Agency representative Bernhard Hammer said the dangers associated with those sites range from contaminated groundwater to dangerously high gas emissions. The government would supply about $1.6 billion of the $4 billion needed to clean up the sites, Hammer added.

Greenpeace's Matthias Wuthrich said much more money is needed for the cleanup, as much as $40 billion. The environmental organization is pleased with recent national legislation requiring organic waste from industrial processes to be collected and burned - an effort to preempt a scandal like that in which large chemical companies dumped 114,000 tons of solvents and other pollutants at Bonfol in western Switzerland over a 15-year period - although it has reservations about incineration.

Nevertheless, Wuthrich said, history has shown that only enormous pressure has forced corporations to clean up their environmental messes. The Bonfol site clean-up took four years and cost $228 million (Armando Mombelli, Swissinfo, Jan. 5).

Copyright, National Journal Group, 2004