The exploitation project for an underground lithium mine in Valdeflores presents many questions that have to be resolved , some questions that are put on the table by public bodies and groups that the Council for the Ecological Transition of the Junta has consulted to draft the scope document that the mining company must take into account when drafting the environmental impact study, a basic document to determine if the mine is viable.
Organizations and groups have set a series of conditions to be fulfilled by the company for a type of industry that generates waste and has a strong impact on the territory that borders the city. The purpose of the project is the production of 467,000 tons of battery grade lithium hydroxide over a period of 26 years in the planned industrial plant. For this, 47 million tons of ore will be removed from the mine.
The company has to justify which substances are going to be used and what it intends to do with the waste generated by mining and industrial activity. The Instituto Geológico Minero is one of the public organizations that places the most emphasis on this issue by demanding the most rigorous characterization possible of the waste generated in the different phases of the project, and also demands a detailed explanation of the amounts of waste that are occur, since it warns of a difference in the data provided by the company in the initial project that it presented to the Ministry for the Ecological Transition so that the scope document could be drawn up.
But of all the consultations that the council makes, the one that most attracts attention is the one presented by the Nuclear Safety Council. These are general considerations, but they highlight that mining activities and the production of lithium hydroxide are likely to produce a significant radiological impact on human health and the environment . The Nuclear Safety Council recalls in its consultation the regulations that the mining company must observe and obliges the environmental impact study to identify the potential radiological impact of the project focused on almost the entire process: the radioactive material associated with the mineral, to sterile, waste, lithium hydroxide, water and leachate.
The consultation of the General Directorate of Public Health is also remarkable because it is a farm that is located in the vicinity of the city. It calls for the adoption of adequate preventive or corrective measures, since the activity of the mine could be unhealthy or annoying and could produce the emission of acid or alkaline water. Public Health emphasizes the distance between the mine and nearby population centers, given the presence in the immediate vicinity of a hospital, university or nursing home. The observation is so that it adjusts at least to the minimum distance established by the legislation.
And he mentions one of the most repeated issues in the reports. The impact on groundwater, given that the activity can cause alkaline or acid water emissions, so it must be guaranteed that it does not affect the Valhondo stream or the Calerizo aquifer.
It is not just any project, it is surely the most important that Cáceres has faced in its entire history and the one that can most transform the territory that surrounds the city,It is of such volume that it would force not a modification of the general urban planning plan, but rather a revision. The scope document includes other incidents that must be taken into account in the environmental impact study: the guarantees that protected natural spaces are not affected, the non-adaptation to the urban planning of the city, the measures that must be take in view of the warning that the city's historical heritage cannot be affected, that the groundwater is not damaged..., there are many objections to which the company will have to respond in the environmental impact study that it draws up, a document that will be released for public information and on which the organizations that have submitted their query to the scope document will report.
https://www.elperiodicoextremadura.com/caceres-local/2023/05/21/huecos-deja-mina-87648495.html
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