Toxic waste buried in the former Stocamine potash mine in Wittelsheim (Haut-Rhin) should be buried forever.
The Council of State on Friday annulled the decision of the Strasbourg administrative court to suspend the containment work, therefore paving the way for the site intended to bury them permanently.
The Alsace Nature association and individuals are worried about the long-term consequences of confining toxic products near the Rhine water table, the largest reserve of drinking water in Western Europe.
It supplies eight million people with drinking water, including our Swiss and German neighbors, RFI points out.
Some 2,000 tonnes of waste (mercury, cyanide, arsenic, etc.) are stored in this old mine.
Initially, they were to be released no later than 2027.
An interim appeal was filed before the Strasbourg administrative court, which ruled in their favor on November 7 and ordered the suspension of the work.
The operator of the site, the company Mines de potasse d'Alsace, 100% owned by the State, then filed an appeal.
“No immediate danger”, argues the Council of State
In its judgment on Friday, the Council of State overturns the order.
It considers that the condition of urgency, essential to the summary procedure, is not established: the applicants put forward "no element allowing it to be established that the start of the work would present an immediate danger", indicates the supreme court of administrative order.
This also takes into account the - contested - conclusions of the Geological and Mining Research Bureau according to which the time remaining before "the collapse in the short term of the underground galleries" does not allow us to envisage a destocking of waste under conditions “sufficient” security.
On the contrary, the containment work “must begin without delay”, calculates the Council of State: they should last “42 months”, and the site will only be accessible “until the end of 2027”.
The court also judges that the decision to authorize the storage of waste for an unlimited period “constitutes (…) the most likely to preserve the environment from the damage that this site could cause in the short, medium and long term”.
A substantive procedure in progress
The Council of State finally affirms that “the waste containing mercury as well as the phytosanitary waste, which constituted the waste presenting the highest degree of danger to the water table, have already been extracted”.
Although the majority of this waste has actually been removed, nearly 140 tonnes remain, as established by the prefectural decree.
After the summary proceedings, proceedings on the merits are brought before the administrative court of Strasbourg.
At this time, no hearing date has been set.
But opponents of permanent burial do not intend to stop there.
According to Rue89 Strasbourg, François Zind, the lawyer for Alsace Nature, claims to be “mandated to study all legal avenues, including referral to the European Court of Human Rights, to prevent irreversibility and pollution of the tablecloth for future generations.