The soap opera of the Stocamine waste storage site in Alsace is not over.
Friday, the Administrative Court of Appeal of Nancy annulled the prefectural decree which authorized the burying "for an unlimited period" of the waste stored in this former potash mine in the Haut-Rhin.
The Court justified its decision by the fact that the company of the Mines de potasse d'Alsace (MDPA), which operates Stocamine, does not justify “financial capacities enabling it to carry out the unlimited exploitation” of the site.
She recalled that the MDPA company, of which the State is the sole shareholder, is financed by subsidies "granted annually, without guarantee of their maintenance".
"A containment that can no longer wait", according to the ministry
But in a press release, the Ministry of Ecological Transition announced on Monday that it would appeal to the Supreme Court, considering that the court's decision "delays confinement which can no longer wait", in particular because of "the subsidence of the site's galleries (which) will make any intervention impossible after the end of the decade ”.
Barbara Pompili, the Minister for Ecological Transition, decided in January to contain, without additional destocking, non-radioactive hazardous waste (asbestos, arsenic, mercury, etc.), located at a depth of 535 m, under the water table of Alsace.
According to the ministry, the potential advantages of an additional destocking of waste are "not demonstrated, and it would present significant risks for workers", assures the ministry.
Conversely, "achieving containment in optimal conditions is essential to ensure the protection of the Alsace water table", he adds.
The operation of the Stocamine site was authorized in 1997 for 30 years, in order to convert this end-of-life potash mine into an underground industrial landfill, and to store 320,000 tonnes of non-radioactive hazardous waste there at a depth of 535 m. .
But in 2002, a fire in a storage space interrupted operations, when 44,000 tonnes had already been lowered.
Then a prefectural decree had authorized in March 2017 the “unlimited” confinement of waste still underground.