Fertiberia gets free way to bury the phosphogypsum ponds next to Huelva after 13 years of lawsuit

The phosphogypsum ponds next to the city of Huelva will finally be buried and not moved, after obtaining this Monday the integrated environmental authorization from the Junta de Andalucía (PP), the procedure that gives free rein to the plan of the responsible company, Fertiberia. With this permit begins the countdown for the 120 million tons of toxic deposits of phosphogypsum and heavy metals to be buried under a one-meter layer of earth and clay.

The expensive operation has raised many doubts among scientists about the risk that the pollution will last for decades less than 500 meters from a population of 150,000 inhabitants, since it is located in the middle of the estuary and, therefore, subject to the tides. The resolution coincided with World Environment Day.

The approval of the regional executive comes almost three years after the Ministry for the Ecological Transition gave a first authorization – favorable environmental impact statement – and after 13 of the judgment of the National Court that forced the company to stop the discharges and solve the problem. Later, a year ago, the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) endorsed that the risk of radioactive contamination was minimal once the waste was buried. The toxic waste was dumped for decades by the company, derived from its production of phosphoric acid for fertilizers between 1968 and 2010, accumulated a few meters from the sea.

Both the junta and the government have ignored warnings from scientists, who see a risk of collapse in the rafts and a "rapid asymmetric subsidence" that does not contemplate the plan to cover heavy metals with a green carpet. The committee of 20 scientists warned of the overweight of waste by the sea and a medium-high seismic risk, in three reports issued by experts from the Geological and Mining Institute (CSIC), ISGlobal and the universities of Granada, Cádiz and Huelva, among other organizations.

The decision of the Board implies that Fertiberia now begins the works to bury the rafts with an investment of 60 million in the project called Restore 20/30, which will last a decade, as advanced in a statement the company. From now on only the building permit that will be granted by the City Council of Huelva is missing. Fertiberia advances that it will employ more than a hundred workers for the execution of the project.

"The fact that the resolution comes out four days after the elections shows that it is a political decision and not a technical one. The ministry has been left out of the integrated environmental authorization because it has excluded itself so as not to get wet, despite the fact that for zone four it requires the recovery of the marsh. The same ministry technician who demanded it for zone four did not do so for zones two and three. It is incongruous," criticizes Juan Manuel Buendía, president of the Mesa de la Ría. For this political party, the ministry has ignored its obligation to protect the marsh, which is "sentenced to death", and so communicated to the National Court. "It is a macabre joke and an insult to the people of Huelva the authorization of the Board on World Environment Day," Buendía criticizes.

The Andalusian Government considers that the Fertiberia project is "adequate", but the company must present a surveillance and control plan "of the receiving environment" affected by the restoration of the stacks, within three months, in order to evaluate the initial situation of the works and their subsequent phases. In addition, other plans that the company will have to provide must evaluate the control of groundwater and the state of the sealing of the ponds through geophysical prospections, among other measures.

Scientists warned that the burial is a contaminated inheritance for future generations, who will suffer its impact and will never be able to recover the marshes affected by the rafts. The collection of data after the investigations of the experts shows that the neighbors who live closer to the piles have more traces of zinc, arsenic, selenium and molybdenum in their nails than the Huelva of other neighborhoods.

The last report of conclusions that the researchers delivered to the City Council of Huelva last summer warned that the restoration plan lacked its own seismic study; had an incomplete geological characterization of the materials of the foundation and base of the ponds; its hydrogeological operating model was incorrect in that it did not relate groundwater, surface water and the phosphogypsum pond; and did not prevent the flow and transport of pollutants into the environment.

The experts identified 60 outflows of "highly polluting" liquids into the marsh with Ph values of 1.94 [much more acidic than estuary water, whose pH is between 4 and 8]. Both Fertiberia and the Board denied scientists data to expand their knowledge and know the impact on people's health, even though they were obliged to give them.

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