World Subscribers only In Zurich the leaf blower war or the anti-'woke' backlash World Subscribers only Germany's Friedrich Merz is embracing pragmatism World Subscribers only Trump-Carney meeting: Canada seeks reconciliation World Subscribers only Founder of Sant'Egidio community fears next pope could undo Francis's legacy Opinion Subscribers only 'Russian gas and Europe is an old story that ended badly Economy Subscribers only Europe's steel industry flattened by crisis World Subscribers only How European countries plan to fund defense efforts France Subscribers only Macron announces citizens' convention on school schedules France Subscribers only 21 charged over French prison attacks as investigation narrows in on drug traffickers France Subscribers only French mosque stabber was driven by 'morbid fascination,' prosecutor says France Subscribers only At the trial of Kim Kardashian's robbers Videos World expos: From Paris 1855 to Osaka 2025 Videos How the Trump administration is attacking scientific research in the US Videos Tesla cars set on fire in Las Vegas as calls to boycott Musk's company grow worldwide Videos Can France's nuclear deterrent protect Europe Opinion Subscribers only 'The American dream is dying' Opinion Subscribers only John Bolton: 'The term chaos is commonly used to describe the top of the Defense Department' Opinion Subscribers only 'It is pointless to imagine a significant wave of American academics leaving' Magazine Subscribers only Tracking down the pianos taken from French Jews during the Nazi Occupation Magazine Subscribers only Eve Rodsky the American helping couples balance the mental load Magazine Subscribers only Desecration or more glory Joan Didion's private diaries are revealed Magazine Subscribers only For Jewish cartoonist Joann Sfar 2025."> Pixels Subscribers only Golden Owl solution is revealed but leaves players of 31-year hunt disappointed Pixels Subscribers only Secrets of decades-long Golden Owl treasure hunt to be revealed Lifestyle Inside Chanel's French leather workshops Culture Subscribers only The marvelous bronzes of Angkor on display at the Musée Guimet in Paris Long ReadSome 42,000 tons of hazardous waste are stored in an old mine in Alsace posing a long-term threat to Europe's largest aquifer the dump will soon be permanently sealed off the newspaper L'Alsace asked the mayor of Wittelsheim (Alsace) what wish he would grant in 2022 if he had a magic wand "I'd get rid of Stocamine!" was the immediate response of Mayor Yves Goepfert a member of La République en Marche (the centrist party of President Emmanuel Macron) signs saying "public dump" were scribbled on the sign honoring the town's designation as a "floral city" at the entrance of Wittelsheim a former mining town with a population of 11,000 where miner statues adorn the town hall pediment and storks stand atop the church belltower which has been poisoning the lives of Wittelsheimers and Alsatians for the past 20 years the town has become known as "the toxic dump of Alsace." Stocamine holds 42,000 tons of hazardous waste (arsenic buried 550 meters underground in galleries dug out from a former potash mine this waste poses a threat to Alsace's aquifer which supplies drinking water to about seven million people on both sides of the Rhine "A time bomb left to future generations," said Yann Flory a local environmental group that has organized some 20 demonstrations demanding the waste be removed The history of Stocamine has involved a hundred reports and expert opinions It has also concerned a dozen environment ministers each one "passing the hot potato" to the next it has opened an avalanche of court appeals between those who support its permanent burial (the national government) and those who demand waste removal (the local authorities and environmental advocacy groups) You have 84.65% of this article left to read Lecture du Monde en cours sur un autre appareil Vous pouvez lire Le Monde sur un seul appareil à la fois Ce message s’affichera sur l’autre appareil Parce qu’une autre personne (ou vous) est en train de lire Le Monde avec ce compte sur un autre appareil Vous ne pouvez lire Le Monde que sur un seul appareil à la fois (ordinateur En cliquant sur « Continuer à lire ici » et en vous assurant que vous êtes la seule personne à consulter Le Monde avec ce compte Que se passera-t-il si vous continuez à lire ici Ce dernier restera connecté avec ce compte Vous pouvez vous connecter avec votre compte sur autant d’appareils que vous le souhaitez mais en les utilisant à des moments différents Nous vous conseillons de modifier votre mot de passe Votre abonnement n’autorise pas la lecture de cet article merci de contacter notre service commercial the only long-term facility in France licensed to hold 44,000 tonnes of toxic