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The worst ecological disasters in Spain: how much they cost and how much have polluters left unpaid

2021-06-16T16:14:53.020Z


Five of the main catastrophes have supposed 2,138 million euros to the State, of which it has only recovered 176, 8% of the total: the 'Prestige', the Valencia fire of 2012 and the toxic spills in Doñana, the Bay of Portmán and the Flix reservoir


Tons of

Prestige

oil

staining the Galician coast black, toxic sludge from the Aznalcóllar mine at the gates of the Doñana National Park, a fire in Valencia that devastated almost 30,000 hectares caused by negligence ... Those images etched on the retina have meant environmental damage that has cost the State billions to repair. On paper, the European Union applies the "polluter pays" principle, which makes companies that cause ecological damage responsible, for which they must repair them and bear the related costs.

However, an analysis by EL PAÍS of the situation of five major ecological catastrophes that occurred in Spain -

Prestige,

Doñana, Portmán Bay, Flix reservoir and Valencia fire in 2012 - shows that these disasters have cost the treasury 2,138 million euros public, while companies and insurers have only paid a small part to society: 176 million, 8% of the total.

In addition, following the money trail is complex due to the tangle of administrations involved, whose departments change their names and responsibilities over the years.

'Prestige': 1,573 million

The oil tanker 'Prestige', split in two, sinks 250 kilometers off the Galician coast, in Atlantic waters.

On video, the testimony of the ex-mayor of Corcubión on the 15th anniversary of the disaster.ORP ARMADA / EPV

On November 13, 2002, the

Prestige

ship

began to spill oil some 30 kilometers from Cape Finisterre. On November 19, when it was being towed away from the coast, it broke in two and sank about 260 kilometers west of Vigo. Some 63,200 tons of hydrocarbons were spilled, which stained the coasts of Galicia and a large part of the Cantabrian Sea, reaching France and Portugal. Another 13,700 tons remained on the ship, which Spain extracted in 2004. The work to clean the sea and the entire coast lasted for years, although at present they are mostly recovered. Photos of volunteers removing badger clad in white suits remain iconic.

Although the Prosecutor's Office even said in 2013 that the losses due to the catastrophe would reach 4,328 million "in the medium term", the Supreme Court recognized, in December 2018, that Spain was entitled to compensation of 1,573 million for the spill. However, much of that amount is not going to be recovered. For now, the International Funds for Compensation for Damages Due to Hydrocarbon Pollution, an intergovernmental organization that helps pay to repair the impact of this type of accident, has paid 142.1 million to the State, reports a spokesperson for the organization. Meanwhile, the ship's insurer, London P&I Club, deposited 22.7 million at the time before the Provincial Court of A Coruña.

The Supreme Court ruling obliges London P&I Club to pay the maximum insured, 1,000 million dollars, about 855.5 million euros in that year.

The Ministry of Justice reports that the State Bar, together with the Squire Patton Boggs law firm, initiated an execution procedure before the English courts in 2019, which has already received several favorable judgments, the last one on May 12, 2021. “The The only reason for opposition to the claim of amount to the insurer that would remain pending is the one submitted to the Court of Justice of the European Union ”, says the ministry.

The departments of Transport - which managed the cleaning - and Ecological Transition do not have more information, nor do the Xunta de Galicia.

In any case, two decades later the amount recovered is still minimal.

Doñana: 240 million

Image of the Aznalcóllar mines (Seville), owned by the Danish company Boliden, which suffered a rupture that dumped toxic and acidic waters into the Agrio river. On video, the Aznalcóllar disaster 23 years later.JUNTA DE ANDALUCÍA / EPV

On April 25, 1998, the waste basin of the Aznalcóllar mine, in the province of Seville, broke. Six million cubic meters of toxic sludge and acidic waters came out of the 50-meter gap in the pond and ran through the Agrio and Guadiamar rivers. The toxic leak affected 4,634 hectares spread over nine municipalities in the province of Seville and remained at the gates of the Doñana National Park. The Junta de Andalucía and the then Ministry of the Environment - today Ecological Transition - invested some 240 million euros in sludge removal, decontamination and restoration of the more than 40 kilometers of the Guadiamar channel located between the mine and the surroundings of Doñana, where the avenue stopped.

