Landfilling of waste: an action by Extinction Rebellion on the Stocamine site, in the Haut-Rhin

“We decided to leave, because we carried out our action and the objectives were achieved”, explained an activist, interviewed by Rue89 Strasbourg.

This Saturday, dozens of activists from the environmental group Extinction Rebellion blocked the Stocamine site, in Wittelsheim in the Haut-Rhin.

#stocamine action in progress.

pic.twitter.com/d07cbMRSIF

— Extinction Rebellion Strasbourg (@XR_Strasbourg) May 28, 2022

“The state puts problems under the rug and waste under the tablecloth,” denounced the activists, some of whom chained themselves to the entrance gate.

Others lay down on the ground, attaching themselves to a bag filled with cement to hinder a possible evacuation and installed a wooden turret, according to the photos published on Twitter by the organization accustomed to spectacular actions, intended to attract the public. attention to the climate emergency.

Action in progress on the #Stocamine site #42tonnesDeDechets below the highest water table in Europe pic.twitter.com/2DDuyf3rI3

— Extinction Rebellion Strasbourg (@XR_Strasbourg) May 28, 2022

At the start of the morning, some had entered the Stocamine enclosure and tagged buildings and equipment, indicated Céline Schumpp, amicable liquidator of the Stocamine operator, Mines de potasse d'Alsace (MDPA), expressing her "total incomprehension" in the face of this action while work on the site is at a standstill.

No activity was taking place on the site on this Saturday morning.

42,000 tonnes of waste still buried

Accompanied by the gendarmes deployed on the spot to secure the site, the militants lifted their blockade around 10:30 a.m. calmly, noted an AFP correspondent.

Stocamine is a former potash mine transformed at the turn of the 2000s into a storage site for non-radioactive hazardous industrial waste.

Following a fire in 2002, its activity was stopped.

Since then, the fate of the 42,000 tonnes of waste still buried 550 m underground has been a source of dispute and legal battles between the State, which wants to close the site and confine it with concrete plugs before the mine is closed. is collapsing, and local authorities and environmentalists, who want as much waste as possible to be removed as a protective measure for the nearby Alsace groundwater table.

On Wednesday, the administrative court of Strasbourg decided to temporarily suspend the work just started to prepare for the closure, inflicting a new setback on the State in its desire to definitively confine the waste.