Three companies, Portman Golf, Gestalia and Tragsa, and their administrators or legal representatives, have just been prosecuted by the Investigative Court number 4 of Cartagena in the main piece of the so-called 'Balsa Jenny case'. The magistrate accuses them of depositing dangerous waste of mining origin in the Los Blancos landfill, authorized for inert waste, and of transporting the materials “as if it were sand, untreated, uncovered and uninsulated.” An action, he warns, from which the main harm was the Mar Menor and its surrounding lands.
Specifically, the order indicates that the investigated companies had committed an alleged continuous crime against the environment and natural resources, by manifestly and evidently failing to comply with their obligations “in the treatment and transfer of the mining waste existing in Balsa Jenny to its subsequent deposit in the Corta de los Blancos, just 900 meters away.
The instructor goes further and highlights that “his actions were at all times presided over by a conscious, deliberate, absolute and manifest disregard for the legal regulations on the matter, for the ecosystem that surrounds the affected lands and ultimately for human health itself.” , as all of them are placed in a situation of serious risk.
The judge considers that these facts have been duly accredited thanks to the investigation that began in 2014. He places special emphasis on the conclusions of the reports of the Nature Protection Service (Seprona) of the Civil Guard.
The main investigator, Portman Golf, would have assumed the role of “final waste manager” before the Community from the so-called Jenny Raft. However, the order highlights, there is no evidence that these were previously analyzed to be objectively qualified. “The classification of waste as 'inert mining waste' is a classification, in addition to being erroneous because it was carried out without any type of prior study, and non-existent because it is not contemplated by the standard,” the guards stressed in their analysis addressed to the instructor.
The agents tried to prove, with their analyzes of the leachate, that this waste circulates on the surface as runoff and emerges downstream. Its results “exceed the maximum limit values for the admissibility of hazardous waste from the Jenny pond in the Los Blancos landfill.” The agents concluded that Corta de los Blancos I “did not meet the technical requirements for this type of (hazardous) waste nor was it the appropriate place.”
This judicial resolution prepares the procedures for the prosecutor, the private accusations and the defenses to formulate their qualification briefs. In this case, the first application of the new law on legal personality of the Mar Menor took place, which allowed four new accusations to be added to the case last October. The judge's decision, however, is not yet final and can be appealed by the parties.
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