Seville/ Huelva
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The process to start the execution of the Fertiberia phosphogypsum pool restoration projectRestore 20/30, keep going. Fertiberia has received a favorable opinion for the project to decommission the phosphogypsum stockpiles by the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN), an independent body that is the highest authority in Spain to ensure the radiological protection of people and the environment.
This opinion confirms that Restore 20/30 is the best solution, both from a technical and environmental point of view, and includes a series of conditioning factors for monitoring and controlling the execution of the project that will ensure, even more so, the suitability of the decommissioning . After the satisfactory opinion of the CSN, the modification of the Integrated Environmental Authorization (AAI), by the Junta de Andalucía, is the last step for Fertiberia to start the execution of the works, after the granting of the mandatory building license by the Huelva City Council.
In anticipation of a favorable resolution of these last administrative procedures, Fertiberia is finalizing the construction project and its corresponding execution plan, which will thus allow Restore 20/30 to begin the day after obtaining the last permit.
As stated Javier Goni, Chairman of Grupo Fertiberia, the favorable resolution of these procedures shows that “the company is working with great transparency and proactively to start as soon as possible a project that will be emblematic in the fertilizer sector in Europe, in which leading companies have participated in environmental engineering. The project has been profoundly improved and perfected in recent years, thanks to the fact that during the validation phase the contributions of technicians from the different administrations and competent bodies have already been collected.
Throughout these months the company has also met other milestones, such as obtaining the favorable urban compatibility report from the Huelva City Council (received last July). «Restore 20/30 is a strategic priority for Fertiberia that will create more than one hundred jobs in Huelva and will move an investment of more than 65 million euros”, Goñi stressed.
The project presented by company is divided into two phases: closure and post-closure, although the latter must be the subject, in due course, of a new opinion. The decommissioning phase, the object of this favorable opinion, aims to seal, drain and cover the pools, in order to mitigate their impact on the environment in order to subsequently give the site a recreational use.
Phosphogypsum is waste generated during the manufacture of phosphoric acid that is considered waste NORM (siglas correspondientes a Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials).
They are waste generated in activities with natural radioactive materials that, as a result of processing, reach concentrations higher than the exemption levels of Order IET 1946/2013. In addition, other unique solid materials are present in the phosphogypsum piles at this site, in lower quantities, but with a high activity concentration: the so-called black phosphogypsum and saline efflorescences that are formed by the evaporation of acidic waters.
About the Fertiberia Group
With more than 1,600 employees and 13 industrial activity centers spread throughout the Iberian Peninsula and France, Grupo Fertiberia is a leader in the plant nutrition sector in the EU, where it develops, produces and markets innovative agronomic solutions that raise the competitiveness of the sector agriculture and collaborate in the ecological transition of an essential sector for the European economy. It is also one of the world’s leading operators in the ammonia market, and produces environmental solutions for industry and other sectors. The company belongs to Triton Partners, which is promoting its growth to make this Spanish company a leader in the fertilization of the future, which will allow farmers to obtain higher yields with maximum environmental sustainability.
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