Excitement in Pernegg

The asbestos bomb is ticking next to the highway

Eine malerische Kulisse mit Frauenkirche und Schloss Pernegg - wenn nicht die asbesthaltige Deponie unter der Wiese wäre.

(Bild: Pail Sepp)

Tons of highly hazardous excavated tunnel material are stored at a landfill site in Pernegg, Styria. The site has become a restricted zone. Experts speak of acute danger. Was the construction of the S 35 messed up?

A deceptive idyll: the Frauenkirche church and Pernegg Castle form an almost picturesque backdrop for many walkers enjoying the fresh air on the meadow below. However, the people we met at the "Krone" site inspection are actually no longer allowed to walk on this grassy area. According to the state's decision of 12 August last year, a two-metre-high fence should surround the property.

At the Tieber landfill site, which has since been decommissioned, test prospections apparently revealed such high hazard levels that the authorities declared the area a restricted zone. Furthermore, the so-called aftercare period was set at a minimum of 30 years and the entire use of the landfill site was permanently prohibited.

However, before the state decided to take this drastic step, a lot of water flowed down the Mur River, which was only a few meters away. The "Krone" has extensive documents that suggest that environmental protection issues were completely ignored during the construction of the S-35 section, which opened in 2010. Independent expert reports show that the permitted asbestos limit value for an excavated soil landfill was exceeded by up to 500 times. The dumped material is also said to contain heavy metals, in particular chromium and nickel, far in excess of the legally permitted level.

Ping-pong game between Asfinag and Department 13?
At the center of this affair are the Austrian freeway operator Asfinag and the Office of the Styrian Provincial Government and its Department 13, which is also being targeted by investigators in the affair about dubious environmental impact assessments uncovered by the "Krone" newspaper.

The asbestos case in detail: tunnel driving for the Kirchdorf tunnel, which is just over two kilometers long, began on 15 December 2006. According to Asfinag records, the first asbestos fibers were discovered as early as February 14, 2007. This came as no great surprise to experts, as it had already been established years earlier during the first site investigations that the mountain contained asbestos-containing rock. And yet the excitement was great. Workers refused to continue digging for health reasons, geologists no longer wanted to take responsibility. As a result, the excavation was stopped for nine months and only continued after great safety efforts had been made.

The big question that continued to occupy those responsible, however, was what to do with the asbestos-containing rubble. The opinion of the experts consulted, such as a professor from the University of Leoben, was clear: "The idea of depositing it in a gravel pond below the groundwater surface (note: in the landfill mentioned at the beginning) is definitely not possible and would be a criminal offense." Creative solutions were now required: the state was also initially of the opinion that disposal at the Tieber landfill site was not possible. "The landfilling of this material is not permitted on an excavated soil landfill in accordance with the Landfill Ordinance," said Department 13 on March 9, 2007.

Facts

• Asbestos is a collective term for various naturally occurring silicate minerals, which occur in two mineral groups; the serpentine group (white asbestos) and the amphibole group (brown and blue asbestos). Due to its properties such as chemical and thermal stability, high elasticity and tensile strength and the wide range of processing options, asbestos was long regarded as a "miracle fiber".
• However, its manufacture, marketing and use have been banned since 1990. Asbestos fibers can lead to serious respiratory and lung diseases if inhaled.
• However, asbestos is only dangerous if the fibers are damaged or released - such as during mechanical tunnel excavation. However, DIY enthusiasts are also at risk. This is because floor and wall coverings from the 1960s and 1970s in particular often contain asbestos. Here too, the release of fibers can pose a health risk.

U-turn by the state
Then, on October 5, 2007, came the U-turn: Asfinag was granted permission to operate a landfill site for excavated soil. According to the expert opinion of the geologist commissioned by Asfinag, no asbestos fibers were detected - in addition, when calculating the arithmetic mean of the analysis values (chromium, nickel, cobalt) for the entire length of the tunnel, no limit values were found to have been exceeded. According to experts, this is a forbidden calculation game - as the asbestos-containing serpentinite only occurs in the first 500 meters of the tunnel and the average value can only be calculated from this.

Despite this and previous expert reports, the Province of Styria was apparently satisfied with Asfinag's explanations. And so the landfill remained in operation until it was shut down by decree on December 18, 2012.

It was not until February 2019 that things started to move again when an employee of the Bruck-Mürzzuschlag district authority noticed in a report by the Ministry of Transport on the follow-up inspection of the S-35 construction that waste management notices in connection with the landfill had not been taken into account. This brought Styrian environmental lawyer Ute Pöllinger onto the scene.

The Kirchdorf tunnel on the S 35

(Bild: Pail Sepp)

Expert opinion confirms environmental hazard
She wrote to the ministry - enclosing an expert opinion confirming that the limit values at the Tieber landfill site had been exceeded. This report was prepared on her behalf by Christian Scholler, a sworn and court-certified expert. In it, the expert writes of "uncontrolled tunnel excavation material deposited in the groundwater" and of a "potential and current risk to humans, animals, plants, soil and groundwater" emanating from the landfill. In his view, the approval procedures, operation, monitoring and finally the closure procedure were carried out in a very unusual way.

On the basis of this report, the authorities then arranged for test prospections to be carried out on the landfill site. The results were so alarming that the state was forced to issue the aforementioned decision. The fact that nothing has yet been seen of the measures ordered therein is due to the fact that both Asfinag and the construction company Tieber, as the landowner, lodged a complaint. "The file is currently being processed - in all likelihood there will be an oral hearing," said the provincial administrative court in response to an inquiry from Krone.

"Rock is identical to that which occurs naturally in this area"
The freeway operator Asfinag cannot understand the uproar: "The material deposited at the Tieber landfill is nothing other than the tunnel excavation material from the neighboring mountain. This means that the rock is identical to that which occurs naturally in this area," said a company spokesperson.

The responsible State Councillor for the Environment, Ursula Lackner (SPÖ), did not issue a statement, stating that the case was "purely an official procedure". Department 13 stated that the landfill was continuously monitored by the authorities: "Due to the known elevated levels of asbestos fibers, fiber measurements in the air were also carried out continuously for the duration of the landfill and monitored by the authorities." Asfinag's statements were examined by the authority with the involvement of official experts, and they were comprehensible.