UPM 2 He committed another environmental violation in less than a year and spilled another toxic liquid in a stream. Willow, an accident that was not reported to the Ministry of Environment The ministry plans to impose fines of up to $180,000 for the two errors committed.
The Finnish company waited eight days until it informed the environment ministry about the leachate spill in the Sauce stream on June 18. The liquid, which generally comes from organic waste, has a very strong color and smell and is highly polluting.
This, according to the report of Atmosphere, generated an increase in the pH levels of the stream. In addition, it states that “the company would have failed to comply with the operating guidelines duly planned for this facility, with leachate having accumulated inside the pumping well.”
The accident and the lack of communication with the ministry generated discontent reflected in the intentions of the Ministry of the Environment to apply fines of around 180,000 dollars, about 4,500 Adjustable Units (UR)as they are considered serious.
Meanwhile, according to the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Environment, Gerardo Amarilla, The company responded to Radio Carve that the pH levels had not changed significantly in the stream and that it was a one-off accident that was able to return to normal in less than 24 hours.
However, Amarilla stressed the seriousness of the event and stressed that the company’s communication should have been immediate, although he admitted that the environmental effect “is not serious” although there were two significant errors: the delay in communicating the spill and the departure from the current Environmental Management Operation Plan.
Another accident in less than a year
In August of last year, the same company reported that it had discharged an effluent with high pH levels containing caustic soda into the Sauce stream.
With this, the MA presented to the Legislative power a preliminary report on the impacts generated by the environmental incident, carried out by the department of Environmental Assessment and QualityThere, the loss of some plant species of aquatic and rooted flora was indicated, as well as a possible destruction of microalgae.
On the other hand, the death of more than 250 mojarras, catfish, bitterheads and castanets was verified, although they stressed that the losses “were not many,” according to the director of Evaluation and Environmental Quality of the MA, Eduardo Andres.
In January of this year, the portfolio decided almost triple the fine applied to the paper company going from 1,000 adjustable units – around 1.6 million pesos and about 40,500 dollars – to 4,500 UR – about 7.3 million pesos, a total of 182,000 dollars – stating that the violations caused by the company were serious.
In this sense, the signed resolution establishes that the increase of the fine corresponds to the non-compliance with the “management commitments provided for in the Environmental Management Operation Plan (PGA-O), approved by ministerial resolution No. 275/023, dated March 30, 2023,” Subrayado reported.
In addition, the resolution states that there was also a poor management of external communication of the incident, as well as in the “operational control of the values reported by the conductivity meter and the level sensor in the control pool.”
Source: Ambito
