Located at the end of a winding departmental road, in the heart of the regional natural park of the Ariège Pyrenees, classified Natura 2000, Salau is the last city of Alto Salat, an area bordering Spain on the crests of the Pyrenees. It consists of a Romanesque church and a café-inn. A cemetery completes the panorama of this small sleeping town, but it could awaken a request for an exclusive mining exploration permit (PERM), presented on June 20, 2024 to the Minister of Economy and Finance.
The company Neometal, a simplified joint stock company (SAS), has surprised, hoping to achieve, for a period of five years, the exploration of the old Salau tungsten mine. This, opened in 1970 and exploited by the Anglade Mining Company, however closed permanently in December 1986. During the period of activity, between 700 and 1,000 tons of this metal were extracted annually from the 23 kilometers of galleries excavated 1,230 meters above sea level. altitude. meters, on the eastern flank of the granite massif of Pic de la Fourque.
However, starting in January 1987, due to the collapse in prices linked to Chinese competition, the equipment was dismantled and the seventy-three apartments of the Anglade residence were emptied of their occupants. Six months later, in July, only five residents remained in Salau.
Today, tungsten is once again whetting appetites: this hard, highly heat-resistant strategic material is used in the aeronautical, space, electronics and weapons production industries.
Costing 12.56 million euros, the 101 square kilometer exploration project, called “Ariège Mountain”, was presented on Wednesday, September 18, to nine elected officials meeting in the departmental council of Ariège, in Foix. The president of the SAS, Emmanuel Henry, who did not want to answer our questions, detailed the general lines: sizing the old tungsten deposit and estimating possible expansions to three municipalities in Ariège, including Auzat, a town in the Vicdessos valley devastated by the closure of the Pechiney aluminum factory in March 2003.
Fierce opposition
“This meeting was a discussion about intentions only.”reports Kamel Chibli, socialist vice-president of the Occitania region and president of the Mixed Union of the Ariège Pyrenees regional natural park. “We are neither for nor against. But we have raised questions and concerns, particularly about the environmental impact. Thus, we established an evaluation table based on nine criteria (compliance with procedures, reliability of managers, etc.). This project must be in safe, serious and credible hands so that it is neither a mirage nor a depredation. »
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