Haifa official arrested after blocking refinery access

Police arrested a Haifa Municipality official on Sunday for blocking access to the city’s petrochemical plants.

The official, the manager of the city’s vehicle fleet, was accused of using automobiles belonging to the municipality to prevent trucks from delivering goods to the industrial zone, according to the Walla news site.

Along with Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav, the administrator blockaded roads leading to the Israel Oil Refineries and Petroleum & Energy Infrastructures plants following a Health Ministry warning last week that linked high cancer rates in the city to air pollution from nearby factories.

“From now on, no tankers will have access to the factories,” Yahav said in remarks relayed by his office, which said five factories had been ordered shut down by the mayor.

The move came after a senior Health Ministry official sent a letter to the Interior Ministry’s Planning Department warning of a disproportionately high rate of cancer in the Haifa area that could be linked to the operation of the petrochemical plants.

Written by Professor Itamar Grotto, head of the ministry’s public health department, the letter quoted Hebrew University research published in the American Journal of Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention, which found “an increased risk of developing cancer in a heavily-industrialized sub-district” of the city.

The letter was submitted as part of an appeal against plans to expand oil refineries in the area.

“Compared to the incidence in the rest of Israel, the Haifa subdistrict population had an elevated hazard ratio of lung, head and neck, colo-rectal, gastric and esophagus, bladder and cervical carcinoma,” the researchers wrote.

“If the latest data is correct, we demand an immediate halt to all operations of the polluting factories in the Greater Haifa area,” Yahav said.

The Environmental Protection Ministry confirmed the Haifa Bay area “ranked first in pollutant emissions in Israel,” while noting that the research was based on data from a decade ago and there had been “a 700-percent drop in air pollution” in the bay area over the past six years.

In a statement, Israel Oil Refineries said it had invested over 1 billion shekels ($255 million) in “preserving the environment and diminishing pollutant emissions.”

The company, which describes itself as Israel’s “largest integrated refining and petrochemical group,” said “objective bodies” had measured “dramatic improvements” in pollution levels.