Work for the closure of Stocamine, the underground storage center for hazardous waste burned in 2002 in Wittelsheim (Haut-Rhin), will begin in mid-May, according to operator MDPA (Mines de potash d'Alsace).

Made by the Bouygues construction group, impermeable “containment barriers” will be installed at the bottom of the site, an old salt mine 550 meters underground, on part of its perimeter.

The idea being to protect the water table, explained representatives of the group and the management of the MDPAs during a meeting Thursday on site for local businesses.

They constitute “precautionary measures prescribed by the prefectural decree of January 28, pending” a final solution, underlined Céline Schumpp, amicable liquidator of the MDPA.

The fear of pollution of the water table in Alsace

Nearly twenty years after the fire of September 2002 which put an end to the storage, the final scenario has not been completely settled by the State and the legal proceedings.

The MDPAs and the State advocate the final confinement of the 42,000 tonnes still present at the bottom of the mine, which they believe would be too dangerous to remove.

But many local elected officials and environmental associations want the output of a maximum of waste because of the risk of pollution of the water table in Alsace, the largest in Europe.

The prefectural decree of March 2017 authorizing permanent confinement was canceled on October 15, 2021 by the Administrative Court of Appeal of Nancy, seized by supporters of destocking.

"The sole reason" for the judgment, the absence of financial guarantees from the State to its subsidiary MDPA to cover the performance of the work, was reabsorbed by the 2022 finance law "which provides this guarantee up to 160 million euros. euros until 2030", recalled Mrs Schumpp.

A new file must be submitted by the end of May

The work to come is taking place according to the consecutive decree of January 28, 2022: this gives formal notice to the MDPAs to file a new file by the end of May for the authorization of unlimited storage and prescribes them in parallel precautionary measures, without these being able to compromise the possibility of subsequent destocking.

Between mid-May 2022 and summer 2023, they will create six dams, out of the 12 planned in the event of permanent confinement, by injecting several kinds of concrete, "including a specific one saturated with salt for maximum sealing and compatibility with the specific working environment,” said Philippe Gillet, site manager at Bouygues.

They include the backfilling of “block 15” where the fire occurred, only three years after the start-up of Stocamine.

The center then contained 44,000 tonnes of waste: incineration residues, asbestos waste, chromium, arsenic… The most dangerous, those containing mercury, have mostly been removed since.

“This next project is highly technical, designed to secure operations,” reacted the mayor of Wittelsheim Yvan Goepfert.

Stocamine is also still the subject of a criminal investigation by the regional environmental center of the Strasbourg public prosecutor's office, concerning the exact nature of the buried waste.

The 2002 fire broke out in one of the storage rooms, block 15, and took two months to be completely extinguished.

However, the regulations normally prohibited the storage of any “flammable product” on the site.

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