Toxic waste dumped at sea blamed for rise in birth defects

A massive surge of birth defects at Italy's worst pollution blackspot, has prompted fears of an environmental disaster.

Six per cent of babies born in Augusta, an industrial town on Sicily's east coast, last year were deformed – four times the national average, according to preliminary findings of a judicial inquiry. The figure of malformations is the highest ever and is climbing year on year.

Illegal toxic waste discharged into the sea, which is claimed to come from a petrochemical plant on the coasthas led to a ban on fishing in the area, which has recently seen its first "red tides".

Augusta's problems are obvious as soon as you drive in, the air is heavy on the lungs, a pall of smog hangs in the air, the small local fishing boats are all drawn up on the beach.

When Roberto Campisi – the Public Prosecutor of Syracuse, the nearest city to Augusta, had samples of red mullet caught locally, cut open and analysed, high quantities of heavy metals were found inside them, including arsenic, nickel, lead and mercury. The level of mercury, which is highly toxic, was the biggest worry: 500 times the permitted level.

Since 1981 the finger of accusation has been pointed at Enichem's huge factory, when the first anomalous numbers of birth defects began to show up. A campaign by the environmental organisation Legambiente and local doctors has prompted more than one enquiry. But they have yet to reach any firm conclusions, and the most important enquiry has already dragged on for years.

Patience is wearing thin in the area: two months ago the manager and some technicians at the petrochemical plant were arrested on charges of criminal conspiracy and illegal trafficking in waste. They have yet to stand trial. Meanwhile a group of local officials, including doctors and biologists, have begun investigating the more than 1,000 cases of birth defects in Augusta in the past 23 years.

"The data emerging from the investigations of our experts are extremely worrying," Mr Campisi told La Repubblica newspaper. "Our goal is to demonstrate the relationship between the discharges from the plant and the deformities."

The task of persuading judges of an irrefutable link between the discharges of wealthy and powerful corporations and the sufferings of ordinary communities is a difficult one.

It was in 1981, after the appearance in local hospitals of 13 malformed babies, seven of whom died, that the first inquiry got under way. It concluded that the phenomenon of birth defects in Augusta was no worse than elsewhere.

A doctor at the local hospital, Dr Giacinto Franco, rejected that conclusion. "What we have here is a real syndrome," he said two years ago.

Nobody doubts that Augusta is in terrible trouble. Few people doubt what is to blame.