Cementa is now appealing to the Supreme Court and is seeking an appeal to refuse to continue mining Jutland limestone. There is no solution to the acute crisis that has now arisen, says Karen Comstedt, Cementa’s director of sustainability.
– This appeal to HD should not be seen as something that alleviates the shortage situation we face in Sweden, as the time is too short and the operations, and lead time, in elimination is too long. It is more about creating the conditions for long-term business, which we naturally want to see realized as soon as possible.
Cementa’s current permit to extract limestone at two sites in Jutland, for the Slite cement plant, expires on the last day of October this year. Permission to extend and extend the mining was granted by the Land and Environment Court in January 2020. But this ruling has been appealed to the Land and Environment Court by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and Jutland’s county board of directors, among others as well as a large number of environmental organizations.
But there is a pause. The High Court of Land and Environment considered that Cementa’s environmental impact statement was so incomplete that it was not possible to assess the consequences for the environment, especially groundwater, on its basis. Therefore, the Environmental Court of Appeal did not issue a ruling, but merely a decision not to consider the application.
Cementa is now asking primarily that HD uphold the positive message in the ruling, and in the second place, HD refer the review to the High Court of Land and Environment. Cementa is also asking HD for a partial ruling necessitating an extension of existing operations for one year, until last October 2022.
sParallel to court proceedings Discussions are also underway between Cementa and the government. Karen Comstedt again.
There is currently a dialogue and an assessment in government offices about the finer details, especially in environmental legislation, that may need to be resolved, to really create a specific valve, for the situation that is emerging now. It’s not about our admiration for environmental performance or anything else, but about being able to continue operations without interruption. But it is really up to the policy to assess what is meant to be a viable path. We can say that we see slots, but it is now up to them to assess how to deal with them.
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