Inspections at the landfill site at Zaldibar (Vizcaya)
20.2.2020
Question for written answer E-001025/2020
to the Commission
Rule 138
Dolors Montserrat (PPE), Javier Zarzalejos (PPE)
On 6 February 2020, a serious accident occurred when two people disappeared at a landfill site at Zaldibar (Vizcaya), they have yet to be rescued. The Basque Country Minister for the Environment has since appeared before the media to provide further details. The most recent site inspection revealed numerous breaches of its operating permit. These included: unauthorised crushing and filling, the lack of any system for collecting and treating gas emissions, water runoff and downstream leachate above permitted volumes, unauthorised amounts of construction and demolition waste being re-used in construction, as well as the presence of numerous types of untreated waste (batteries, gas canisters), some of which was hazardous (electronic waste and chlorofluorocarbons) or unidentified.
The inspection took place on 10 June 2019 but slippages had already been detected on the slopes of the landfill in 2018.
- 1.What view does the Commission take of all these infractions?
- 2.Does the Commission consider that the site’s permit should have been withdrawn?