"May the mayor fight the factories not through our children" • Parents of children from Degania school in Kiryat Haim are angry

Mayor Kalish Rotem: "The school next to the container farm will be moved to an alternative building in the coming months"

The Degania school in Kiryat Haim, other schools and a number of kindergartens, is located near the container farm 1999. Recently, repeated reports were received from residents of Kiryat Haim about bad smells rising in the area, which later turned out to be a leak from the container farm, a leak that was not reported at the time it occurred.

Residents of Kiryat Haim went on a demonstration in order to demand a solution for the school, whose location they claim puts the students at risk.

This cry is added to the ongoing cry to clean up the Haifa Bay from the polluting factories, which endanger the health of the residents, and let's not forget the disaster in Beirut which strengthened the residents' concern about the danger hovering over the entire Haifa Bay.

Following these demonstrations, Mayor Kalish held a tour of Kiryat Haim, and announced that she would work to move the school to an alternative complex, within a few months.

The municipality said: "The required solution is to move the container farm, and therefore we will not give up and we will not let up until the farm is removed from the metropolis and the residents of Kiryat Haim can breathe easy!"

Related comments:

The students' parents:

"that you fight in factories and not through our children" • Zehavit Ben David, Chairman of the Dagania School Parents' Committee

It's not a solution, it's like putting a Band-Aid on a Band-Aid, if these children are taken out to another building, which I don't know where there is another building that will accommodate all 250 students, it's not a solution, As soon as our children are out of there, it will be a victory for the 1979 plant, and they will continue to work as usual while we suffer. The dear Mrs. Mayor thinks that whatever she decides will happen, our children will not leave this school anywhere, and if she wants to do something, that you fight in factories and not through our children. 500 meters from our school there are town gardens and two other schools and we all breathe the same air.

"We found out about it from a post from facebook"

As soon as the children pass, the school will turn into a white elephant and the school will stay forever, it must not be allowed to happen. The school is amazing in its beauty and behavior towards the children and in studies and giving, and to come now and take the children out of there after everything they have been through with the corona is not going to happen. In addition, no one approached us or talked to us, simply We found out about this from a post made by the mayor Facebook. If not all the schools in the area won't shut down along with us, we won't shut down the Degania school either. We all in Kirya breathe the same air, the fact that we are 200 meters from the factories and the other schools, 500 meters, it doesn't matter. The danger is for all of us, for all of Haifa and Kiryat.

The residents:

"We are trying to solve a problem by keeping silent" • Aliza Barkan, environmental activist resident of Kiryat Haim

"As a resident of Kiryat Haim who is aware of environmental and pollution issues, I can say that the matter of moving the schools away from the center of the pollution that is currently in 2018 due to a leak of fuel vapors from four tanks is a good thing. But it is impossible to talk about one school next to Regavim School, Gordon School, and the entire area has kindergartens. Not to mention the residents who live next to the tanks. Trying to solve the problem by a kind of silence, at least that's the feeling.

"Just throw out an idea"

The parents don't know at all what is going to happen, they didn't talk to them and they weren't told what the solutions were.
As long as there is no reasonable solution, no child will leave school. It is true that moving them even a distance of a kilometer is better than 150 meters, but it is only about some of the children and I am simply wondering where they can be moved. I go through the buildings that exist in Kirya and I can't think of a building that can accommodate the children in the area. You can't transfer one and leave the rest. Just throw an idea in the air and now there are arguments.

It's ineffective - The pollution reaches all over Kriya

The pollution affects us all, our war is for our health against 599 and we want the government to understand that it is necessary to solve the problem and immediately close the leaking tanks. We will continue our protest until that happens, andNo need to make transfers because The pollution reaches all over Kriya. It's not effective, it's not appropriate and it's not reasonable. Let them think well of me who come up with suggestions, especially if the parents are not involved. I intend to meet with the heads of the committees to think about how to proceed with the protest."

Professionals:

"The safety margins in Israel are similar to the safety margins in Beirut" • Yaron Hanan, risk management expert

Could be worse than Beirut

"There is a difference between 150 m and 500 m, but we prefer that all these factories not be in Haifa Bay. The whole topic of fuels is shrinking in the world, and even in Dubai they realized that it is not economical to focus their economy there. Israel is the only country in the world that for some reason did not receive the message. We have one fuel plant in Ashdod and it is enough. I am not interested in the gap between 200 m and 500 m. I am interested in the fact that in a populated area there will be no fuel tanks at all and no contaminated facility and no dangerous facility.

The safety ranges that exist in the State of Israel are quite similar to the safety ranges that exist in Beirut, especially as far as explosives are concerned, the definitions are not clear and even if the security ranges are used in Israel, disaster can happen. The security ranges need to be completely updated, and they should be in the range of thousands of meters and not hundreds of meters.

For example, in Haifa there is an ethylene tank, which holds thousands of tons, and it is located in the complex of refineries in Carmel Olipinim. If, God forbid, such a container explodes from an earthquake, bomb, etc., the explosion could be much worse than what was in Beirut, and this is just one example.

What is terrible is that it is nothing more than what they are going to bring. The new port is going to bring containers loaded with dangerous materials, some of which will be in containers and some in ships and the standards regarding storage are very easy and can lead to disaster.

"We urgently need to reduce the amount and not add"

As much as it is not supervised and as much as it is not transparent and no one knows exactly what will happen to the containers that will arrive at the Gulf Park, as much as they put such things without information and without supervision, it could be very dangerous. We urgently need to reduce the amount and not add, and what we are seeing is exactly the opposite, and it can't go on like this.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection released a report of a risk survey that claims there is no risk. We wrote a report that completely destroys the survey, what's more, the report only talks about the operational aspect and not about war and not about an earthquake, etc. It is important to note that there is also an disregard for the operational scenario Lots of parameters. And now all the industrialists in the Gulf are celebrating it. It's simply a scandal. As a person whose profession is risk assessment, I say with my whole mouth that the survey conducted is not professional."