waste some waste began being taken back to the surface; the rest will be sealed A huge machine scrapes the floor of the gallery Meanwhile a tractor-loader is moving ore and spoil Then we can start removing the waste," says Stocamine chief executive Alain Rollet combining mining risks with those associated with toxic substances Added to which the mine is occasionally prone to wildfire." Some of the galleries – 100km long in all – are subsiding under the pressure caused by neighbouring mine works making it almost impossible to reach the containers "The longer we wait, the more difficult it will be to recover the containers," says Yann Flory, the spokesperson for the Déstocamine collective representing various NGOs and unions campaigning for the mine to be completely emptied many on the surface have no idea what to do with the waste next Local residents see Stocamine as an environmental time bomb ordered one-tenth of the waste to be removed a public inquiry was launched six months later Local residents had until 15 February to express their views ranging from removal of 11% of the waste – under the existing plan – to removal of almost the entire inventory the cost of the operation varies between €84m and €150m ($113m-$202m) over a seven- to 11-year timescale "A substantial majority of residents asked for all the waste to be removed," says Henri Watissée the two ministers in charge of the case – environment and industrial renewal – will have to take a joint decision when the idea of an underground waste repository was raised Employment in the mines had fallen from 12,000 at its peak in the 1960s to only 2,000 "The project was an opportunity for workers to retrain and prevented them all ending up unemployed," says Etienne Chamik He lists the promises made by Stocamine at the time: 250 new jobs renovation of the village hall and even the launch of an environmental research centre "The repository was set up without any difficulties," he adds "People felt grateful towards the mine." They had started storing long-term waste in their potash mines 20 years earlier these mines seem particularly well suited to the purpose: over time cavities in the salty rock tend to close up naturally encapsulating any toxic waste they contain the government order issued in 1997 authorised storage for 30 years maximum and introduced the concept of reversibility If standards were not met or a serious incident occurred Stocamine opened in 1999, as a subsidiary of the publicly owned Mines de Potasse de l'Alsace 19,500 tonnes of class 0 waste (the most hazardous) were deposited in the mine contained in 250kg steel drums and one-tonne "big bags" To prevent any uncontrolled chemical reactions another 24,500 tonnes of class 1 waste (asbestos and incineration residue) were also carted down to the bottom of the mine The cavities of old potash mines at Stocamine contain hazardous waste such as mercury cyanide and asbestos.But the dream of a "clean" repository was soon shattered In September 2002 a fire broke out in section 15 "About 470 big bags containing highly inflammable fertiliser and sulphur waste had been left there without permission," Flory recalls It took three days to bring the fire under control and another three months to extract all the fumes Although 74 miners were exposed to toxic emissions the then CEO received a four-month suspended sentence This was a serious blow to the confidence of the local community too "We no longer believe what they say," says Raoul Schmitt a car mechanic who has lived most of his life on a housing estate next to the old mine Almost everyone there has at least one former miner in the family The accident came as a physical shock to residents "I had been getting recurrent headaches then suddenly I saw a plume of green and blue smoke wafting out of the pit I was told it wasn't dangerous; they were just burning pallets," Schmitt adds "My brother-in-law was working underground at the time." Since the accident he has joined many of his neighbours campaigning to get all the waste removed "I'd feel much safer if they took out all the waste and cleaned up the site," says François Elsaesser pointing to the pithead machinery visible from his window he explains that he is concerned about "toxic emissions" but above all the "risk of groundwater pollution" the environment ministry suddenly reopened the case commissioning studies on closure of the facility It also set up a steering committee of 13 expert scientists who highlighted the hazards of prolonged storage "Measurements showed that every year 100,000 cubic metres of water seep through the outside walls into the 15 pits," says Jean-Claude Pinte head of the Stocamine project at the National Institute for the Industrial Environment and Risks (Ineris) "Over the next 300 years the