ENVIRONMENT-SPAIN: Minister Faces Charges in Worst Disaster Ever

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Alicia Fraerman

MADRID, May 15 1998 (IPS) - Environmental groups and political parties in the southern Spanish region of Andalucia reported Friday that they had filed charges against Environment Minister Isabel Tocino in connection with the worst environmental disaster in the country’s history.

On Apr. 25, eight million tonnes of contaminated sludge were spilled into the Guadiamar river in Andalucia, one of the worst environmental disasters ever to occur in Europe.

The non-governmental organisation (NGO) The Greens of the southern Spanish region of Andalucia and the Andalucian Left party filed charges of environmental criminal damages and perversion of the course of justice against Tocino Thursday.

The groups pin the blame for the calamity on Tocino, who they say ignored denunciations of the dangers presented by the sludge accumulated in the mine worked by the Swedish firm Boliden.

The Guadiamar river runs through the Donana National Park, declared a biosphere reserve by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

“Now the minister tells us that the heart of the park has been saved. But why do we want the heart of the park, if the hands, head and ears have been affected?,” asked Jose Lario, speaking for The Greens of Andalucia.

In a colloquium held Thursday night, Enrique McPherson, a high- level member of the governmental Superior Council of Scientific Research (CSIC), warned of the continuing danger that the pollution could spread.

Only 1,000 tonnes a day of toxic sludge have been cleaned up so far, a figure that would have to be multiplied by 1,000, according to McPherson, the scientific coordinator of the CSIC.

Several participants in the colloquium, including prize-winning environmentalist Joaquin Araujo, suggested that the armed forces could be roped into the clean-up efforts. “They have the training, organisational capacity and human and technical means to do the job,” said Elena Fuste, of the international environmental watchdog Greenpeace.

The Spanish Foundation for Cancer Research (Fundcancer) issued a report which stresses that the mud and water in the area affected by the spill contain highly carcinogenic compounds and substances.

The Health Ministry of the autonomous government of Andalucia, which is in the hands of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), “categorically” refuted the Fundcancer report, and labelled the group’s spokespersons “irresponsible, inept and ignorant.”

Along the same lines, a spokesman for the central government, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, said Thursday that the Donana Park aquifer had not been affected, and contended that the groups which have issued warnings about the disaster did not have scientific and medical reports on which to base their “alarmist messages.”

But nearly at the same time that Rodriguez was discrediting the NGOs, associations and foundations concerned with the spill’s effects on the environment, the governmental Geomining Technological Institute admitted that toxic water had indeed leaked into aquifer 27, the Donana Park’s big underground canteen.

Biologist Pedro Alvarez Marin told the daily ‘El Mundo’ that the toxic sludge spilled in the Donana Park had concentrations “up to 500 times those normally accepted for human, animal and vegetable life.”

The CSIC mentioned five toxic agents identified in the spilled sludge: arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury and zinc.

Not only does the sludge pose immediate environmental and health risks, it also poses a “risk of long-term transmission, through the food chain,” the CSIC report adds.

Meanwhile, the government of Andalucia has closed wells, destroyed contaminated harvests, banned shipments of water to isolated farms, established controls on street vending of produce and blocked access to contaminated areas.

On Friday, the local government ordered those making the pilgrimage to the Virgin of the Rocio not to cross the Quema river, also contaminated by the sludge. Officials explained that the danger lay in the inhalation of dust from the mud drying on the riverbanks.

After a visit to the area, Pedro Arrojo of the Department of Economic Analysis at the University of Zaragoza said environmentalists were right in protesting.

Arrojo said he was shocked when he saw sprinklers irrigating potato crops only 50 metres from the site covered by toxic sludge, in the middle of the area where the Donana aquifer is replenished. “That way the 6,000 contaminated hectares will soon be turned into 20,000,” he warned.

Prominent environmentalist Joaquin Araujo said the disaster trained the spotlight on the mining company’s thoughtlessness and the government’s failure to address warnings from environmentalists, and added that in spite of the potential long- term consequences of the calamity, it did have a few positive aspects.

First of all, it provided a lesson as to what can happen when warnings and complaints fall on deaf ears.

And second, the catastrophe drove home the point that the environment is not just the source of abstract news reports, but an issue of concern to the entire population.

At any rate the European Parliament and European Commission seemed to agree with that interpretation when they decided Thursday to block aid to Boliden and apply the funds to the clean- up efforts and to indemnification for those affected by the spill.