Residents demand ‘preventive closure’ of ‘Composet’ due to fears for public health
Portuguese Environment Agency APA has confirmed that “an investigation process” is underway into alleged polluting discharges from the company Composet, Compostagem e Gestão de Resíduos, in Poçoilos, in the municipality of Setúbal, environmental association ZERO has announced today
ZERO has become involved in this controversy, which has been building for some time.
It involves waste water produced at a company (Extraoils4thefuture) in Vendas Novas (in the district of Évora), which is allegedly being channeled by composting company Composet to the Poçoilos area in Setúbal.
“APA, through its regional department of the Alentejo Hydrographic Region Administration (ARH), carried out a joint inspection with the Setúbal GNR’s Criminal Investigation and Environment Centre, where samples were taken in February and March,” APA has told ZERO
“Subsequently, as part of another joint inspection with the Setúbal GNR’s Centre for the Investigation of Environmental Crimes and Administrative Offences (NICOA), five more samples were taken at the facilities in Poçoilos,” APA continued, saying that “respective notices of administrative offence will be drawn up”.
Media stories about concerns over the smells and discharges have peppered the local Setúbal press. As stories have explained effluent generated by Extraoils used to be sent to the Bombel Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), but ‘due to problems with the quality of the effluent, there was a ban on the entry of these flows produced at Extraoils’.
Extraoils then opted for a ‘solution of storing the effluent in retention tanks’, which is being implemented by Composet in Setúbal.
This week around 150 residents of the parishes of São Sebastião and Gâmbia-Pontes-Alto da Guerra pressed forwards with a popular action demanding the preventive closure of Composet’s facilities due to fears over the consequences of the company’s activity on the environment and public health.
The residents also approved a motion of “repudiation and protest at the irregular dumping of waste in the Poçoilos area” expressing surprise (if not dismay) at the delay in taking action by various state agencies tasked with environmental protection – namely the CCDRLVT (Lisbon and Tejo Valley Regional Coordination and Development Commission , IGAMAOT, the General Inspectorate for Agriculture, Sea, Environment and Spatial Planning and APA.
For now, Setúbal mayor André Martins has said the body with the power to order the company to cease its activity can only move once it has the results of analysis taken on Composet’s land.
Meantime, the company itself has gone on the attack, accusing Setúbal council of what it calls “political speculation”, reports Diáriodistrito online.
Reiterating that it has a valid licence to operate, and pays rent for its premises, Composite also “rejects” residents’ complaints suggesting the bad smells actually come from a neighbouring plant, AMARSUL, and the dead vegetation around its enterprise stems from when the space was “occupied by a kennel and a concrete factory, which would have left more significant environmental liabilities”.
Source material: Lusa/ Diáriodistrito
