Toxic site in Klatovy - Luby
One example was a facility for preparing and storing pesticide mixtures located in Klatovy - Luby, which served the Klatovy district of southwest Bohemia. The storage facility is a small complex of agricultural buildings located in the centre of an inhabited area of the community with the nearest residential house several metres from the backyard of the complex. It is also near a river with potential risks in case of flooding. Though the village of Luby is not large it is on the south edge of the town of Klatovy with 23,500 inhabitants. The agricultural buildings in Klatovy - Luby were used for storage and preparation of pesticides from the 1960s to the beginning of the 1990s. 

Obsolete pesticides are no longer stored at Klatovy - Luby. However, the new owners of the buildings discovered the extent of its contamination when they tried to rent the complex out for commercial use. Chemical analysis of the plaster of some buildings was carried out at this time, and analyses of soil, groundwater and eggs have been carried out since. These analyses have demonstrated the disastrous impact this pesticide production facility has had on the area. Both the buildings and their surroundings are strongly contaminated with pesticides such as DDT, lindane, fensone and atrazine. Both soils and well water are polluted and eggs from hens reared in the backyard are contaminated.

Buildings contaminated
Samples of plaster taken from different parts of the complex were analysed in April 1995. The concentration of lindane exceeded 4 g/kg in the plaster of the main pesticide storage room. Concentrations of DDT were 10 g/kg (1%) in the preparation hall and the main pesticide store. Concentrations of atrazine were almost 5 g/kg in the preparation hall, 10 g/kg in the main pesticide store and an astounding 200 g/kg in a third room.

Arnika, a Czech Republic non-governmental organisation (NGO), arranged for samples swept or scraped from the floor of the buildings to be analysed in June 2003. These showed high concentrations of DDT (36 mg/kg), and lindane (4 mg/kg) in the main store room and preparatory hall. High concentrations of atrazine (9.7 mg/kg) and simazine (1.8 mg/kg) and extremely high concentrations of MCPA (1.3 g/kg) were found in an old oil store. 

Water contaminated
In 2000 the District Sanitation Station responsible for monitoring drinking water quality in Klatovy measured levels of DDT and metabolites in groundwater under the Klatovy - Luby site. Although these levels had decreased compared with levels measures in 1995 they still exceeded amounts the Czech government list as being able to adversely impact human health and the environment. Some other pesticides, including several triazine pesticides were found at several parts per billion.

Food supply contaminated
In June and August 2003 Arnika also organised an analysis of eggs from hens reared in the area. Levels of DDT were highest reaching 255 microgrammes per kg (parts per billion) and exceeding legal limits in the Czech Republic by up to 60-fold.

Other sites in Czech Republic
Klatovy - Luby is not the only contaminated site in the Czech Republic. Indeed several other places are likely more contaminated. Other examples are shown in table 1. Additional to these sites are those contaminated by non-POPs pesticides.

NGOs and local authorities in the Czech Republic are lobbying the Czech Ministry of Agriculture to publicly identify and state a list of former organochlorine pesticide storage facilities and their locations. They are also lobbying to ensure that POPs contaminated sites are cleaned using technologies that prevent the formation of additional POPs or the contamination of other sites.