Haifa orders factories shut after report of cancerous pollution
After a Health Ministry report said that air pollution causes half of Haifa's child cancer cases, public pressure mounts, prompting mayor to order trucks to block entrance to polluting factories.
Haifa has decided to order a number of local factories to shut down after a Health Ministry report claimed that air pollution is responsible for half of Haifa's child cancer cases.
Yona Yahav, Haifa's mayor, said Sunday that "if the data is correct then we demand all work in the polluting factories end effective immediately. If the data is not correct, then government representatives need to come here and tell us why they have lied to the public."
Yahav explained he had sent official city trucks to block the entrance to the Bazan, Haifa Chemicals and other factories.
According to the Health Ministry report, over the past decade, of the 780 individuals in Haifa who contracted cancer as a result of air pollution, 30 were children.
The report also shows that the number of children in Haifa up to the age of 14 who have contracted cancer is double the national average; the rate among children of other ages is also higher than elsewhere in the country.
"The factories in the Haifa Bay never really bothered me and were simply part of the city's landscape," said Yuval Ben-Tyar, 36, when we met him in the Oncology Ward at Ruth Rappaport Children's Hospital (Rambam Health Care Campus) with his seven-year-old daughter, Amit, who is suffering from leukemia. "But everything changed when my daughter got sick. I started asking questions: Why did this happen to her? Why should she and her whole family have to suffer like this?"
Meanwhile, activists arrived outside of the Rambam Health Care Campus after the mayor spoke and claimed that his attempts to block the factories' operations were a way for him to "blur" his part in supporting the development of gas and chemical resorvoirs in the city.
"If (the mayor) really wants to do something, he should express his objections and participate in the appeal committee for these plans," said Hannah Cooperman, one of the activists.
Cancer: An increased risk
The move came after a senior health ministry official sent a letter to the interior ministry's planning department warning of a disproportionately high cancer rate in the Haifa area due to the operation of such plants.
Written by Professor Itamar Grotto, head of the ministry's public health services, the letter quoted Hebrew University research published in the American Journal of Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention which found "an increased risk of developing cancer in a heavily-industrialised sub-district" of the city.
The letter was submitted as part of an appeal against plans to expand oil refineries in the area.
"Compared to the incidence in the rest of Israel, the Haifa subdistrict population had an elevated hazard ratio of lung, head and neck, colo-rectal, gastric and oesophagus, bladder and cervical carcinoma," the researchers wrote.
"If the latest data is correct, we demand an immediate halt to all operations of the polluting factories in the Greater Haifa area," Yahav said.
The environmental protection ministry confirmed the Haifa Bay area "ranked first in pollutant emissions in Israel" while noting that the research was based on data from a decade ago and there had been "a 70 percent drop in air pollution" in the bay area over the past six years.
In a statement, Israel Oil Refineries said it had invested over one billion shekels ($255 million) in "preserving the environment and diminishing pollutant emissions."
The company, which describes itself as Israel's "largest integrated refining and petrochemical group," said "objective bodies" had measured "dramatic improvements" in pollution levels.
On Saturday it was reported that the Haifa Municipality collects tens of millions of shekels a year from polluting factories and in the past demanded to receive hundreds of millions of shekels for development taxes - a demand rejected by the Administrative Court.
A few years ago, the city of Haifa received a 75 million shekel contribution for the construction of the city's soccer stadium, named after business tycoon Sammy Offer, whose son Idan has controlling interests in Israel Corporation - which owns many of the refineries in the city. The city's basketball team is also tied in to Haifa's refinery culture - the team is sponsered by Oil Refineries Ltd., an oil refining company located in Haifa Bay.
AFP contributed to this report
