The Torreciega Neighborhood Association has filed an appeal for reform against the order of the Investigative Court 5 of Cartagena that denied the urgent sealing of the five ponds with hazardous waste from the former grounds of the Spanish Zinc factory (Zinsa). The head of the court argued that the precautionary measures requested by the Neighborhood Association are “unnecessary” because “the procedures for their execution are beginning through administrative channels.”
The residents will shortly provide the Court with a report prepared by the scientist José Matías Peñas on toxic and dangerous substances existing inside the homes of the residents of Torreciega. The breeze causes the heavy metals present in the Zinsa ponds to be deposited in the streets of the neighborhood, parks and houses. For this reason, the neighbors denounce that their contact with elements that are harmful to health is “habitual and permanent.”
Avoid wind dispersion
Represented by the lawyer José Manuel Muñoz Ortín, the residents insisted on their allegations that given the accreditation of extreme risk to human health, flora and fauna, due to the presence of “extremely dangerous heavy metals, what is reasonable and logical is the adoption of precautionary measures that prevent the wind dispersion of the substances”.
The report sent in 2021 by the Nature Protection Service (Seprona) of the Civil Guard to the Investigating Court 5 of Cartagena concluded that these rafts cause “continuous damage” to the human health of residents and workers of Torreciega and the Cabezo Beaza industrial estate, to the environment and pollutes the water.
They insist that the birds perish and the residents of Torreciega suffer in their health from living with heavy metals
The neighbors recalled that the Zinsa rafts have been “out in the open, subject to the effects of all atmospheric agents” since 2009. From the neighborhood association they assured that “at present, the birds continue to perish and the people who live in Torreciega are suffering in their health the continuous and slow deterioration that living with high concentrations of heavy metals entails, all with the consent of the Ministry Public, and even of the Court, which, being able to adopt a precautionary and urgent measure, does not adopt it, whether or not there are radioactive elements.
The high concentrations of heavy metals in the rafts, such as arsenic, cadmium, nickel, lead, manganese and cobalt, cause the birds to perish. “That of humans is not immediate because we do not dive into the rafts, which are less than ten meters from some houses.”
For the residents, the current state of the processing of the proceedings is “confused”, so for them the rejection of the precautionary measures is not sufficient cause. “The administrative route has so far been unsuccessful,” the letter states.
According to the residents, “Cartagena Parque tells the Court that it is carrying out the radioactivity study and the Ministry of the Environment, for its part, that it has begun the subsidiary execution.” In the allegations they accused the Administration of “not acting since 2009, when the company ceased.” Nor did it do so in 2018, “when it was required to adopt measures.”
#residents #appeal #refusal #seal #Zinsa #rafts