Ongoing SP Discussion, page-1080

The report of the consistory continues raising objections to a mine in Valdeflores.

The city council released its report this Friday with its considerations to be taken into account in the scope document that the Board has to send to the mining company. This document will collect considerations that must be taken into account in the environmental impact study , one of the texts that Extremadura New Energies (ENE) has to present for examination before the Board decides whether to grant the exploitation
on permit for an underground mine . In that report from the city council, it is still recalled that the Valdeflores site is located forty meters below a ground where "extractive activity is not allowed" in the Municipal General Plan (PGM) for urban planning.


No precise consideration is made as to whether this ban on digging also affects the subsoil. It is only recalled that the lithium deposit is located under a soil (non-developable with Forest Mass and Mountain protection in its degree two) where municipal urban planning regulations do not allow extractions to be made due to the environmental values that are given to the land.

In the initiatives for mining projects that are considered to be of regional interest, as is the case of Valdeflores, the municipal license is still necessary and for its concession it will have to take into account what is stipulated in the urban regulations. Without a change to the plan, which no one has promoted for the moment, and without a regulation or higher-ranking legislation that bypasses the local urban planning plan, the debate is whether this extraction ban in Valdeflores also affects the subsoil. The company's argument is that there is sufficient legislation that establishes that the plans do not affect the subsoil. At the moment, the city council in its report limits itself to recalling that the site is 40 meters below ground.

The company's intention is to reach the deposit from three location alternatives that are far apart.
The project for more than a year has changed to underground. Valdeflores is reached through a tunnel. The consistory report also makes a series of considerations about the three alternatives proposed by the company. The only one in which the urban planning plan allows extractive activities is in the option that is proposed next to the Ex-206, the Miajadas highway, although the report recalls that it is located on the Calerizo, so that the environmental impact study drawn up by the company will have to justify "correctly and in detail" its possible impact on the aquifer and the measures that should be adopted. The report makes other considerations on the impact on cultural heritage and water management.d where extractive activity is not authorized, and the report also notes that the compatibility of the project with the uses of the general urban planning plan it is a "determinant issue for the viability" of the same, it is even considered that it is "beyond environmental incidents and their corrective measures".

https://www.elperiodicoextremadura.com/caceres-local/2023/04/01/informe-consistorio-sigue-planteando-reparos-85463547.html

And just for laughs I've posted a comment from a local below.

It is a real savage thing that these people from the mine intend to do, and there are people in Cáceres who do not realize the magnitude that it will have. In addition to the fact that lithium is a subterfuge to find what they really need and it is profitable for them, GRAPHENE. But since its extraction is prohibited, they use the lithium mask to be able to do it. I ask politicians to react, not to let themselves be sold. If there is a mine, Cáceres will cease to be what it is. And many people from Cáceres, including myself, will leave because they do not want to live in a polluted city.