Cheminova pumps hazardous substances into the polluted sea: The Environment Ministry has neglected to intervene for years.

Under the sand on the beach between Harboøre and Thyborøn lie two long pipes.

They extend from the pesticide factory Cheminova, located on one side of the dunes, and several hundred meters out into the North Sea on the other side.

At the bottom, where they end, the factory's contaminated wastewater is pumped out into the waves. For decades, arsenic and mercury have been pumped out here, despite the fact that tests show that the area already contains excessive amounts of both substances.

Cheminova, like several other Danish companies, has the legal right to discharge hazardous substances into areas where the permissible levels in the water have long been exceeded. So it continues, even though government officials have been warning for years that they should intervene.

Instead, the Ministry of the Environment has issued guidelines that allow the discharges to continue. Experts who have reviewed the internal documents from the ministry believe they show that business interests have taken precedence over environmental regulations.

"It's deeply problematic," says Henriette Selck, a professor of ecotoxicology at Roskilde University.

The pipes can be harmful to wildlife and plants, according to Selck.

"When we talk about the consequences for the sea – that is, sea death, as we've seen in the media – it's primarily agriculture and nutrients. But toxic substances also play a role here. Especially in areas where the limit values have been exceeded," she says.

The Danish Environment Ministry has declined DR's repeated requests for an interview with Environment Minister Magnus Heunicke (S), but in a written response, the ministry denies that it has broken the law or put business interests ahead of the environment.

Toxic substances can be harmful to wildlife and plants, Selck notes. (© DR)

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Continued discharge of hazardous substances

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Several Danish companies continue to discharge contaminated wastewater with hazardous substances into Danish waters, even though the limit values in those areas have already been exceeded for one or more of the hazardous substances they discharge.

This includes:

* Denmark's largest pesticide factory, Cheminova, located between Thyborøn and Harboøre.

* Denmark's only tannery, Koppers Denmark, located at the Nyborg harbor.

* Denmark's largest industrial wastewater treatment plant, Industrial Water Solutions (formerly RGS Nordic), located near Skælskør.

All three companies have the necessary permits to discharge hazardous substances and therefore do not violate the rules. Their environmental permits were last updated in 2006, 2008, and 2017, respectively.

Internal documents from the ministry show that officials have been warning for years that it may be illegal to allow the discharges to continue. Cheminova and several other Danish companies discharge wastewater based on old environmental permits that should have been updated long ago.

Since then, new and stricter environmental regulations from the EU have come into effect. And if companies are to comply with them, several would have to stop discharging hazardous substances as they have done in the past, and new companies would face greater hurdles to obtain permission to pollute.

The ministry acknowledges in internal documents that there is a "process risk" – that is, a risk that the EU Court of Justice or the Danish Environmental and Food Complaints Board might rule that the discharges are illegal.

To prevent some companies from having to "cease or change activities as a result of stricter requirements," the ministry suggests in an April 2021 note that the discharges be allowed to continue with a "process risk."

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'It's just economics, it's about'

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Since then, the ministry has followed this line. The same is true of the latest guidelines the ministry issued last month.

Ellen Margrethe Basse, a jurist and professor emerita with a specialty in environmental law at Aarhus University, explains that "it's just economics, it's about" when the Ministry of the Environment allows discharges like Cheminova's to continue.

"We have to keep these companies, or we'll have to stop following the law." That's almost what they're saying. There's no way around that.

And there's no way to say, "We can certainly take some business considerations into account?"

- Not at all, says jurist and professor emerita Ellen Margrethe Basse.

The result is that several companies continue to pump elevated concentrations of hazardous substances into the sea every day, where the limit values have already been exceeded. And the ministry has now issued guidelines that will allow authorities to grant companies permission to continue discharging. Even though, according to experts, it is illegal.

- We have set environmental quality standards for a reason – both to protect nature, but also our health. So I think it's serious, says Karen Søgaard Christiansen, head of the environmental assessment department at the consulting firm Niras.

Environment Minister Magnus Heunicke has declined DR's requests for an interview on the matter, but the ministry's department responds in a written statement to DR that it is not correct that "Miljøministeriet has put business interests ahead of the environment," and adds:

- It is Miljøministeriet's assessment [that] the guidelines are in line with EU law. There is a so-called process risk, as it cannot be excluded that the EU Court of Justice, which has the final interpretive authority, might come to a different conclusion.

The Danish Environmental Protection Agency states that it assesses that a "sufficient environmental protection" is achieved by following the latest guidelines.

On 21 Sunday, you can meet Bjarne Hansen, who has spent most of his life fighting against Cheminova's pollution. Now his fight includes the Ministry of the Environment. You can already see the report on DRTV here. ()

Warning: This article was translated by a Large Language Model, in case of doubt, you can always visit the original source.