25 years after this environmental disaster, one of the worst that has hit the country, the trial for the disposal of toxic sludge from the mine of the Swedish company Boliden in Aznalcollar (south) was opened before the Spanish judiciary on Tuesday.
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This trial, which is taking place in a civil court in Seville, follows years of legal proceedings that ended notably in 2002 with the dismissal of criminal charges against Boliden.
The rupture of a dam in a tailings pond at this open-pit metal mine on April 25, 1998 resulted in more than five million cubic meters of polluted sludge containing heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium and mercury being discharged into a river.
Several dozen tons of fish were killed and nearly 5,000 hectares around were contaminated by these residues, even leading to the downstream Doñana National Park, a Unesco-classified jewel of biodiversity, being polluted.
Photo archives, AFP
Boliden has always denied responsibility, blaming a subsidiary of Spanish construction group Dragados, which built the pool. “We have taken on a great responsibility in eliminating (the consequences of) the accident. The complaint should be closed,” a spokesman for the group told AFP.
This environmental disaster was one of the worst in Spain after the Prestige oil spill in 2002.
Legal saga
The region of Andalusia, where Aznalcollar is based, decided in 2002 to take the case to a civil court after dismissing criminal charges brought by its authorities, the Spanish state and NGOs such as Ecologists in Action.
Boliden then filed a series of appeals, but in 2012 the Supreme Court finally ruled, ordering judges to reopen the investigation, which has since been slowed by fresh appeals from Boliden.
The region of Andalusia said in a press release that it hoped that “justice would be done” in this process. She is demanding 89 million euros from the Swedish multinational, which was used to clean up the area.
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In August 2002, the Spanish government imposed a fine of more than 45 million euros on the Swedish group. This refused to pay, which suggests that there was no judicial conviction.
“A quarter of a century later, the case still sits in a legal maze with no verdict obliging the mining multinational to pay for 4,643 hectares of pollution,” said Ecologists in Action in a report released in April.
This “case (…) is representative of the way the mining industry is acting on a global scale,” which the organization accused of “posing one of the greatest threats to life on the planet.”
The next negotiations will take place on July 6th, 11th and 13th.
The Aznalcollar mine is expected to reopen soon. The Mexican mining company that will operate it, Grupo Mexico, is awaiting final permits from the region.