The Hamburg-Georgswerder Dumping Ground, Situation Problems and Administrative Arrangements for Producing a Rehabilitation Plan

Abstract

During the inspection of the Georgswerder dumping ground, which was closed in 1979 and has since been substantially recultivated, the highly poisonous Seveso dioxin 2,3,7,8-TCDD was found in the persolation liquid at the end of 1983 and the public was informend. This is the first timethis has occurred in an old German dumping ground. This caused the greatest public interest — not only in Hamburg but far beyond its boundaries — in the environmental problem of practically incalculable dimensions involved in the special refuse from trade and industry which has, in the past, been dumped in what is, at least from today’s point of view, a negligent manner. Apart from the danger potential which it itself represents, dioxin has now acquired the role of signal substance for the variety and quantity of other pollutants which, because of the disposal methods used at the time, have not been destroyed for all time or at least have not been rendered harmless by making them immobile; instead, they gradually appear again as emissions via the ground water, the surface water, the soil and the atmosphere and represent a danger to people and the environment.