NATO BOMBING WRECKS BALKAN ENVIRONMENT - GREENPEACE
Date: 20-May-99
Country: Greece
Author: Dina Kyriakidou
"We are concerned about these missiles that keep falling in Bulgaria, reaching even Sofia," Stelios Psomas, director of Greenpeace Greece, told a news conference.
He said the bombs were coming dangerously close to Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear plant, risking an accident that would affect the whole continent.
"If there is one effect of the war that concerns all of Europe, this is the accidental bombing of Kozloduy," Psomas said.
Weeks of NATO air raids against Yugoslavia have destroyed petrochemical plants, releasing thousands of tons of toxic chemicals, he said.
Burning fighter jet fuel after thousands of sorties and fires raging unchecked all over Kosovo also added to the problem.
The raids not only polluted the air with dangerous dioxins - the result of burning organic with chlorinate materials - and radiation but also caused oil spills in the Danube river.
"Kozloduy uses massive amounts of water from this river for its cooling process and oil could block it," Psomas said. "If alrernative means fail, it would mean a meltdown."
The Danube delta's ecosystem was also at risk from the pollutants flowing down although the damage may not be immediately obvious.
"The real effects of this war will be seen a few years from now," he said.
Measurements of air pollutants in northern Greece in April, analysed in the United States and at Exeter University in Britain, showed rising levels of dioxins on days when the wind blew south.
But Psomas said the amounts detected should not alarm the public because dioxins are dangerous to humans only if consumed through the food chain.
"The problem is more serious for the residents of the embattled areas, who not only suffer the effects of air pollution but must continue to live in a heavily damaged environment," he added.
Information from environmental groups cooperating with the Greenpeace office in Athens, the only one in the Balkans, showed some pollution reaching Bulgaria and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).
Bulgarian environmentalists reported black soot particles in the air and on the ground from the bombing of chemicals factories six km (four miles) from the Bulgarian border, he said.
In FYROM, radiation levels had risen eight times over measurements before the bombing, although they still remained low and were posing no immediate threat to public health.
Although there were no figures provided from other neighbouring countries such as Albania or Romania, it was likely that pollution had already reached them.
"Pollution knows no boundaries. If weather conditions have not yet spead it around, they may do so soon," Psomas said.
