What to do with hazardous industrial waste buried on the Stocamine site , former potash mine in Wittelsheim, in Haut- Rhine ? A response from the Minister of Ecological Transition Barbara Pompili , visiting the site on Tuesday, was expected.
She did not decide. “The decision will be made by the end of the month. I believe that this affair has lasted too long, ”declared the State representative, after two hours of wandering at the bottom of the mine. Among the various possible scenarios for 20. 000 tonnes of hazardous industrial waste non-radioactive stored by 500 meters deep, the Minister considers that “Two large open options”: “confine” or “remove some more” from here to 2021.
Even before meeting local elected officials and chairing a public meeting in the evening on the subject, Barbara Pompili clearly showed her preference for the first option. “When I get out of this mine, so far, I haven’t seen a lot of arguments yet that make me think that we should destock,” she said, saying that her “major concerns “Were” the preservation of the water table of Alsace (…) and the safety of the people who work below “.
Mercury, chromium, cadmium, arsenic, asbestos…
Opened in 1999 on the site of a potash mine for an initially planned duration of thirty years , Stocamine was to collect 310. 000 tonnes of non-radioactive hazardous industrial waste (class 1 and 0). But an underground fire in 1999 put a stop to the activity of the site originally designed to allow reversible storage.
Since then, the controversy has been incessant on the future of some 20. 000 tonnes of waste still buried , some of which contain mercury, chromium, cadmium, arsenic or asbestos.
The Minister for the Ecological Transition was greeted on her arrival in Wittelsheim by several dozen opponents of Stocamine gathered behind banners proclaiming “Pompili, do not bury the problem” or “Stocamine, a water rich in cyanide”. “We are firm: the only solution is to get everything out,” said Yann Flory, spokesperson for the “Déstocamine” collective, considering that the minister’s remarks in favor of definitive containment of the waste, even before the public meeting , were “a massive blow.”
The removal of waste has been demanded for years by associations for the defense of the environment and local elected officials, but the State no ‘has stopped procrastinating. In 2002, he had made the choice of permanent burial, while ordering the removal waste containing mercury, but since partial destocking has also been studied.
“The most dangerous for the water table, containing mercury, have already been removed up to 95 % Between 2015 and 2015. There are still some dangerous products but most of the bags contain products which are not soluble, therefore not dangerous for the water table, ”said the Minister in an interview with Latest News from Alsace .
By more than 320 meters deep, in kilometers of dusty galleries, some miners continue to secure the site and to dig in order to eventually be able to make the burying of the waste permanent by means of concrete. Some waste storage cavities are already sealed while the ceilings of other cavities have collapsed on the waste.
“The work and experiments that are being carried out in the mine deserve our attention, because what is being done is technically quite incredible ”, underlined Barbara Pompili, herself a miner’s granddaughter.