Neighbouring businesses denounce “environmental disaster”
The Portuguese subsidiary of an American recycling company – whose lead-acid battery plants were linked to ambient heavy metal levels that “posed a health risk to the environment and thousands of residents” – is under investigation for what neighbouring businesses fear is already “an environmental disaster”.
Expresso has broken this story today, referring to groundwater samples taken close to the plant of Exide Technologies Recycling II showing levels of lead “40 times higher” than reference values set by Portuguese environment agency APA.
The worst of this story is that Exide is well-known in the United States for lead contamination. The company had a number of plants linked to toxic pollutants; faced enormous fines, and filed for bankruptcy in 2020.
All this information can be freely found online. Yet when neighbouring business Jular Madeiras filed a complaint against the plant in 2021 (with the Public Prosecutor’s Office and IGAMAOT – the general inspectorate of Agriculture, the Sea, Environment and Territorial Planning) – detailing the consequences of operating close to the plant – nothing appeared to be taken very seriously. The plant continues in operation, emitting a “column of smoke” from its premises which smells of “acid and iron”, and which Jular Madeiras claims is rapidly corroding metal structures.
Satellite photographs from 2016 to 2024 “show accelerated oxidation of various warehouse roofs around Exide”, says Expresso. In the patio area, Jular director Hélder Santos shows a pile of corroded tiles that PJ police have listed as evidence in the only diligence performed since 2021.
REN – the country’s electricity network – has confirmed that it too has had to repair many of the high tension pylons close to Exide (because of their corrosion). The company confirmed that it is “undertaking a detailed investigation to pinpoint the causes”.
And SIVA, the importing company of the Volkswagen group in Portugal, has a ‘parque automóvel’ a few metres from the column of smoke, and says it has equally suffered damages.
SIVA has told Expresso that it “will exercise its rights in the event of any liability arising in connection with these phenomena”.
All these situations alone imply thousands of euros in damages. But financial costs are not the main issue here: “Motivated by an enormous fear for public health” and “in the face of the inaction on the part of the justice system” over the 2021 complaint, Jular Madeiras recently decided to go forwards with a second analysis of the groundwater around the industrial estate. (The first having been undertaken in 2021 – and included in the original complaint).
“Samples were collected and sent to the LabQui laboratory in Oeiras. The reports show values very much higher than reference tables of APA”, says Expresso.
“In (APA’s) ‘Technical Guide for Contaminated Soils’, the reference value for lead, in an industrial context, is 120 mg per kilo of dry material. In 2021, samples collected by Jular from a ditch in which effluent from the Exide water treatment plant was discharged, showed values of 5200 mg.
“In 2024, samples collected from a borehole 30 metres deep gave the quantity of lead as 670 mg”.
These values “surprised” local mayor Silvino Lúcio, who told Expresso he did not know about any analyses being undertaken, but if they were “real” this was “a fact that worries me”.
Contacted by the paper, “Exide did not make any comments and referred to the process underway” (meaning the complaint by Jular Madeiras that was filed three years ago, with very little so far to show for it).
The paper then gives a potted version of Exide Technologies’ “history of contamination”, referring to the most notorious plant in California, where it was found that more than 100,000 people had been exposed to emissions of lead and arsenic that posed health risks.
As Expresso explains, “the site of the business shows that it is no longer operating in its home country, and that it only has three installations destined to the recycling of batteries on a global level: one in Portugal, and two in Spain”.
This report, by RT Pereira will almost certainly now be picked up by other media outlets. With luck it will mean that authorities start to move on Jular Madeiras’ three year old complaint.
Source material: Expresso/ Wikipedia
