Fostering distrust

Throughout our research, we tried to dig deeper than the information available on stakeholders' websites to gain insight on the social-environmental nexus around Buna. This eventually led us to a renowned specialist naming one reason for the waterworks’ shutdown and the press naming another, while the responsible state agency was unwilling to get into any further dialogue. On the other hand, if groundwater contamination really would have been a reason for the shutdown, for what reasons should it not have been mentioned anywhere? The question is legitimate, and we can only speculate on it. In fact, though, the shutdown is hardly accounted for at all, it just appears to have happened. This is in line with the general observation, that it has become very quiet around the Buna Werke since the Dow takeover. That might, or might not be a good sign, and certainly, many things really have changed after the fall of the Wall. Thus, we do not want to jump to conclusions too quickly here. But we would like to draw attention to the subject. Because, irrespective of the actual reasons for the shutdown, the question remains why the rather obvious relation between the chemical plant and the waterworks does not seem to be discussed.

The important point here is that the lack of information available and the unwillingness for dialogue on the stakeholder-side will foster a certain distrust among the civil society. This distrust is further fuelled by the questionably positive image of the plant that Dow promote (see Stop 6). Combining this with a very uneven distribution of power between local residents and an international corporation might lead to tensions in an already socially and environmentally vulnerable environment. Therefore, we argue that the local population should have the opportunity to be better informed about the chemical influences they face in their daily lives. Eventually, all parties will profit from an enhanced culture of dialogue on the chemical realities of Buna.