Altötting: The eternal poison – Bavaria

In view of the huge problem with this poison, fatalism is not appropriate, almost everyone in the Altötting district now agrees. “If you look at it fatalistically now, it will never be solved,” says Robert Müller anyway. Because per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, PFAS for short, can now be found almost everywhere on earth. Even in Tibet, small amounts of this group of substances, which includes thousands of substances, fall with the rain from the sky and in the Antarctic with the snow. However, values ​​such as those between Altötting, Burghausen and Garching an der Alz do not exist very often worldwide.

Because here in the Gendorf chemical park, in the middle of the Bavarian chemical triangle, one of these substances was produced until 2003 and processed until 2008 for a wide variety of coatings and impregnations. Over the years, this perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) has settled here, in the soil, in the groundwater and in the blood of thousands of people. And Robert Müller, as head of department in the district office, has to ensure that people don’t absorb more of it. He is currently planning a landfill in which contaminated soil from large parts of the district can be dumped.

In principle, the PFOA problem in the region has been known for a long time, at least since 2006 when Greenpeace activists diverted contaminated water from the Alz to the Gendorf factory premises. Since then there have been various studies, and filters were installed at the first drinking water wells. Others had to be closed in 2016 because the authorities lowered the safety level for PFOA in drinking water. However, the big outcry only followed in 2017. Then a study made the rounds, according to which PFOA concentrations had been found in blood donations from the small Emmerting, some of which were 20 times higher than the harmless value. From then on, the donated blood from the region was no longer used for transfusions, but only for the production of medicines.

For a long time there were no binding upper limits for PFOA, but now there are always new and stricter ones. Production and processing have been banned throughout the EU since 2020. Among other things, the substance is suspected of causing cancer and damaging the thyroid gland. It is practically not broken down in the body, but is excreted slowly at best. There is currently talk of a half-life of three to four years. Whether this also applies to the Altöttinger will probably become apparent at the beginning of 2023.

According to Müller, the results of new blood tests from the summer should then be available and compared with those of similar tests on 906 test persons in 2018. According to the State Office for Health and Food Safety, 761 test persons had values ​​that could, but do not have to, result in damage to health. In any case, further intake of PFOA must be prevented, which the authorities have already seen implemented through the filters in the drinking water supply.

In the groundwater, on the other hand, the values ​​are likely to rise for years to come. This is the result of a study funded by the PFOA producer Dyneon and its parent company 3M. The substance will also survive in the soil. 190 square kilometers are considered to be polluted, a third of the district. The district office had recently divided this area into four load zones and decreed that excavated soil from larger construction projects must remain in the respective zone. In the meantime, however, the government is demanding a sealed landfill. Robert Müller hopes that a capacity of 600,000 cubic meters will be enough for several years. There is at least a fixed procedure for the pushing municipalities and companies who want planning security. So far, individual decisions have been made, as in the case of the Burghausen freight traffic center. The excavation for the transshipment station was piled up to form a noise protection wall, which will probably have to be removed and dumped in the long term.