Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
environmental disaster, the population suffered from short-term effects (almost 450
persons were found affected by skin lesions or chloracne) and long term, since it was
recorded and proved the increase of serious diseases caused by exposure to
pollutants.
The Seveso accident highlighted the lack of adequate inspections in industries
with high risk but the need for a legislation on industrial risks prevention at a
European level.
25
In fact, accidents in the production of trichlorophenol had
occurred repeatedly in the past (in Germany, the Netherlands, France) and factories
such as ICMESA were present in all countries of the European Community. After
Seveso, the European Community put the problem of dealing with various aspects
of these types of hazards and accidents: safety standards, inspections, monitoring
tools, the procedures for the determination of penal liability and of civil penalties.
The result was the adoption in 1982 of the
rst Seveso Directive, a set of rules
which applied speci
cally to the risks and consequences that would have been
registered from major industrial accidents.
Meanwhile, the growing energy needs and the oil crisis caused by the rising cost
of crude oil, led many countries to step up the exploitation of energy produced
through nuclear power. In early 1970s, the European Nuclear Agency, renamed to
Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), began a new phase, by paying greater attention
to coordination of national programs but also to the issues of safety and respect of
environmental legislations that was meanwhile adopted by national governments
under the pressure of the environmental organizations. Also the United States
operated a reorganization of their structures for the control of atomic energy
industry, creating in 1974 a special government agency, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC). The old Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was later replaced
by the Energy Research and Development Administration, which in 1977 became
the United States Department of Energy.
The question of the security of nuclear facilities became an urgent necessity
when some serious accidents occurred in some major industrial sites for the pro-
duction of atomic energy. In 1973 the nuclear power plants in the British Windscale
were again the scene of an accident. The best known accident, however, happened a
few years after in the United States in the nuclear power plant of Three Mile Island,
located close to Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania. In March 1979, a major
reactor accident at the plant caused the release of signi
cant amount of radiations.
Even if there were not victims and were avoided more serious consequences, such
as the total meltdown of the reactor core, the Three Mile Island accident was the
most severe ever recorded in U.S. history, brought about great alarm throughout
the country and all over the world. As for the Windscale site, despite requests from
the environmental groups to proceed with its decommissioning, it remained active
and, in 1981, for reasons of image it was decided to change its name to Sella
eld.
26
25
Centemeri (
1996
).
26
Sells et al. (
1982
) and Walker (
2004
).
