Stocamine: Court authorizes permanent containment of toxic waste

A new twist in the long-running Stocamine saga. In a decision handed down on Tuesday, June 17, the Strasbourg Administrative Court ruled in favor of the permanent confinement of 42,000 tons of highly toxic waste (arsenic, asbestos, chromium, incineration residue, etc.) at the storage site of the former Alsace potash mines in Wittelsheim, in the Haut-Rhin department.

The administrative judge rejected the appeals lodged by the European Community of Alsace (Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin) and the Alsace Nature association , considering that it was no longer possible, "under acceptable conditions of safety for staff and risks for the environment" , to remove them due to the deterioration of the galleries where the waste is stored more than 500 metres underground.

"Since destocking is no longer possible," the court considers, "only definitive confinement," consisting of building concrete barriers around the blocks containing the waste and filling in the wells giving access to them in such a way as to ensure watertightness, constitutes, given the state of available technology, "the measure most likely to preserve the environment in the short, medium and long term and, thus, the rights of future generations."

You have 68.27% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.