A precautionary stoppage ordered by the courts hits the only coltan mine in Europe in Ourense

Beneath the Galician village of Penouta, with just 70 inhabitants, rare metals abound. Throughout the last century, its subsoil was exploited to extract tungsten and tin and since 2018, a Canadian company has been obtaining tantalum and niobium, the two valuable components of coltan. This corner of the municipality of Viana do Bolo, in the extreme southeast of the province of Ourense, has thus become the only mine in Europe that produces the so-called black gold, a key material for manufacturing technology. The Xunta authorised in 2022 a major open-pit expansion of the site, but the High Court of Xustiza de Galicia (TSXG) has precautionarily halted its activity following a complaint by Ecologists in Action that warns of damage to the Natura Network. The court decision has put not only the affected company and its 129 workers on a war footing, but also mayors and councillors from PP, PSOE and BNG, and the CC OO and CIG unions. About 200 people from this region hit by depopulation have gathered this Thursday in front of the headquarters of the high court in A Coruña to demand that the magistrates accept the appeals filed against their order and allow them to resume work. "This mine is the main source of wealth in the area and employs many young people. If they close us down, we will have to emigrate," warns Domingo Sousa, president of the works council.

The Penouta deposit began to be exploited a century ago and in the seventies and eighties it was in the hands of the Rumasa group, the company of the Ruiz Mateos family, which abandoned it in 1985 without carrying out any type of environmental restoration. The area sank socially and economically and its population plummeted. Five years ago, the company Strategic Minerals Europe put the mine back into operation by extracting tantalum and niobium from the 190 hectares of rubbish dumps left by Rumasa. In March 2022, the workforce was expanded to 129 workers and, with the permits of the Xunta, work began in the so-called C section. Just a few days ago, a TSXG car forced a complete stop. The judges appeal to the principles of precaution, prevention and precaution of Community law. "Faced with the mere possibility of irreparable damage or damage that is very difficult or uncertain to repair - even if corrective measures are adopted on the protected areas - the suspension of the execution of the activity that may produce that risk must prevail," they argue, "since the general interest in maintaining these public spaces unscathed prevails, over the particular interest that the promoter of the mining exploitation has in immediately executing the authorized project, no matter how legitimate their right may be."

Penouta mine in Viana do Bolo (Ourense), in an image provided by the company that operates it.

It is Ecologists in Action that has taken this mine to court. It maintains that its activity is damaging the Pena Trevinca Site of Community Interest, a mountainous area to which it is attached because it was opened when these areas of high environmental value were not protected. The organization recalls that in 2020 "the rupture of a waste pond" in Penouta, an incident that company sources reduce to "the rupture of a pipe", caused the residents of Viana do Bolo to be unable to drink from the tap for a day. "If they want to exchange jobs for poison, fine, but the Natura Network cannot be contaminated," alleges Cristóbal López, spokesman for the association that denounced the mobilization of neighbors, parties and unions in defense of exploitation. López accuses the company of "using civil society and politicians" to the benefit of its business and warns that this region is a depressed area "due to the environmental disaster left by the previous mine." "They shouldn't make the same mistake again," defends the spokesperson for Ecologists in Action. "The enemy is not us. What puts jobs at risk is the way the company operates."

This mine is home to 129 families and auxiliary companies in the Viana do Bolo region. At Thursday's rally in front of the High Court, participants carried banners with slogans such as "Ecolojetas, the mine does not pollute. Liars" or "Mining is life". The spokeswoman who reads the manifesto defends that Penouta is "an example of good mining practices". Juan Carlos López Corbacho, of CCOO, describes the judicial decision as "unfair" and believes that it has been taken "with its back turned to reality". "Overnight we are told that we are out of work with a court order that is dubious. If there was contamination, the workers would be the first to report it. We are not enemies of environmentalism, many workers also have livestock farms and are dedicated to agriculture," says Óscar Núñez, representative of the CIG union.

Protest in front of the TSXG this Thursday in defense of the Penouta mine.ÓSCAR CORRAL

The Canadian company Strategic Minerals Europe insists that the precautionary stoppage, decreed "inexplicably" more than a year after the Xunta approved the concession, "is based on a risk of damage that does not exist", which is not detailed in the order and that "has not been proven in the lawsuit". The company stresses that this is a "strategic project" for Europe, because it extracts metals "key for the new green and digital economies" and is the only tantalum and niobium producing mine in the old continent. "Its obtaining contributes to Spain's self-sufficiency in mineral resources, thus reducing dependence on imports from third countries, including conflict zones," the mining company argues.

"If this is delayed over time, the definitive damage is the closure," warned a few days ago the mayor of A Veiga, Juan Anta (PP), who considers that the impact of the court decision is "lethal" and "irreparable" for the region. "It's legally inexplicable, it's a cut and paste from another mine to a completely different situation. It doesn't take into account the local idiosyncrasies and the terrible damage to the company." The councillor refers to the fact that the court order that decreed the precautionary stoppage of the deposit authorised by the Xunta reiterates the arguments put forward by the TSXG to suspend the activity in another mine in Lugo attached to the Natura Network. In the latter case, the neighbors have joined the environmentalists to take the site to court for its impact on the agricultural and livestock farms on which they live.

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