MADINAH: A judge yesterday threw out a lawsuit brought on by about 600 people in the Hamra Al-Assad neighborhood of Madinah who accuse local industry of emitting dangerous pollutants.
“I respect the court’s judgment, but I am not obliged to accept it or convinced by it,” said Saud Al-Hujaili, the lawyer representing citizens who have filed the class-action case.
Residents say local factories have polluted their drinking water, and they claim to have photographic evidence of factory workers illegally burying toxic waste. They also claim that the pollutants have caused mental problems among 12 children born in the community and 12 cases of cancer. They also attribute a number of deaths to the pollution.
The judge gave no reason for rejecting the case, but Al-Hujaili says he intends to petition the Court of Grievances to order the local judicial authority in Madinah to hear the case.
The citizens have brought charges against the Madinah Municipality, the Madinah branch of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME).
Hamra Al-Assad is a mixed industrial/residential district in the eastern part of Madinah city.
The case has been in the courts since last year. The citizens have accused government agencies of obstructing justice. Newspaper reports published with pictures taken from the area embarrassed the municipality, which had previously denied the existence of any industrial pollution.
Madinah Mayor Abdul Aziz Al-Hussayen at the time denied that the local water supply had been contaminated.
“Pollution is an important issue, but the reports we have show there is no pollution in water wells at Hamra Al-Assad,” he told Al-Madinah newspaper last year. “In my opinion a neutral body should study the case. The Presidency of Meteorology and Environment can take samples and examine them to reassure citizens.”
For its part the PME claims that there is hazardous waste in the local dumpsites, but that the water had not been contaminated. Al-Hujaili claims that the PME is not a neutral body in this case and therefore should not be the final authority on whether or not the water table has been contaminated.
The Science Department at Taiba University had previously confirmed the public concern about contaminated water, but local officials rejected its findings.
The citizens claim that the water supply contains dangerous levels of arsenic and hexavalent chromium.
Hexavalent chromium was made popular in the film “Erin Brokovich,” based on a true story about a woman in Hinkley, California, in 1993 who investigated and sued the giant Pacific Gas and Electric Company for exceeding federal standards on the acceptable levels of the contaminant in the water supply. Brokovich won the direct-action lawsuit in 1996, and the company was forced to pay $333 million.
