“An accusation has been made, unlike anything the town’s administration has ever been accused of before” was how Dr. Eggert Wintert (SPD) commented on the claims by the BUND (the German branch of “Friends of the Earth”) that the removal of toxic waste from a piece of ground in the Eppsteiner Straße had caused health problems for one family who had run a shop there.

He quoted from the dossier, commenting on the fact that setting free toxic gases can carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

But he also made clear that to make such claims, BUND must be able to prove them and take responsibility for the consequences of making them, concluding that the way the dossier had been distributed by e-mail and social media that it had been designed to cause a scandal. [Read more…]