water will flood the mine then reach the aquifer loaded with toxic substances." At the same time ceiling and floor of the galleries are closing in at the rate of 2cm a year the experts cannot agree on how to go about closure Ineris favours permanent internment of the waste explains: "By positioning bentonite [a mixture of sand and clay] plugs at the entrance to each pit we can delay the release of contaminated salty water for 700 years at concentrations lower than the limit set by the regulations." According to Ineris, the risks involved in completely emptying the repository are much higher: intoxication of workers, atmospheric contamination, accidents during transport and pollution around the German repository. Waste from Stocamine would be taken to eastern Germany "It's quite possible to clean up a site without putting workers at risk," says Marcos Buser a Swiss geologist and a specialist on toxic and nuclear waste A dissident voice on the steering committee he claims to have done just that at Saint Ursanne adding that he is the only expert working on Stocamine to have such experience "you can't produce credible models for the scale of long-term pollution of the aquifer There is no guarantee of safety for future generations." which have strong support from local communities "The waste [at Saint Ursanne] was less hazardous and it was limestone It's quite different," says an engineer foolhardy and above all expensive to want to remove everything," says Rollet "I'm proposing the cheapest scenario to the authorities This article appeared in Guardian Weekly You don't have permission to access the page you requested What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed The Greek national team (Anastasis Exarchou secured a place on the podium at the European Bowling Championships Although they did not make it against France being defeated with a score of 1153-1024 (Krizinis: 254 korynes the Greek national team shared the bronze medal with the Netherlands beating France in the final with a score of 1127-1104 It was the second Greek medal in this year’s European Championship after Vangelis Krizini’s bronze in the Men’s Individual but also the overall fourth for our country in the event an element that turned this year’s European participation into the most successful of all time for Greek bowling The curtain fell on the European Championship in Wittelsheim with the participation of Krizini in the Masters as he was defeated in the 1st round by the Italian Nicola Pongolini The Greek champion had entered the privileged 24 of the Masters having the 11th best overall average (229.8) in all of his 24 games in the tournament READ MORE: Zlatan Ibrahimovic sent Giannis Antetokounmpo a signed shirt: “You are the best” French prosecutors on Thursday demanded a 20-year prison term for a woman charged with killing five of her children right after they were born a crime that only came to light one and a half decades after the corpses were discovered was detained in November 2017 on suspicions she murdered the five children between 1990 and 2005 is thought to have hidden her pregnancies even from her partner giving birth in secret and then strangling the newborns at her house in Wittelsheim in eastern France Nothing untoward was suspected until the discovery in 2003 of the bodies of four babies in rubbish bags in the nearby Galfingue forest But the initial investigation was closed in 2009 after it failed to yield clues to the deaths It was reopened in 2016 to take advantage of advances in DNA testing and a year later investigators made the first link between Horning and the deaths after her DNA was taken in separate case following a fight with neighbours This then showed that she was the mother of the children whose corpses were found Horning admitted to strangling five children after giving birth to them in secret in a bathroom A fifth baby was then found in a freezer at her home had said he was completely unaware of the events Horning's mother is still alive but did not testify at the trial for health reasons Prosecutor Melody Barbuti said she was asking for 20 years in jail rather than a life sentence given the possibility that Horning could be reintegrated with society She told the court in the eastern town of Colmar that the trial has shown Horning "did not love these babies Horning remained immobile in the defendant's box during the hearings her voice only breaking with emotion when she described abuse as a child Her three grown-up children -- a son and two daughters who have renounced their mother -- were present in court I would accept it immediately," Horning said in court on Wednesday She claimed that the children "were not babies for me but beings that my body and spirit did not accept." and a verdict is expected later on Thursday.