4. ANALYSIS
4.2. From livelihood to health hazard
There is a long period, about 20 years without news concerning asbestos or Paakkila. The community lived a low-profile life in Paakkila, perhaps wanted to forget the bad memories and personal losses but there was no discussion about risk that however, that did not disappear. The environmental awakening can be seen in Paakkila from increased reporting.
In the 1974 to 1977, the reporting had a minor peak because of the closure but from 1996 forward till early 2000 the reporting exploded. The environmental awakening did not rise in the 1960s in Paakkila because the movement was started by the youth who lived in cities whereas Paakkila is a remote, rural village where the movements take to the streets later.
Another reason might be that the mine itself and its impacts environmental were never the case. Compared with other environmental disasters the asbestos mine of Paakkila did not have as wide impacts as the acid rains, hence they did not awake a broader concern. Based on the letter to Helli the research by Pohjois-Savon Ympäristökeskus in the 1997 the environmental detriment is constricted in Paakkila.
128 Cable et al. 2008, p. 397
129 Beck 1990, p. 190
Table 4. The number of articles in each year where Paakkila mine and asbestos was the topic.
Table 4. demonstrates two peaks in reporting about Paakkila and asbestos. Table is based on articles I have gathered; therefore, it is an approximate estimation. The first peak concentrate to the closure of the mine and the discussion is focusing on the economic impacts of the closure. Back then, it was a risk for the people’s livelihood and municipal finances. The second peak concentrates on the planning and construction in Paakkila. The municipality had planned summer cabin plots in the beachfront of former mining area. Suddenly, dead and buried asbestos was threat for the everyday life again. The sensation awaked a lot of feelings about purification of the areas that asbestos polluted, who pays the purification, and who will compensate the damages to plot values and the environmental health.
“I did not get any compensation even though the doctor had noted that my lungs are invalid. It’s not going well because Partek thrusted the insurance matters up on an insurance company named Teollisuusvakuutus that starved the people. Whole life they have given to the mine. Not when the compensation is needed there is no body would do it. All the closed ones died because of asbestos. It makes me bitter. This is the life as underprivileged.”
The first article concerning Paakkila and asbestos as a risk for health were on the 9th of June 1996. The headline presents the recognized existence of risk and how asbestos was experienced:
"Ruthless asbestos still eats away life in Paakkila"
0 5 10 15 20 25
1966 1974 1975 1977 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Number of articles
Number of articles
Similar headlines were in Karjalainen on the 6th of September 1996:
“The fear of asbestos gnaws the people of Paakkila”
on the 16th of September 1996:
” A curse hovers over the asbestos village”
and 8/1996 Nykyposti:
“The threat of asbestos hovers over the Paakkila – life in a shadow death”
In the background influences the environmental awakening that comes from scientific and legislative development over the dangerousness of asbestos. A reason might be that mine has not existed for a long time, hence it does not put people in position where they have to ponder between livelihood and environmental health. Another influential factor was the time. Asbestos caused many diseases that lead to premature deaths and decreasing amount of people who worked at the mine or lived there in its during its operational years whereas the new population had no historical connection to the mine. This when the environmental awakening materialized in Paakkila. In the article, asbestos is described being ‘frightening’
and ‘fatal’. After twenty years, people are relentless to express themselves and does not want to speak in public with their own name because asbestos diseases have been the reason why former co-workers and family members died.
The most active years of reporting about Paakkila were the 1996 and 1997. This is because it was the time when one person activated who lived in Paakkila in his youth brought up the dangerousness of asbestos for health on the 10th of May in 1996 when the bank had a forced sale of a summer cabin that located in the old mining area that according to him, had asbestos in its ground. There was not still one consensus over asbestos as a risk. Locals and people who were concerned were competing who gives the meaning and defines asbestos whether it is an environmental health risk or not and, if it is a risk, on what level the risk is. This can be observed from the opinion pieces in Koillis-Savo and Savon Sanomat on the 3rd of August 1996:
“Does asbestos cause groundless victims? This is exactly what has happened in the asbestos sensation of Paakkila.”
In the opinion piece by Kantell, he claims that the whole sensation is alarmist and that the reporters and other outsiders are spreading false information and asbestos is not a risk in this context because there is a difference in a natural mineral and dust during operational years
of mining. On the other side is Reijo Helli, who stated in his opinion piece on the 30th of July 1996 that asbestos is a real threat and risk for the people who live there, especially to the kids who are playing in that area because they do not know the dangers. According to interview with Helli there was an incident that was worrying:
IW5: “Kantell owned one of those quarries and he started some kind of scuba-diving company there. I went to look the area after I knew that they are selling plots there and he drove in front of me and asked what the fuck I am doing here. I was the one who started the sensation. That is why he was angry and said that damn you should be killed.”
The same, conflicting values occur in the newspaper articles but not similarly as above because there is a competition of values inside individuals. This can be seen from 8/1996 Nykyposti:
“The value of plots decreases and fear of health increases – and who will compensate all this?”
The people of Paakkila are worried of the sensation for different reasons: others are worried about plot values and others about their health. This was because the people of Paakkila were not a homogeneous group. It can be seen from the Savon Sanomat article on the 13th of June 1997 where the summer residents sued Partek because it did not inform the public that there is asbestos in the plots when the people were buying summer cabins. This is seen also from the article on the 16th of September 1996 in Karjalainen, where a local from Paakkila says that the locals do not live in stiff from horror. They have heard that there are no harmful amounts of asbestos, they have swum in the lake, and that life is good here. The people who worked for mine and lived there for their life did not do anything and did not want that any sensation will be launched because 20 years had already quietly lived there after mine was shut down. This reflects at the opinion piece by Kantell in Koillis-Savo in on the 3rd of August 1996 where outsiders are seen as intruders who exaggerate the dangers of asbestos.
“It causes an astonishing that the media and outside troublemakers are in the events with the scientists, but landowners and parties have been forgotten to invite. All these negative things we have gotten always from wherever and
whenever source and there are always outsiders that feed these negative matters.”
The difference between the people in Paakkila is seen from the Iltalehti article on the 7th of August 1996:
“Asbestos waste has lied at Tuusniemi for a long time. People are not even warned about danger. There are new summer cabins in the area, but the waste is dangerous for health lays in the same ground as decades ago. Certain explanation for this ‘good old way’ not to discuss about environment.”
This demonstrates the people’s opinion about the risk: the risk is recognized at some level by the original locals but at the same time buried because looking back to the past brings up the negative memories and the risk had decreased from the operational years while the new movers wanted to know the dangers that lies in ground and water.
Defining the risk by Finnish authorities have a similar consensus, yet there are differences.
On the 28th of August 1996 in Savon Sanomat Finnish Environment Institute has noted that the asbestos mine caused and is still causing a health risk for the former employers and the people who live in Paakkila; hence it is a risk for public health. On the 30th of August 1996 in Savon Sanomat, the head of health control Raunio stated that after the research there is no acute environmental risk, but the risk still exists in for example in case of land use. The municipal executive board notes on the 12th of February 2001 an article of Savon Sanomat that building and land use needs methods to prevent exposure in construction. The area Paakkila is described as a beautiful place where nature is verdant, birds are singing, wildlife blooms, beaches are popular. Nevertheless, asbestos is seen as a spoiler of all this, therefore the area requires cleaning and restoring it. Another purpose of the restoration is to prevent that no people will contract to diseases caused by asbestos no longer.