The territorial delegate in Huelva of the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Environment of Andalusia, Pedro Yórquez Sancha, signed on August 28 the environmental authorization for a pond of 15 million m3 of toxic waste in the municipality of Cortegana that the Sandfire mining company plans to build. -MATSA, company where his brother works.
Pedro Yórquez Sancha was appointed territorial delegate of the ministry on September 7, 2022. He thus acquired the status of senior official of the Junta de Andalucía chaired by Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla (PP). His brother had then held various positions within the mining company MATSA for around ten years, depending on his professional profile.
The territorial delegate of the Council thus signed the environmental approval for the infrastructure that the company calls “mine tailings park”. What MATSA (Mina de Aguas Teñidas SA) really wants to do is dig a large mine waste deposit in the middle of a pine forest. Because that’s what tailings are: the materials left behind by the process of separating the valuable fraction (the ore) from the neglected one (the good stuff).
The project provides for a deposit with a capacity of 15 million cubic meters approximately 700 meters from the houses of Valdelamusa (a district of the town of Cortegana). To be sized, the Aznalcóllar mining sludge basin which, when it ruptured in 1998, flooded the Guadiamar river which supplies Doñana with waste, released 5.5 million m3 of waste.
The mining company considers this deposit to be crucial to its projects. In its design project, it described that “it should be emphasized the importance of the construction of the tailings management facility (hereinafter IGT) for the maintenance of mining activity and the operation of the processing plant”.
And he continues to link the future of commercial activity to this basin: “For the continuity of mining, a facility is necessary to deposit the waste, which is why the IGT is a fundamental facility for the future operational life of the mine,” says the document presented to the Administration.
The waste that will accumulate is sterile resulting from a “flotation phase” during which a mixture of water and minerals called pulp is generated. They are then thickened before being deposited in the basin. The waste expected to be retained in the deposit has “a high concentration of sulphides and a high acid-forming potential”, so it is considered “dangerous” according to regulations, the mining company’s documentation indicates.
The resolution authorizing the plan specifies that the project would not generate “serious or critical impact” on the “environmental factors” it lists: atmosphere, geology, hydrology, vegetation, habitats, wildlife, population, infrastructure, cultural heritage and landscape. . “All, for the most part [se ven] affected in a moderate or compatible manner,” details the resolution. And he adds that “the population has a positive impact thanks to the creation of jobs and economic activities during the construction phase.”
In this sense, at least, part of the population does not share this beneficial vision. The project’s neighbors, in Valdelamusa, El Cerro de Andévalo, La Zarza, Calañas and La Mora, are mainly protesting the location of the deposit. They collected 4,400 signatures of support and called for demonstrations on November 17. The main objection, they emphasize, is not so much the mining activity, but the location chosen to dig the pond “a few meters from the homes”, they remember.
“It’s not related to the project”
The Territorial Delegation of the Environment responded to elDiario.es that “from a legal point of view” it considers that “there is no incompatibility”. And he argues that the delegate’s brother “is not a senior official of the company, nor did he present the project and he is not in the field of the company concerned.”
The law on incompatibilities of senior officials of the Junta de Andalucía establishes that these functions “are obliged to recuse themselves from knowledge of the matters in whose mandate they have intervened or which concern companies, entities or companies in the management, councils or the administration of which they had. any influence. » part of them, their spouse, cohabiting partner registered in the corresponding Register or a member of their family in the second civil degree.
The company in turn responds that “the AAU authorization process was carried out in accordance with current legislation, therefore there is no conflict of interest or incompatibility in its administrative processing.” They also claim that “within the MATSA faculty, composed of a dozen professionals, said worker had no participation in the construction project of the waste management facility to which the AUA refers. “His duties have no connection with the said project.”
Advisor, advisor, delegate
Pedro Yórquez Sancha began his political career as an advisor to the mayor of Aljaraque (Huelva) of the Popular Party Juan Manuel Orta between 2003 and 2007, according to his curriculum vitae kept at Huelva City Hall. From 2007, he became PP councilor of the municipality until 2022. He became second deputy mayor. From there he went to the sustainability department of the board of directors.
MATSA considers this infrastructure “fundamental” to develop its activity. She first requested this authorization in December 2022, but it could not be processed because the company did not complete the documentation. On May 17, 2023, the project was refused for this reason. On May 19, 2023, the Commission received “the request again”, as indicated in the factual context of the resolution of the Environment Delegation which, in August 2024, authorized the construction of the waste warehouse.
His relative, a technical mining engineer, currently appears as a volunteer technician and states in an email sent to elDiario.es that he started working for MATSA in 2012. “My hiring was based on my own merits and was not linked to any type of personal commitment. relationship or family. I have also not been promoted, promoted or increased my salary since someone in my family occupies the public responsibilities to which she refers. “I had no participation or intervention, in any way, in the tailings management facility project,” he repeats.
According to this timetable, it was already linked to the mining company MATSA before the Australian Sandfire bought the company in 2021 for 1.5 billion euros. The company was previously owned by the oil multinational Trafigura and the UAE sovereign investment fund Mubadala, which entered the company by buying 50% of Trafigura’s shares in 2015 for around €400 million. .
