Locals fighting over eight years against plan hope this is end of it
Local people in the northern municipalities of Covilhã and Fundão are delighted by the decision of APA (Portugal’s environment agency) to reject the environmental impact study relating to open pit mining for lithium and other minerals in Argemela.
They have been fighting against the plan, put forwards by Neomia – Minérios Argemela (Almina Group), for the last eight years (as have other populations, in other parts of the north) – and they hope now that the project is abandoned.
Said Gabriela Margarida, representative of the Group for the Preservation of Serra da Argemela (GPSA): “We believe that the error that would constitute the authorisation of mining exploration in Argemela will be recognised once and for all.”
She highlighted the last eight years of fighting “against much superior forces that have systematically downplayed the dangers of mining, especially open-pit, in that location”.
GPSA is not against mining per se, she stressed, but does not agree with any economic activity “harming people’s heritage, lives and health”.
The group’s representative recalled that, “given that there was a unanimous vote in parliament against this project, considering, in particular, its location, the least that could be expected is that it had already been cancelled”.
For the time being, there has been no statement from the concession holder Neomina.
The reasons for APA’s rejection were set out in a document dated December 30 last year, in which the agency found that the project “appears” not to have “the level of detail required for the execution project phase”.
The report mentions that this situation “constitutes a limitation to the identification and assessment of impacts, requiring a vast set of complementary information at the level of the various components of the project and various environmental factors”.
“In the analysis carried out by the Evaluation Committee, gaps were identified at the project level and fundamental and determining environmental factors for the evaluation to be carried out, taking into account the nature of the project in question”, explains Lusa.
In view of the non-conformities identified, which led to the “summary rejection of the evaluation request and the consequent termination of the procedure”, APA indicated that, for the purposes of preparing a new EIA, “the identified deficiencies must be remedied”.
The Argemela Mine is located in the Union of Parishes of Barco and Coutada, in the municipality of Covilhã, and in the parishes of Silvares and Lavacolhos, in the municipality of Fundão, district of Castelo Branco.
It is just one of the several projects green-lighted by political leaders against the wishes of the communities that will be affected. In the municipality of Boticas, for example, the fight still rages on, with the arguments exactly those used by opponents in Argemela: ‘no economic activity should be allowed to take precedence over people’s heritage, lives and health’. ND
Source material: LUSA
