The investigating court 5 of Badalona has closed the judicial case opened for an ecological crime against the waste incinerator of Sant Adrià de Besòs, Tersa. In an order, notified this Tuesday, the judge archives the investigation by estimating the correct functioning of the plant, as the company has made public through a statement. “There is not a single report that has confirmed that the dioxins and furans that are released in the combustion process exceed the legally established threshold,” the order underlines while confirming that “no risk has arisen for the environment.” environment or for people’s health.”
The legal case began in 2022 after the court accepted for processing a complaint from the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office that had found indications that the plant burned resources at a temperature below 850 degrees and therefore emitted dioxins and furans. above the permitted limit, which generated excess pollution and could put the inhabitants of the area at risk.
After two years of investigation, there were experts – such as the Seprona of the Civil Guard and the Rovira i Virgili University – who validated the accusation’s thesis and maintained that the data recorded by the plant certified that the combustion temperature was low in some sometimes and on other occasions it was exaggeratedly high, which led to situations impossible for physics. On the other hand, the Tersa company provided reports from the universities UB, UPC, the Barcelona Public Health Agency, the CSIC and the Col·legi d’Enginyers that refuted the accusatory thesis and accredited the proper functioning of the plant. The judge points out that the Civil Guard has based itself on an “erroneous hypothesis” to assess the recorded temperature data.
The former Barcelona councilor, Eloi Badia, who was the president of Tersa at the time of the complaint, and the company’s head of operations were accused in the case. The Prosecutor’s Office decided to file a complaint in 2022 after the notice launched by the citizen platform Aire Net that the plant exceeded the legal limit for dioxin emissions, particles that could be carcinogenic, by 2.3 times. Two weeks ago, the Sant Adrià City Council demanded the dismantling of the incinerator.
The company has taken advantage of the case file to highlight that since the beginning of the investigation, the company has fully cooperated with the authorities in a “responsible, transparent manner and providing all the information and access necessary to provide elements to clarify the facts.”
