The services of the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili, have drawn up a draft decree which is the subject of a “public consultation” online until February 22.
According to this consultation, this draft decree “aims to simplify the procedure” for extending “unlimited storage of hazardous waste in deep geological layers”. It plans to put an end, under certain conditions, to the obligation to provide financial guarantees and to produce a safety study.
In 2021, the administrative justice had already quashed a decision by Barbara Pompili to permanently confine the waste, precisely pointing out the absence of financial guarantees from the company which operates Stocamine, judging that this prevented it “from assuming all the requirements” induced by an unlimited confinement in time.
Many local elected officials had applauded this court decision, demanding to remove as much waste as possible from the storage galleries located 550 meters underground to limit the risk of groundwater pollution.
“No reason to be”
“This new decree marks the refusal of the State to take into consideration the grievances of the communities concerned”, reacted the Regional Council of the Grand Est, in a press release sent to AFP.
The deputy (LR) of Haut-Rhin Raphaël Schellenberger, whose constituency covers the Stocamine site, in Wittelsheim, for his part denounced “a new maneuver by the executive”.
“What bothers me is that the government tries legal subtleties to move forward, and that it does so without ever taking into account the comments from the field”
“This decree has no other reason than Stocamine, since Stocamine is, to my knowledge, the only storage site” meeting the criteria mentioned in the decree, he reacted to AFP .
“What bothers me is that the government tries legal subtleties to move forward, and that it does so without ever taking into account the comments from the field,” he added.
Several associations, including the Eau en danger and Destocamine collectives, have also rejected the draft decree, which according to them constitutes “another snub to our democracy”.
In 2016, a public inquiry report underlined that “the most sensitive point” of an unlimited maintenance of waste at depth was that of the “consequences on the quality of the water in the Alsace aquifer”, the “most great sheet of Europe, supporting millions of inhabitants”.