More than 85,000 million liters of contaminated water to the Guadalquivir River

2024-04-25 22:29:29

Greenpeace and Ecologistas en Acción have insisted this Wednesday that the “toxic” discharge into the Guadalquivir River implicit in the new exploitation project of the Aznalcóllar mine (Seville) at the hands of the Minera Los Frailes entity, an instrumental company of the business alliance formed between Grupo México and Minorbis for the reopening of the famous mining shortcut”; will affect an area that accumulates the irrigation intakes of “36,000 hectares of rice fields.”

85,520 million liters of contaminated water

Faced with the theses of the company, which says it plans “a state-of-the-art water purification stationwhich joins the promotion of a new infrastructure network for the water management of the project”; to “definitively resolve the problem generated by the environmental liabilities inherited from the old mining operation”; the environmentalists reiterate that the project involves “pouring a total of 85,520 million liters of water contaminated with heavy metals, for 18 and a half years, in front of the Cartuja stadium”, destined for the Guadalquivir Estuary and with effects on an environment declared as a Special Conservation Area of ​​the Natura 2000 Network .

“Nothing has been learned” from the environmental catastrophe that occurred in 1998 as a result of the fracture of the heavy metal waste pond at the Aznalcóllar mining complex.

Today, anniversary of the Aznalcóllar disaster, we call with @greenpeace_esp a rally at the Muelle de la Sal (Seville) at 6:00 p.m. to demand that toxic sludge not be dumped into the Guadalquivir River.

Do not miss! pic.twitter.com/SdGFBMSyQF

— Ecologists in Action (@ecologistas) April 25, 2024

These are, according to environmentalists, metals such as arsenic, cadmium, copper, chrome, mercurio, nickel, lead, selenium y zincamong others contaminating metals“; considering that “nothing has been learned” from the environmental catastrophe that occurred in 1998 as a result of the fracture of the heavy metal waste pond at the Aznalcóllar mining complex, then exploited by Boliden-Andaluza de Piritas SA (Apirsa).

And while the Andalusian government of the PP defends that the action complies with all the environmental parameters stipulated by regulations and laws, denying said “toxic discharge”; These groups detail that the environmental opinion signed on October 27, 2023 by technicians from the Territorial Delegation of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy includes a report from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development on the admissibility of the discharge of more than 85,000 “million liters of water contaminated by a 30 kilometer pipeline“.

Bioaccumulation of heavy metals from fish and shellfish

“Despite the purification process, the maximum contaminant load accumulated during the more than 18 years that it is proposed to authorize, would discharge into the Guadalquivir Estuary very high total quantities of potentially toxic metals and metalloids such as arsenic (2,709.12 kg), cadmium (677.28 kg), copper (5,577.60 kg), chromium (717.12 kg) mercury (23.90 kg), nickel (5,577.60 kg), lead (796 .80 kg), selenium (796.80 kg) and zinc (26,294.40 kg), among others mining contaminants,” they reiterate.

“In that section of the river, up to the mouth in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, the irrigation intakes for the 36,000 hectares of rice fields and the breeding areas for the fry from the Gulf of Cádiz fishing ground are located, meaning that pollution due to bioaccumulation of heavy metals from fish and shellfish caught in that area could be significant,” they warn.

Finally, they criticize that “the content of the environmental opinion and the report on the admissibility of the discharge have never been subjected to public information by the Government of the Junta de Andalucía”.