" Greenpeace activists blocked the entrance to the Haifa Chemicals plant in the bayside suburbs industrial zone area early yesterday morning by chaining themselves to the main gates".

"Two other demonstrators - all of them dressed in white overalls and wearing black gas masks - climbed a chimney stack inside the compound where they unfurled a banner denouncing dumping of toxic waste into the sea".

"The protest ended after nearly an hour when police arrived and dispersed the demonstration without having to resort to force. Fourteen demonstrators were detained for questioning and later released."
"The activists were protesting against the decision of a special inter-ministerial committee to allow Haifa Chemicals to put a further 2,000 tons of waste a month into the sea until the end of March".

"Ofer Ben-Dov, a leading member of Greenpeace, said the US-owned Haifa Chemicals, which produces fertilizer for agriculture, had for years been using the Mediterranean as a waste bin for its toxic sewage."

"The government should have symbolized the end of the current United Nations-declared 'Year of the Oceans' by halting this polluting business once and for all," Ben-Dov said. "Instead it is again insulting residents along the shores of the Mediterranean basin, especially those in "Israel", Cyprus, Egypt and Lebanon, by allowing the dumping of Haifa Chemicals' poisons in international waters."
Haifa Chemicals spokesman Eytan Loewenstein said, however, that "Haifa Chemicals has complied with all its obligations that were agreed with the Environment Ministry to cease dumping waste into the sea by the end of December."

"We are now awaiting authorization from the Environment Ministry regarding the site where the treated phosphate waste is to be sent. The moment they tell us the site we will stop dumping in the sea."

"Loewenstein stressed, however, that even if it proved necessary to dump the sewage at sea, there was no danger because all of the toxic materials, including heavy metal, would have been neutralized by the new treatment plant at the factory."

"We can't leave it at the factory, because we are talking about large quantities that have to be removed. In effect we were given formal permission that if a suitable land-based disposal site is not found by January we will be able to deposit the treated waste at sea," he added.

The Environment Ministry stressed that it had been instrumental in forcing Haifa Chemicals to develop the treatment plant and that once a suitable disposal site is found the treated waste would be sent there".