Seville, (EFE).- The environmental organization Greenpeace has warned that the Riotinto mining waste ponds, in Huelva, could cause a more serious environmental disaster than the one that caused the rupture of the Aznalcóllar mining pond (Seville). Disaster that will be 25 years old on April 25.
Greenpeace, which describes the Aznalcóllar toxic spill that jeopardized the Doñana National Park as “one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of Spain”. He now denounces “the high probability that a similar incident could occur in the Minas de Riotinto ponds.”
The environmental organization has assured in a statement that it has documented leaks in the Riotinto mining sludge ponds, which are managed by the company Atalaya Mining.
In Aznalcóllar, Greenpece recalled, the Swedish multinational company that managed the mine, Boliden, confirmed the safety of the pond where, only five days later, the breakage of the East dam of the Los Frailes mine pond occurred.
The breach, 50 meters long by 30 meters high, allowed the discharge of more than six million cubic meters of mud and toxic water into the Guadiamar River. Endangering the Doñana ecosystem and destabilizing the development of the economy. The agriculture and fishing of the vega del Guadiamar and the estuary of the Guadalquivir.
Regrowth of mining waste dams
Greenpeace points out that the Junta de Andalucía, “by action or omission, consented to Aznalcóllar”. “And now it allows irregularities in Rio Tinto that cause this type of accident that leaves sequels for decades.”
According to Greenpeace, in Riotinto, the Atalaya Mining company, with the approval of the Junta de Andalucía, intends to carry out a new growth of the mining waste dams (up to a height of 417 meters above sea level). Creating the largest deposits of mining waste in Spain. And last week the resolution of the environmental authorization for the regrowth of the pond came out.
In Riotinto, the Gossan, Cobre and Aguzadera ponds are a single complex that occupies 595 hectares. With up to 100 meters deep and which accumulate some 240 million tons of toxic sludge. And, with the intended expansion by the company, they would reach 400 million tons. In other words, 30 times the volume of toxins dumped in the Aznalcóllar disaster, adds Greenpeace. EFE