The Minister of the Environment said today that the bill for cleaning up the pollution in the Tagus river, was between €1 million and €1.2 million so far, which will be paid out of the Environmental Fund.João Matos Fernandes said the cost of the clean-up, to remove foam and sediment left by the pulp industry, will be recovered from those responsible although he stopped short of naming names as the matter is now under ‘judicial secrecy’ rules, as are the test results from Celtejo, widely thought to be the culprit, at least for the cellulose sediment.
PAN's lone MP, André Silva, said the Environmental Fund is paid into by domestic water consumers and not by the industries that caused the pollution and anyway, why not trigger the €150,000 bond from Celtejo as part of its license agreement?
As for the increasingly loud calls for the dismissal of the head of Portugal’s Environment Agency, Pedro Lacasta, the minister was sticking by his man, claiming Lacasta was the one best placed to resolve the situation and anyway, there was no direct link between the change in Celtejo’s license, authorised by Lacasta, and the pollution in the river: "I do not think there's direct accountability," mused the minister.
The Tagus cleaning operations, since the environmental problem became too obvious to ignore on January 24th, has seen the removal of 400 cubic meters of foam from the river and the start of the removal of 30,000 cubic metres of cellulose sludge from various areas of riverbed.
On the plus side, Matos Fernandes said there had been a six-fold increase in the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water at the Fratel and Belver dams.
