Rhine Cleanup a 10-Year Job, Officials Say

Swiss environmental officials said today that the Rhine River will need up to 10 years to regain its ecological balance after a poisonous spill from a Swiss chemical plant fire two weeks ago.

Runoff from water used to fight the fire at a Sandoz company warehouse near Basel carried 30 tons of chemicals into the river. The pollutants drifted down the 820-mile river into the North Sea, killing half a million fish, harming other aquatic life and posing a threat to drinking water.

Basel fishery inspector Walter Herrmann said fish are likely to be reintroduced into the river only “several years” from now, after other aquatic life on which they feed has regenerated.

Could Be Decade

Thirty-four fish species are to be reintroduced into the river but it could take a decade before their number is up to what it was before the fire, Herrmann told The Associated Press.

The biggest immediate problem is the residue of toxic waste on the river floor, he said.

For the recovery to begin, microorganisms have to drift into the polluted stretches from upstream or tributaries, federal environmental official Peter Perret said in an interview published today in the Basler Zeitung newspaper.

The process could bring the level of aquatic life back to normal in six to 10 years, Perret was quoted as saying.

Entering Food Chain

A West German environmental group said that although the immediate crisis may be over, the toxic chemicals that settled on the river floor or flowed into the North Sea eventually will enter the food chain through the fish.

The group, the Union for the Environment and Protection of Nature, called for demonstrations at several Rhine bridges in North Rhine-Westphalia state during the weekend. The group originally scheduled a protest for today near Dusseldorf, but then postponed it.

The protests seek to focus attention on allegedly lax safety measures in chemical industries.

Environmentalists in the Alsace region of France plan similar protests for Sunday, including the laying of wreaths on the Rhine’s banks in a symbolic funeral for the waterway.