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German officials eventually confirmed the Dutch finding and claimed that probably no more than 300 lbs. of the chemical were involved. Investigators said that the Höchst plant was not directly at fault. They speculated that the poison was dumped, intentionally or not, from a barge.
The Germans assigned hundreds of men to find the culprit who could be held responsible for the lost fish (estimated at up to 40 million), the emergency shutdown of the waterworks and any reparations that the Dutch might claim. In all, the legal penalty could total $1,000,000, but no one could put a price on the possible long-range damage. Even though the swift-flowing Rhine is largely self-cleansing, it may take years before the river restocks itself with fish. There was, however, one possible benefit from last week's case of poisoning. It might well shock the four major Rhine countries—West Germany, The Netherlands, France and Switzerland—into adopting anti-pollution controls that could change the river back from a septic tank into the lovely waterway it once was.