water Management) also calls the health effects of Tata Steel “not acceptable”. But after the cabinet meeting, she also said that she had “no silver bullet” to improve things now.
The outgoing cabinet does want to look at stricter supervision of the current environmental regulations. Heijnen also wants to lobby in Brussels for stricter European policy.
2023-09-22 12:02:53
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