Ramat Hovav council head: Hazardous waste dump site violates the law

The national hazardous waste disposal site, in the jurisdiction of the Ramat Hovav Environmental Zone council, is among Israel's most important tools for protecting the environment. It is the only place in the country for treating materials that pose environmental and health hazards, and for burying them.

But today the environmental protection minister, Gideon Ezra, must decide whether the site has become a threat to its environs. Ezra is scheduled to meet with the head of the Ramat Hovav council, Giora Meyuhas, who has accused the government corporation that manages the site, Environmental Services Company, of breaking the law and polluting the environment. ESC director Dr. Eitan Zilbiger has called Meyuhas' allegations "slanderous."

The meeting at Ezra's office was called after a series of harsh letters from Meyuhas in recent weeks containing allegations against ESC.

One of Meyuhas' more serious charges was that ESC's reports are inflating the amounts of waste it has to treat, in order to obtain permits to operate burial sites at less strict environmental standards and at low cost.

"For years there has been a repetition of a modus operandi that is dictated by the company's being a monopoly," Meyuhas wrote, "and in which it deliberately refrains from planning solutions for long-term management, which is required of the managers of the only hazardous waste site in Israel. The company arrives time after time at the edge of the abyss and imposes on the ministry and the local council improvised solutions that endanger the environment."

He also says that air-quality tests near the site found the carcinogen methylene chloride (used as a paint solvent) in concentrations 30 times higher than recommended. Another claim refers to a new burial site, which he says was built without permits and contrary to Environment Ministry orders.

According to Meyuhas, ESC has not built a special facility for stabilizing toxic waste and turning into solid waste - in order to prevent it catching fire, spreading or vaporizing. Operating this facility is a prerequisite for opening the new burial site. There are therefore no areas available that meet council requirements and are suitable for burying waste that is supposed to undergo stabilization.

To continue burying the waste, Meyuhas claims, ESC is operating two older burial sites - in violation of all permits and while "endangering in its ongoing activity man and environment."

Zilbiger said this week that a stabilization facility is a complicated business venture that has been undertaken in few countries, but that if negotiations for a procurement deal are successful, the facility will be operational within 18 months.

During a discussion a month ago at the Ramat Hovav council, Meyuhas announced that its planning and building committee would no longer consider applications to add "environmentally sub-standard" burial space until Ezra addresses the issue. The Health Ministry representative on the council, Hadassa Eden, said that the Environment Ministry has a conflict of interest since it both owns and monitors ESC. She suggested making another ministry responsible for the company. Meyuhas accepted her suggestion and said he would propose it to Ezra.

In a furious letter to Ezra, Zilbiger denied Meyuhas' allegations: ESC has in the past decade generated a revolution in hazardous waste management and made it environmentally safer, he says. It meticulously abides by legal permits, and is not using the new burial site it built until the necessary permit arrives. The substance methylene chloride was not emitted from the ESC site, he adds, and expects a repeat test soon to prove this.

Zilbiger termed "slanderous" Meyuhas' allegation that ESC is padding the reports of waste amounts it is supposed to handle, adding that the company is supervised closely by the Environment Ministry.

He also termed slanderous the claim that ESC imposes questionable solutions by exploiting its power as the only site in Israel.