The mining company Boliden Apirsa, a subsidiary of the Swedish multinational Boliden, cleaned 20.1% of the total affected area, the ministry did it 7.4%, while the Board dealt with 72.5%. The Andalusian Government demands 89 million euros from the Swedish company for the cleaning of the area, while the central Government demands the 43.7 million of the sanction imposed on it after the disaster and which has been ratified by the Supreme Court. In total, 132.7 million. However, 23 years later, Boliden has not paid a euro. The company declared the subsidiary bankrupt and closed down, disassociating itself from it. For many years, an attempt has been made to lift the corporate veil, that is, to hold the parent company responsible for what its subsidiary did, something that has not been achieved so far.The Board negotiates unsuccessfully with the company an out-of-court settlement to recover part of what was used to clean up the area. And the Executive, despite the judicial resources, has not been able to get the company to take charge of the damages it caused.

Flix reservoir: 220 million

Cleaning work in the Flix reservoir (Tarragona), in 2019.JOSEP LLUÍS SELLART

As a result of its industrial activity, the chemical company Ercros (formerly Erkimia), which has been in operation since 1897, dumped 800,000 cubic meters of toxic and radioactive sludge over the course of more than a century into the Flix reservoir (Tarragona), located in the Ebro, according to data from the state company Acuamed.

Company sources reject that all the sludge comes from its activity, since it may be due, they say, to other companies.

A Greenpeace report shows that the waters contained radioactive contamination by uranium-238 and radio-226, in addition to heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, mercury, lead ... These high levels of contamination affect almost a million people to which the Ebro supplies in this section.

A spokeswoman for the General Directorate of Water of the Ministry of Ecological Transition explains that the decontamination works of the Flix reservoir, aimed at eliminating the more than 120,000 tons of contaminated waste as a result of the chemical activity in the area and the changes in the fluvial dynamics of the river, have a cost of more than 220 million euros. In December 2018, the first dredging tests were carried out in the reservoir, while the work began effectively in January 2019. The main decontamination work has already been completed, although the process has taken much longer than expected. Acuamed is executing the last pending actions aimed at the partial reinstatement and conditioning of the water in the enclosure.The forecast is that throughout this year the work can be completed. The ministry does not know if the company paid any amount, while the Generalitat de Catalunya does not have data either.

Ercros sources report that in 2003 the Tarragona Provincial Court ratified in a sentence the agreement reached between six employees of the Flix factory, the subject of a 1993 complaint for an alleged crime against the environment, and the Tarragona Prosecutor's Office, in which it is indicated that the defendants "did not produce actual harm to people or the environment, but only a risky situation."

In any case, the ruling declares Ercros a subsidiary civil liable for the cleaning of the banks and sludge of the Ebro river due to the discharges made between September 15, 1988 and August 28, 1993. The agreement forced the chemical company to pay Acuamed 11.3 million euros as compensation (5% of the total cost).

The rest, as always, is paid by the State.

Bay of Portmán: 90 million

The abandoned facilities of the Peñarroya mine and, in the background, the bay of Portmán (Murcia) in 2019. In video, report on the damage in the bay.CARLOS ROSILLO / EPV

The Peñarroya mine, located in La Unión (Murcia) and which had an administrative concession from the government of the dictator Francisco Franco, dumped 60 million tons of waste directly into the sea during 33 years, from 1957 to 1991. It was a sludge that came out of a pipe that contained the reagents used to remove the metal, mixed with traces of lead, zinc, cadmium ... Every so often the mine, which produced lead, silver and pyrite, changed the jet because there was no longer any sea, that was flooding between spills. This is how the bay of Portmán was buried, which was shaped like a shell, like the beach of San Sebastián. The beach line advanced 600 meters and the spills reached up to 12 kilometers offshore.

