Ercros response to the request from the Government of Murcia about El Hondón
Following the announcement that the Government of the Region of Murcia will assume the responsibility of cleaning the soils of El Hondón on a subsidiary basis and that it has initiated a sanctioning file against Ercros, the company argues that said government does not have the authority to demand the extraction of the waste contained in these soils, a fact that, on the other hand, poses a danger to people and environment. Ercros affirms that the type of remediation defined in the technical project presented to the regional government has been approved by the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN).
Since the Murcian government issued a resolution in 2019 declaring the soil of El Hondón contaminated, Ercros has attended to all the requirements it has received from this administration, which, in turn, sent the Ercros technical project to the different competent organizations, among them the CSN and the Segura Hydrographic Confederation, from which it received a favourable evaluation. In turn, Ercros has held multiple meetings with the regional administration in which it has responded to all the technical questions that it has raised.
The actions carried out so far by Ercros have cost more than 1 million euros. These include the largest site characterization study ever carried out and the aforementioned technical remediation project prepared for Ercros by specialized companies and academic centres of internationally recognized prestige in the field of contaminated soils and the environment.
This project includes 10 actions, including the confinement of soils and waste, in addition to the control and surveillance necessary to guarantee the effectiveness of the actions and the absence of risk to people's health and the quality of the environment, which has been corroborated by all the experts consulted and the competent organizations, except the Murcian administration. The budget for said project is 5 million euros and would require two years to carry out the work it contemplates.
The Ercros technical project avoids the mobilization, excavation and grouping of the materials from El Hondón, which are the actions that the Murcian government wants to carry out and that have been rejected by the CSN, the experts and the organizations consulted for involving a high risk of generating pollution episodes (due to aerial resuspension and water diffusion) and, therefore, of danger to the health of the citizens. According to these experts, the excavation of materials from the site has no environmental or technical justification. Its only justification would be to maximize the urban development of El Hondón, a fact that is not the responsibility of Ercros.
The company does not understand how the Government of the Region of Murcia refuses to accept the validity of the report issued by the CSN despite the binding nature of its pronouncements on radiologically contaminated soils, because this is the competent administration, and reminds that in 2023, the CSN plenary session reported favourably on the Ercros technical project, after more than three years of detailed analysis of the technical information prepared by top-level scientific and academic teams.
The project reported favourably by the CSN incorporates, in great detail, the main characteristics and technical solutions proposed for the remediation of El Hondón through confinement. If the Government of the Region of Murcia finally approves it, the project would be complemented by the corresponding executive project, which is what would contain the construction details of the authorized technical project, as always happens in this type of procedures in all administrations in Spain.
Ercros reiterates that will continue to meet, as always, its environmental obligations and commitments.