PR:Is it possible to restart the Talvivaara metal plant?

Press Release 18-Nov-2012 / Stop Talvivaara

Environmental disaster in Finland:

Is it possible to restart the Talvivaara metal plant?
Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (Tukes) and Kainuu centre for Economic Development,Transport and the Environment (KAIELY) are arranging an inspection at Talvivaara on Monday, after which the authorities will consider if there are qualifications for restarting the operation.

Stop Talvivaara-movement wishes and demands this inspection to be open and transparent. The people's movement wishes to participate with a delegation of three personnel. "We hope to participate in the inspection, presenting questions and selecting targets and sites to visit," documentarist Hannu Hyvönen from Stop Talvivaara-movement explains. He wishes the delegation to include Antti Lankinen of FANC (The Finnish Association for Nature Conservation) Kainuu County and engineer Lasse Fjölt.

"In our opinion it's not possible to make the decision of restarting the metal plant without examining the condition of the mine as a whole," says Antti Lankinen and lists the criteria he wishes to be taken into consideration during the inspection. "We want to see the condition of the liquid processing pools and gypsum ponds. We want to visit the open-cast mine and the so-called back-up ponds. We want to see the post-processing ponds. And fore-mostly, we want to see the dam installation built on the southern side of the fourth back-up pond."

Lasse Flöjt has understood that the inspection is proceeding in order to find out if the metal plant can be started in accordance with the existing environmental permit. This includes numerous underlying problems:
 * the environmental permit does not include a permit to enrich uranium nor to store the uranium in gypsum ponds.
 * when considering restarting the metal plant, how are the issues concerning uranium permits and the previous violations of excess emissions into water systems taken into consideration?

We demand to be informed about these issues based on the public's right to participate in decisions regarding the use of their environment.

Thinking of the credibility of society and its functions as a whole, it is essential to carry out the inspections and considerations openly; operations without permissions should not be allowed to continue without hearing the people and giving credit to their notes. This is especially important when examining the legitimacy of enriching uranium.

The announcement about the inspection by Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (Tukes) came so suddenly that the people's movement did not have time to ask for participation. "We will be waiting at the gates in the morning. I believe that eventually we will be allowed to enter and we'll be of use during the inspection," says Hannu Hyvönen.

http://www.stoptalvivaara.org

People's movement for the lakes and rivers.

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