Xavier Pastor, who at the end of the eighties was director of Greenpeace Spain, explains that the NGO plugged the pipe in 1986 and filed a complaint for an ecological crime against the mining company, which was acquitted. The company was bought by Portmán Golf, which stopped the spills in 1991. According to a spokesperson for the new company, the new owners were not forced to clean the bay or received any sanction. The Ministry of Ecological Transition assures that it does not have more information about the case.

The recovery of this environment is still pending. Ecological Transition - then Environment - presented a project in 2005 where it estimated cleaning at 100 million euros, which was later reduced to 32 million. The works started in 2016, but in 2019 the ministry itself paralyzed the project due to its shortcomings. Now, they have dedicated a game of 369,000 euros for the writing of a new project, whose budget has yet to be specified. Pedro López Millán, mayor of La Unión, considers that the final item will be around 90 million euros: “The company created wealth and provided jobs, but it created the biggest environmental crime in the Mediterranean. More than 30 years after the stoppage, we continue with the same story. We hope that now it will be fixed ”. The State is not going to recover a single euro.

Fire on Mount Dos Aguas (Valencia) in 2012: 15.4 million euros

Forest fire caused by negligence on June 28, 2012 in the Cortes de Pallàs and Turís area (Valencia).

CARLES FRANCESC

Two workers of the Energía Solar Levante SL company who were on June 28, 2012 placing solar panels in a house near Cortes de Pallás (Valencia) caused the largest fire in a decade in Spain with their negligence. The fire affected Cortes de Pallás, Yátova, Macastre, Alborache, Millares, Dos Aguas and Andilla. According to the final report of the Generalitat Valenciana, the flames calcined 29,000 hectares of forests and green areas, driven by high temperatures and a strong wind. In addition, a second fire was declared in the nearby area of ​​Andilla, Alcublas and Villar del Arzobispo, which increased the damage to almost 50,000 hectares. An Army colonel was killed during the firefighting efforts, while a pilot and his co-pilot were seriously injured.

The Valencian Government spent about 760,000 euros to put out the fire, another nine million euros to help those affected, and has just committed another 5.67 million in actions of natural regeneration, sanitation, implantation of dispersion nuclei, improvement of accesses and water points for fauna, and so on. This regeneration will take place from now on and in the coming months, as reported by the Generalitat Valenciana.

The judicial sentence, issued on April 16 by the Criminal Court number 3 of Valencia, considers it proven that it was a crime of forest fire due to serious negligence, for which the two authors were sentenced to 10 months in prison and It forced the company to pay for the damages caused both to the Administration and to different individuals (since dozens of homes were affected). The company had signed a policy with Axa for a limit of 748,500 euros, which the insurer confirms that it has already deposited in court. However, of those 748,500 euros, only 80,963 euros correspond to the Generalitat Valenciana, since the rest is distributed among the other injured parties. The rest, as almost always, we pay together.

With information from

Manuel Planelles

and

Esther Sánchez

.

"There is a lack of specialized courts"

Jaime Doreste, lawyer for Ecologistas en Acción, explains that the polluter pays law “for now has been difficult to apply”: “The legislator has been delaying compulsory insurance, which is coupled with complex legislation that can be a drain . This means that environmental damage ends up being socialized, that we all pay for it. And that is unfair and contrary to the Constitution and international protocols ”. Doreste points out that environmental damage has a technical component and great complexity, which makes it difficult to collect compensation. José Manuel Marraco, a lawyer for Greenpeace, puts another but: “The problem is that Justice has to be endowed with the means. There is still no body of environmental experts who can attend the courts, nor specialized courts in the matter ...At least now environmental threats already affect the whole of society, not just environmentalists ”.



In addition, since 1994 there is the Spanish Pool of Environmental Risks (PERM), which brings together 25 insurers to cover this type of ecological problems.

"If environmental damage is discovered immediately, it is easy to demonstrate, but if it occurs after many years it is more difficult," says José Luis Heras, manager of PERM.

"Perhaps the biggest problem is that the main administrations that ask for environmental responsibility are the autonomous ones, and this polluter pays law is still very unknown," he adds.

The Pool has carried out cleaning of floors and underground aquifers produced by pollution throughout Spain.

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Source: elparis

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