Walter Finch
CONTAMINATED earth dug up to build the Kingsway tunnel under Gibraltar’s runway may end up in landfills in Spain, according to an environmental group.
Verdemar Ecologistas en Acción claim that tonnes of rubble that has been lying near the Hassans tower is being transported to an old quarry near Los Barrios.
The waste treatment centre at the former Arenas de Castrillon mine is intended to produce recycled aggregate from Gibraltar’s demolition jobs ‘in such a way that it serves to improve the living conditions of its inhabitants and strengthen good relations between Spain and the United Kingdom’, according to a technical report published by the Junta.
But despite not being equipped to process toxic waste, the environmentalists assert that demolition materials contain aviation fuel, heavy metals and petrochemicals.
It is thought that the recycled aggregate produced at this centre will then be used to reclaim land as part of Gibraltar’s controversial €1 billion East Side project.
Verdemar Ecologistas en Acción insist that the ambitious new port and commercial centre is being carved out from the Mediterranean Sea in a Special Conservation Zone (ZEC).
Environmentalist groups in Andalucia have already reported the extraction of rocks from the Sierra de la Utrera in Casares to be used to reclaim the land.
They claim that the region is home to unique fossils and traces of palaeolithic human inhabitation, as well as unique species such as Egyptian vultures and Bonelli’s eagles.
The TNG Global Foundation paid the Gibraltar government the sum of €95 million last year in order to secure the rights to the massive development.
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