COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Danish authorities are trying to stop a slow-moving landslide of contaminated soil from reaching nearby water sources as public officials and site operators battle over who should pay for the massive cleanup. I am working on it day and night. .
A 75-meter (250-foot)-high mound of dirt at the Nordic waste reprocessing plant south of the town of Randers in northwestern Denmark contains about 3 million cubic meters (100 million cubic feet) contaminated with heavy metals and petroleum products. Contains soil. It is moving at speeds of up to 40 centimeters (16 inches) per hour towards streams that connect to the Baltic Sea via Landersfjord.
The landslide began on December 10th. After nine days, Nordic Waste gave up on controlling the landslide and turned the job over to the city of Ladders. The City of Ladders has been installing pipes and rerouting the river to allow it to pass safely through the site.
Environment Minister Magnus Heunicke said on Friday that authorities were working on extending these pipes, with construction of sheet pile walls and some receptacles for contaminated water underway.
Heunicke said water from rain and snowmelt is the biggest problem. Last week, western Denmark received a lot of snow and rain.
“It’s about separating contaminated water from clean water,” he told a news conference, adding that the task was “very difficult.”
On Monday, a report from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) said the continuous accumulation of soil on top of Nordic Waste’s sloping clay pits was the main cause of the landslide. GEUS added that there have been landslides in the area since 2021.
United Shipping and Trading Company (USTC), which supports Nordic Waste, previously blamed uncontrollable weather conditions for the landslide. 2023 was the wettest year in Danish history, so the region was exposed to huge amounts of rain. “This has resulted in a natural disaster of a scale never before experienced in Denmark.”
It is still unclear who will pay for the cleanup. Nordic Waste was declared bankrupt earlier this week after the Danish Environmental Protection Agency ordered it to provide more than 200 million kroner ($29.2 million) in collateral to prevent an environmental disaster.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who visited the scene on Monday, said it was unfair that Danish taxpayers had to pay.
Nina Østergaard Boris, CEO of Nordic Waste, said remediation of the site could take five years and cost billions of kroner. She said the situation was “much more serious than anyone imagined, and the task of saving this region is much greater than what Nordic Waste or USTC can handle.”
This case has started a debate about whether there is a moral responsibility to pay for Nordic waste. The government slammed Torben Østergaard Nielsen, Denmark’s sixth richest person after USTC, for failing to make payments.