The former “ZACHEM” S.A. Chemical Plant remains in close proximity to areas inhabited by Bydgoszcz residents, including housing estates “Awaryjne” and Łęgnowo-Wieś, and the villages of Plątnowo and Otorowo. The soil-and-aquatic environmental impact of the “Zielona” waste landfill complex on local community life comprises the following phenomena: groundwater contaminant plume migration, pollution of newly inhabited areas, contaminated water inflow into household wells, and potential gas ventilation in the River Vistula valley. Residents of Łęgnowo are exposed to the greatest threat, due to direct contact with organic chemicals, frequently toxic, cancerous and mutagenic alike.

Bydgoszcz’s residential estate of Łęgnowo-Wieś was established in 1998, pursuant to metropolitan Resolution LI/893/98 of the Municipal Council of Bydgoszcz of March 30^th regarding recognition of the Łęgnowo-Wieś residential district as an auxiliary unit for the City of Bydgoszcz. Yet historically speaking, Łęgnowo-Wieś records span over one hundred years of tradition. Conventionally speaking, the estate has been divided into two parts: the district of Łęgnowo, formerly known as “Łęgnowo I” or “Czersk Polski”, and Łęgnowo-Wieś, referred to as “Łęgnowo II” or “Czersk Niemiecki”. Notwithstanding the above, the settlement’s earliest days date as far back as the 16^th century.

Residential estate Łęgnowo I was established during World War II, in connection with works to develop the DAG Fabrik Bromberg. The housing estate was formed to replace the erstwhile Olędry Colony in early 17^th century. A complex of 6 double-family houses and servants’ quarters, the settlement was designed to serve as a residential neighbourhood. An officers’ casino and stables were also built for higher-ranking officers of the Third Reich. In 1954, the former DAG Fabrik Bromberg site was incorporated into Bydgoszcz.

Łęgnowo-Wieś is the other residential neighbourhood located in the River Vistula valley. The crown estate village of Łąg existed locally in the late 16^th century. The village of Łęgnowo was established in 1603 under so-called Olęder law, the area mostly inhabited by German settlers of the Evangelical-Unitarian denomination over successive years, right up until the 19^th century. An Evangelical church and graveyard were developed in the village’s central location at the turn of 1910 and 1911. Polish settlers would replace displaced Germans after 1945. The post-Evangelical church was handed over to Roman Catholics, the parish of our Lady Queen of Poland established in 1968. Łęgnowo-Wieś was officially incorporated into municipal Bydgoszcz in 1977.

The issue of water pollution within Vistula’s fluvial terraces, within the administrative boundaries of what is Łęgnowo-Wieś today, has been known since around the late 1960s. Intense groundwater use by the “ZACHEM” S.A. Chemical Plant caused shallow groundwater, soil and land contamination across the area, rendering their functionality to local residents non-existent. As compensation for damages, inhabitants of today’s Łęgnowo-Wieś district were granted free-of-charge grid water supplies up to 18 m³/h in volume, all costs covered by the “ZACHEM” S.A. Chemical Plant, the indisputable shallow groundwater and surface water pollutant. Free-of-charge water supplies for residents of polluted areas imposed upon the “ZACHEM” S.A. Chemical Plant pursuant to the decision of the Presidium of the Voivodship National Council in Bydgoszcz of April 21^st 1969 were to be provided “until such time as the damages caused have been fully remedied”, i.e. until the completion of the treatment or-self-treatment cycle for contaminated groundwater. Former “ZACHEM” S.A. Chemical Plant liabilities as concerns environmental damage compensation to the local community were duly confirmed by the Municipal Authority of Bydgoszcz in 1981, “ZACHEM”’s motion to cease free-of-charge water supplies for residents of Łęgnowo and Plątnowo duly rejected. In a letter addressing the Chemical Plant, the Municipal Authority of Bydgoszcz justified legal and moral grounds of claims filed by residents of Łęgnowo and Plątnowo, while accentuating the requirement to continue supplying water “until such time as the damages caused have been fully remedied”.

State of environmental contamination on the former “ZACHEM” Chemical Plant site according to late 1980s data (to a drawing by Narwojsz, amended in 1989)

Following extensive discussions in Łęgnowo-Wieś regarding continued environmental impact of contamination generated by the former “ZACHEM” S.A. Chemical Plant, research commissioned in November 2016 by the Municipal Authority of Bydgoszcz produced responses to all and any doubts. Studies of water quality in shallow household wells in the Łęgnowo-Wieś neighbourhood proved that high phenol, aniline and toluidine concentrations have been identified in one of five randomly selected household wells. Indicative of the production profile of the former “ZACHEM” S.A. Chemical Plant, other organic compounds found in these wells had to have most certainly originated from this particular location only.